By the D23 Team
Prepare for some exciting football action, with an adorably animated twist!
ESPN, Disney, Pixar, and the National Football League will present Monsters Funday Football on Monday, December 8—a real-time, animated Monday Night Football game, featuring the defending Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles at the Los Angeles Chargers, inside the iconic Monsters, Inc. building!
This season’s immersive Funday Football experience will transport fans to Monstropolis for ESPN’s Week 14 MNF matchup—marking the third consecutive season ESPN, Disney+, and the NFL have presented a Funday Football telecast... with the alternate presentation available for the first time on ESPN2, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and the new ESPN App, while continuing to stream on Disney+ and (on mobile) NFL+. (Video on Demand will be available on Disney+ shortly after the live broadcast.)
During Monsters Funday Football, every Eagles and Chargers player will appear as a motion-enabled, animated version of themselves brought to life through NFL Next Gen Stats, Sony’s Beyond Sports, and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking—which have been applied throughout each previous version of Funday Football. Using the player tracking data, Beyond Sports’ virtual recreation engine animates gameplay in real time within Monstropolis, mirroring the live action from SoFi Stadium. Pretty cool, huh?
And yes, it’s true: Beloved monsters Mike Wazowski and James P. “Sulley” Sullivan (voiced by Disney Legends Billy Crystal and John Goodman) will make their football debut... joining Jalen Hurts and the Eagles and Justin Herbert and the Chargers, respectively. The gridiron action will unfold on the Cheer Floor—a reimagined version of the film’s famed Scare Floor—and will be adorned with a full-length football field filled with thousands of cheering monsters.
While Mike and Sulley will mostly leave the game execution to the professionals, they will sub in for key offensive and defensive moments. Additionally, Mike and the Eagles and Sulley and the Chargers will compete for Cheer Canisters (a rebrand of the classic Scream Canisters), storing monster cheers instead of screams. The night will end with not only a game winner but also a Cheer Champion!
Look for other Monsters, Inc. faves throughout the evening—including Roz, who will serve as the game’s sideline reporter; and the Child Detection Agency (CDA), which will be in attendance to monitor the crowd and the game. The iconic floating Monsters, Inc. bedroom doors will be seen hovering above the field, showing fans viewing the game from their bedrooms all over the world. And, while Mike and Sulley duke it out for cheers throughout the entire game, the competition will really ramp up during halftime with Mike & Sulley’s Cheer Canister Competition!
ESPN play-by-play commentator Drew Carter—who has called every edition of Funday Football and six total animated alternate telecasts across ESPN properties—and NFL analyst Dan Orlovsky, who will be calling his second Funday Football, will be in the broadcast booth as animated versions of themselves within the Monsters, Inc. world.
Football purists, never fear: The traditional Monday Night Football telecast, with Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Lisa Salters, and Laura Rutledge will be available on ESPN, ABC, ESPN Deportes, and streaming live on the ESPN App. Both presentations begin at 8 p.m. ET.
Monsters Funday Football follows the success of The Simpsons Funday Football in December 2024, and Toy Story Funday Football in October 2023.