ESPN aired the season premiere of Monday Night Football as the San Francisco 49ers hosted the New York Jets from Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. Burke Magnus, the president of content at ESPN, took a redeye flight back to New York City where he participated in a panel from the Tuned In event by Front Office Sports where he discussed a range of topics surrounding the current state and future of the company. Over the next several seasons, the network coverage of the NFL is leading up to its first Super Bowl broadcast to conclude the 2026 season.
Magnus recently announced a reorganization to its content structure that created a full-time position overseeing coverage of the Super Bowl. The game is approximately two-and-a-half years away, and the date is already embedded within the mindset of Magnus and his colleagues. Part of the rationale for creating the new position is because of how busy those within the NFL on ESPN property are during the year, along with the fact that many people work across multiple sports. Despite not broadcasting a Super Bowl in the past under the ESPN brand, Magnus feels that it provides a key opportunity for the company to establish its image in being the television home of this event.
“We want to redefine what covering the Super Bowl looks like, and we have, in many ways, the luxury of not having sort of an imprint on people’s mind of what that might look like because we haven’t ever been there,” Magnus said. “…[There is] no doubt we will do some version of a megacast, if you will, but it’s much more beyond that. It’s everything leading up to the game, it’s the coverage that has our stamp on it, and I’m excited to see where it goes over the next two-and-a-half years as it develops.”
Earlier in the year, ESPN and Omaha Productions agreed to a nine-year contract through which the companies will continue working together on content production, which includes the continuation of Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli, colloquially known as the ManningCast. In addition, the Super Bowl broadcast will likely contain elements of the megacasts seen over the years in the College Football Playoff. Magnus confirmed that there would be a version of this broadcast for Super Bowl LXI, but he is focused on the week leading up to the contest with its programming.
“The other networks certainly do a tremendous job with the game, with gameday, oftentimes the day or two before,” Magnus said. “We’re looking at it from sort of the moment that the championship games are over until probably the day or two after the Super Bowl itself is over as a massive window.”
ESPN is currently having conversations with Stephen A. Smith, featured commentator and executive producer of First Take and analyst on NBA Countdown, as his contract nears its expiration. Jimmy Pitaro, chairman of ESPN, has previously stated that he hopes to remain in business with Smith, a sentiment that was echoed by Magnus. Reflecting on his work with the company, he explained that Smith is a bonafide superstar and has created a juggernaut with First Take, which continues to attain year-over-year growth on a monthly basis. Outside of ESPN, he also operates his media company, Straight Shooter, and hosts his own video podcast, The Stephen A. Smith Show.
“He’s got his own other activities that he’s continuing to delve into,” Magnus said. “He’s made his aspirations very clear, and frankly, he should. He deserves it – he’s a very creative and talented person that we hope to be in business with for a very long time.”
Magnus explained that he could see Smith contributing to Monday Night Countdown, a property in which FOS reported earlier in the week that Smith could have interest in joining. In explaining the plausibility of such an assignment, Magnus cited how Smith recently interviewed Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on his own podcast and had an interesting conversation, along with his ability to excited and energize sports fans. While the network is set for the current season, it is something that makes “total sense” to him and foresees it being part of the conversation.
“You can see this already developing,” Magnus said. “The philosophy that we put our biggest names and our biggest talent on our biggest properties and biggest shows is really, to me, a recipe for success. That’s what was behind Scott Van Pelt joining Monday night; that’s what was behind Greeny on Sunday. There’s nothing more important to us than the NFL on all of the content that surrounds not just Monday Night Football, but the NFL in totality. We have a huge digital business, a social business [and] fantasy business, [and] NFL content is at the absolute top of the game. And so why wouldn’t we want our best people and our biggest personalities working on that?”
