Disney Makes Super Bowl and Live Events the MVP of Its Upfront Pitch

Regarding scripted fare, Ryan Murphy’s American Horror Story 13 is getting an additional star with Paul Anthony Kelly. Straight off of Murphy’s limited series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette, Kelly joined cast members Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Angela Bassett, Gabourey Sidibe, Billie Lourd, and Emma Roberts on stage.

Elsewhere, Rosario Dawson announced that Ahsoka Season 2 is coming to Disney+ in 2027; William H. Macy, Christopher Meloni, and Mandy Moore introduced a Cleveland Browns-focused Hulu series, The Land; and Robert Downey Jr., Tom Hiddleston, and Paul Bettany had a mini Marvel reunion to talk up Vision Quest and Hiddleston’s Pompeii series for National Geographic.

Why it matters:

In a fragmented TV landscape, the Super Bowl is the ultimate prize, still regularly commanding 120+ million viewers. So the Big Game has already started for Disney.

Speaking with ADWEEK ahead of the presentation, Disney’s global ads president, Rita Ferro, said the company is already receiving an “unbelievable” amount of asks to get into the Super Bowl and that the company will have a wide variety of categories in its crop of advertisers for the game.

Still, turning one game into a year-long initiative is a big ask, even for Disney, which Kimmel seemed to acknowledge, joking that Disney is “going to spend a whole year” promoting the most popular game in the world.

However, the announcements from the upfront could help along the way. If Disney can successfully weave messaging throughout the year in its live events, and sustain the advertiser enthusiasm through its new partnerships, the marketing opportunities could be Bananas.