A new Monday Night Football broadcast will offer an alternate telecast that presents the game live from the All-22 camera angle that shows the entire field, coupled with on-screen analytics and commentary. It’s called MNF Playbook with Next Gen Stats, and it premieres next week.
To develop the show, ESPN partnered with sports data analytics platform Adrenaline, which uses an AI model trained on hundreds of thousands of NFL plays to predict run-pass probabilities, blitz likelihoods, and more.
“The data dynamically changes and updates in real time,” ESPN producer Andy Jacobson tells The Verge. “You’ll see that on the screen as we’ve created augmented reality graphics that are embedded onto the field and constantly updating up until the snap.”
Along with the on-screen graphics, ESPN analysts will partner with a roster of former NFL players, including Luke Kuechly, Chase Daniel, and Tim Hasselbeck, to offer their insights during games. MNF Playbook will appear on ESPN2 and the ESPN app for Unlimited subscribers on December 22nd and December 29th. After those two games, MNF Playbook will only appear on the ESPN app for a Week 18 matchup, as well as Wild Card and Divisional round playoff games.
Amazon Prime Video also adds AI-powered overlays to its Thursday Night Football streams, but Jacobson says ESPN’s “concept is going to be way more forward-thinking,” while providing “viewers with an opportunity to see the game in a whole new way and understand it in conjunction with our voices.”
