The city of Springfield will host a National Football League game in December at Atoms Stadium, but neither the Springfield Atoms nor the Shelbyville Sharks will take the field.
Instead, the Bengals-Cowboys game on Dec. 9 will transform into the world of television's longest-running sitcom. The Simpsons for a special Funday Soccer edition of Monday night football. The Simpsons special broadcast will air on streaming services ESPN+ and Disney+ and on the NFL+ mobile app. The game will be broadcast as usual on ESPN, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN2 and ESPN Deportes.
The game will implement tracking technology to turn players on the field and ESPN commentators Mina Kimes, Dan Orlovsky and Drew Carter into the simpsons characters. Kimes, Orlovsky and Carter will use Meta Quest Pro headsets to view their virtual environments. The quarterbacks will transform into Bart for the Cincinnati Bengals and Homer for the Dallas Cowboys using Sony. ai data analyzer and sports transmission and tracking technology, according to .
The game will also feature more pre-animated characters and scenes from the show's original cast, including Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith, along with some surprise sports cameos. Characters like Lisa, Krusty the Clown, Carl, Lenny, Moe and Milhouse will be on the sidelines supporting their respective teams. The ad doesn't mention Harry Shearer, so don't expect Mr. Burns or Smithers to be in the game.
This isn't the first time ESPN has turned an NFL regular-season game into an animated spectacle. Last year, Disney, ESPN and the NFL teamed up to turn an October game between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars into a toy story Themed game that transformed London's Wembley Stadium into Andy's room. The children's cable network Nickelodeon has also broadcast some NFL games for its NFL slime time broadcasts with live commentary from animated characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants voiced by Tom Kenny and Patrick Star voiced by Bill Fagerbakke and computerized slime thrown into the end zones after touchdowns.
