An NFL match in “The Simpsons” cartoon mode broadcast live on Disney+ and ESPN+

Monday, December 9, the National Football League (NFL) will offer a new live, cartoon-style match during Monday Night Football between the Bengals and the Cowboys.

To reach the youngest and offer an alternative product to “traditional matches”, the NFL will rely on the world of Simpsons.

In real time thanks to technologies Beyond Sports and Sony's Hawk Eye, the match will be broadcast on ESPN+ and Disney+ in cartoon mode. The real meeting between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Dallas Cowboys will be recreated in a cartoon universe with the famous Springfield Atoms stadium as a playground.

This “The Simpsons Funday Football” will obviously feature the cartoon characters Omer, Bart, Marge, Lisa… The appearance, sound and atmosphere of the Simpsons will be there to offer a truly unique experience. as authentic as possible for aficionados of the series with more than 750 episodes.

Each Bengals and Cowboys player will appear as an animated player. With real-time statistics from the NFL, Beyond Sports and Sony Hawk-Eye, each sequence will be reproduced in a 3D environment.

Bart Simpson will side with Joe Burrow and the Bengals while Homer will align with Dak Prescott and the Cowboys. For most of the game, Bart and Homer will let their new teammates from the Bengals and Cowboys handle the action, but the iconic father and son duo won't stay on the sideline for the entire game. Each will select key opportunities to play offense and/or defense, replacing a player and joining their 10 other teammates on the pitch.

Around the game, Marge and Lisa will interview the players and Maggie will operate the SkyCam. Other Simpsons characters are also expected to make some appearances. The American voices of the characters will also lend their voices for even more realism.

Last year, the NFL, ESPN and Disney relied on the Toy Story cartoon to offer the first NFL game as a “Funday Football” cartoon.

At the same time, in recent years the NFL has also offered broadcasts of matches and programs with SpongeBob with some virtual reality tricks to give a fun touch adapted to the Nickelodeon channel, the broadcaster.

Over the past two years, of the NHL also succumbed by offering broadcasts in the colors of la franchise « Big City Greens ».

Soon a cartoon-style Ligue 1 match?

Broadcasts designed to capture the attention of younger generations which obviously gives some ideas to other sports leagues, including the Professional Football League as explained to us a few weeks ago Jérôme Dumois, Director of Transformation and Innovation LFP Mediain an interview.

“We are working on a “Ligue 1 Kids” product, in the style of Nickelodeon with the NFL and post-production to have a meeting on Wednesdays for children with match summaries in an animated version” Jérôme Dumois told us. Which cartoons do you think will be favored by this project?