Disney+ Will Stream the Super Bowl, ESPN’s First

Disney+ will stream the Super Bowl. ESPN and the NFL said on Oct. 7 that every Disney+ subscriber in the United States will be able to stream the game on Feb. 14, 2027, the first Super Bowl ESPN will ever produce. Awful Announcing reports that the stream covers the English-language telecast on ESPN and ABC, with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call, and the Spanish-language feed on ESPN Deportes.

The reach extends well beyond the United States. Disney+ will also carry the game in more than 55 international markets, while ESPN’s traditional networks will distribute it in more than 130 countries and territories. Before then, Disney+ gets two Monday Night Football simulcasts this season, starting with the Cowboys and the Eagles on Oct. 26.

Disney also sublicensed a separate set of Spanish-language rights to Univision back in May. Why does this matter? Start with who’s watching.

Disney+ isn’t known as a sports app. Its subscribers come for movies, shows and family viewing. Putting the Super Bowl in front of all of them is a way to reach an audience that ESPN can’t reach on its own.

Then notice the order. Two Monday night games come first, starting with one of the biggest rivalries in the league, and then the biggest game of the year. That is a test run.

By February, the stream will already have worked at scale, and those subscribers will already know where to find football. The advertising side connects, too. As reported in these pages on Oct. 7, Ferrero bought two ads in this game, and Disney sold out its Super Bowl advertising in early August.

Now it is clear those ads will reach viewers on Disney+ too, including subscribers who came to the service for movies and shows rather than football. For Disney, the move is a chance to show that its streaming service can carry the biggest live event in American television, and not just its library. For ESPN, the stream is a way to prove it can follow its audience anywhere.

The content stays the same: a game, with the same broadcast and the same booth. What changes is where it lives, and who gets paid when a viewer finds it there. The timing is pointed.

On the same day ESPN shows the NFL that it can put the Super Bowl on a streaming service, it is about to lose its exclusive hold on the biggest expansion in college football, as the College Football Playoff’s negotiating window closes on Oct. 9. A company that can deliver the Super Bowl to every Disney+ home makes its case with the product itself. Whether that case carries over to the playoff is the next test.

For ESPN, the stream is a way to prove it can follow its audience anywhere.

on a 24-Team Playoff Closes Oct. 9 Front Office Sports reports ESPN, which holds College Football Playoff rights through 2031–32, has had 30 days of exclusive talks on expanding to 24 teams. After Oct. 9, the playoff can take offers from CBS, Fox, NBC and streamers like Prime Video, and could split the event across networks. The deadline to decide for 2027 is Dec. 1.

Dropping the Power Four championship games could cost more than $200 million if that revenue isn’t replaced.

podcast, previously at ESPN and then Wave Sports and Entertainment, to Playmaker, and hinted it could add a subscription model. It is a familiar path: build an audience at a big network, move to a smaller company, then consider charging fans directly. A subscription sells the show to listeners rather than listeners to advertisers — and the leverage in sports audio sits with the voice people show up for.

code bearing its name — trade $25, get up to $55 in credit — plus a Polymarket code, and discloses it may be paid on sign-ups. CBS Sports runs Kalshi and Polymarket codes and a page for Novig, the sports-only exchange relaunched under a federal license in August, offering $25 in credits on a $10 deposit. Both networks hold NFL rights, and the networks covering the NFL now get paid when readers trade on it.

the federal government on Oct. 5, in comments on the CFTC’s proposed prediction market rules, that it would limit its subsidiary trading desk to 5% of betting volume each quarter — its first acknowledgment that owning an exchange and a trading arm could create conflicts. Applied only to maker volume, 5% would have been about $2.3 billion in September, per Aldrin Research. Kalshi is offering limits before a regulator sets them.

Final 25% bought from Kilmer, now closed; Rogers takes full ownership Arctos → Atlanta Falcons $10.6B valuation Minority stake at a $10.6B valuation; pending a vote of NFL owners in October Stan Kroenke → Los Angeles Angels ~$4B Controlling interest, an MLB record L Catterton-led group → Hyrox ~€600M Majority control bought from Infront Lewis family → Tottenham Hotspur £120M New equity, taking stake to about 88%

Tommy Hilfiger’s tie-in with “F1 The Movie” won Best Use of Content in the top budget band, for campaigns of €1 million or more, and a second entry from the partnership was commended for PR. The campaign’s name says the quiet part out loud: the point of a film tie-in is to sell clothes. We See You Lily Parr

Three’s campaign for Chelsea FC Women, “We See You Lily Parr,” was also among the winners at the European Sponsorship Association’s 2026 awards, where MSQ Sport and Entertainment took Agency of the Year.

Hyrox Sells Majority Control at About €600 Million A group led by L Catterton bought control of Hyrox, the indoor fitness race, from Infront. The race pairs eight 1-kilometer runs with eight workout stations, with amateurs and elite athletes on the same course. Dakota’s September report filed the deal under capital moving beyond franchise ownership, alongside the Angels and Falcons deals.

It isn’t a league or a team: it’s a format regular people pay to enter, and investors paid about €600 million for control.

Sports is reaching people in places that used to belong to someone else. The content stays the same; what changes is where it lives, and who gets paid when you find it there.