The Simpsons offers a perfectly scalable way to boost Monday Night Football ad revenue
In the expanding sports media landscape, Disney Advertising discovers that audiences boo opposing teams on Monday Night Football and says “Boo-urns” on Disney+ are often the same.
Tonight’s Monday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals gets the Funday Football treatment that ESPN first rolled out during the 2023 NFL season, when it introduced the Toy Story characters, settings, and voices in a live game stream. This year, using Sony’s Beyond Sports and Hawk-Eye Innovations optical technology combined with the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, Disney is transforming the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium into Springfield Atoms Stadium and animating Cowboys and Bengals players for an alternate broadcast on Disney+, ESPN+ and NFL+ mobile streaming.
This alternate feed will feature Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith voicing The Simpsons characters and appearing in animated segments with Cowboys and Bengals players, as well as ESPN personalities Eli Manning and Stephen A .Smith. Animated versions of ESPN’s Mina Kimes, Dan Orlovsky and Drew Carter will set the tone of the game, discuss strategy and debate the impossible chances faced by coaches Homer and Bart Simpson.
The stream complements the regular Monday Night Football broadcast on ESPN, ABC and ESPN Deportes, as well as secondary commentary on Eli and Peyton Manning’s Monday Night Football broadcast on ESPN2, but also joins the ESPN tile on Disney+ and the next flagship streaming service in 2025 to invite more neighbors into their homes Evergreen Terrace Charity Sale sports offers.
“We’re going to give fans who may not be familiar with the NFL and Monday Night Football the opportunity to experience them,” said Danielle Brown, vice president of sports brand solutions at Disney Advertising.
Better than 10 Super Bowls
More than anywhere else in Disney’s sports portfolio, Monday Night Football is the only place where everything is coming Milhouse. While the NFL as a whole now accounts for more than 50% of Disney Advertising’s sports broadcast demand, TV data firm EDO noted that Monday Night Football viewers are 65% more likely to search for brands advertised during the match than the average prime-time viewer.
Despite the NFL’s strong performance on other networks, growing presence on Amazon and alliance with Netflix, Disney Advertising sees on-air talent, increased sponsorships and more innovation as warning signs riders of the continued success of Monday Night Football. Even with fewer linear simulcasts on ABC than in 2023, Disney is sale of “Bort” license plates and predicting 8% growth in NFL revenue.
“I think there’s a perception that you have to have a $20 million budget to be on Monday Night Football,” Brown said. “We actually have a lot, but there are also ways to participate at more modest levels of investment.”
You don’t make friends with salad
This season, Monday Night Football attracted a total of 164 advertisers across 66 categories. It brought back 118 brands from last season, but also welcomed 46 new sponsors and opened nine new categories, including employee recruitment, energy drinks and food delivery.
Nationwide became a new sponsor, presenting the Monday Night Football postgame show, purchasing dual promotions in the game itself (showing an ad on one side and game action on the other) and subscribing to digital videos including game previews, news. , and analysis. PayPal and Apple Card also purchased double-box ads for the first time, as noted by EDO. This season, Monday Night Football viewers were 156% more likely to search for banking and financial brands they saw on broadcasts than the average primetime viewer.
Monday Night Football has also made new friends among brands by varying its offerings. While TikTok and Expedia also like the double-box format, Gatorade kicked off the season with five Instagram Stories, including NFL player rankings, season previews, power rankings and game picks.
ESPN
New Balance debuted Monday Night Football with a digital video featuring NFL news and analysis in September and October, while EA’s Madden NFL 25 spent November creating a digital series with graphics from game, hosting six Snapchat takeovers, and posting a Monday Night Preview Instagram story.
Brown noted that adding on-air talent like former NFL star Jason Kelce to the Monday Night Football lineup gives advertisers more options for creative and public service announcements. However, she also pointed out that ESPN’s ties to Disney+ and Hulu entertainment properties, like The Simpsons, allow brands to reach audiences through social media and streaming that might not reach Monday Night Football directly through the ESPN platforms.
“It’s really about how their brand stands out in a media landscape that can be considered crowded,” Brown said. “We’re using the best of what we have from an information perspective as well as touring production and technology teams to bring brands to life and help them break through in a time when driving conversion is really important, engagement and brand enhancement. »
