The town of Springfield will host National Football League games at Atoms Stadium in December, but neither the Springfield Atoms nor the Shelbyville Sharks will be in attendance.
Instead, the Dec. 9 Bengals-Cowboys game will be transformed into the world of television’s longest-running sitcom, The Simpsons, as a special Fundaday Football edition of Monday Night Football. The Simpsons-themed special will air on ESPN+, the Disney+ streaming service, and the NFL+ mobile app. The game will be broadcast in its usual format on ESPN, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes.
The game will feature tracking technology that turns players on the field and ESPN commentators Mina Kimes, Dan Orlovsky and Drew Carter into Simpsons characters. Kimes, Orlovsky, and Carter wear Meta Quest Pro headsets to view the virtual environment. Quarterbacks will be transformed into Bart of the Cincinnati Bengals and Homer of the Dallas Cowboys using Sony’s Beyond Sports AI data analyzer and Hawk-Eye Innovations’ sports tracking and broadcast technology, according to a Disney press release It is said that
The game also features more characters and pre-animated scenes from the show’s original cast, including Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith, and some surprise sports. A cameo also appears. Characters like Lisa, Krusty the Clown, Carl, Lennie, Moe, and Milhouse will be on the sidelines cheering on their respective teams. There was no mention of Harry Shearer in the announcement, so we don’t expect Burns or Smithers to take part in the game.
This isn’t the first time ESPN has animated an NFL regular season game. Last year, Disney, ESPN, and the NFL teamed up to make October’s game between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars a Toy Story-themed game, and to transform London’s Wembley Stadium into Andy’s Room. Nickelodeon, the children’s cable network, also features live commentary from animated characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants, voiced by Tom Kenny, and Patrick Star, voiced by Bill Fagerbakke; Several NFL games were broadcast on NFL Slime Time broadcasts featuring computerized slime squirting.
