Every week we pick a story or two from the City Manager’s newsletter to highlight.
You may have caught a major announcement this past week… ESPN has selected Santa Monica Beach as the home for “ESPN Beach” – the network’s expansive, week-long broadcast headquarters and free fan activation site for Super Bowl LXI in February 2027! The City formally announced the partnership with ESPN on Tuesday, May 13.
Super Bowl LXI will be ESPN’s first-ever production of the Super Bowl, and the network has put significant investment into building a flagship broadcast presence to mark the occasion. The game itself will be played on Sunday, February 14, 2027, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, but the surrounding week of national and global media coverage will originate, in significant part, from our shoreline!
Beginning Monday, February 8, most of ESPN’s daily studio programming (from morning shows through primetime, all week long) will broadcast live from multiple beachside sets along Santa Monica State Beach, with ABC studio programming joining the production. Also, on the Santa Monica Pier, ESPN will operate a large-scale free fan activation: interactive games, immersive experiences blending ESPN and Disney brands, food, and themed merchandise, all open to the public throughout the week. Additional open-air programming will extend along the beachfront, with details to follow closer to game week.
The strategic significance – and the pride we should have in our Santa Monica – is real! ESPN had its pick of locations across Southern California for this hub and selected ours, placing Santa Monica’s beachfront and our iconic Pier at the center of the most-watched single sporting event in American media, with continuous, week-long ESPN, ABC, and Disney broadcast coverage reaching a global audience!
As Mayor Torosis framed it in her statement: “When the biggest sports network in the country chooses your beachfront as their Super Bowl headquarters, it speaks to what Santa Monica has always represented: the place where the world comes to celebrate.”
This announcement is also a meaningful piece of a longer arc. With the 2027 Super Bowl, the 2028 Olympics, and a steady cadence of major events coming to Southern California over the next three years, Santa Monica has positioned itself to capitalize on global moments in ways that directly support the Economic Opportunity & Growth objective of our Game Plan, and the broader revenue stability the Realignment Plan depends on.
It’s also worth noting that the Pier activation associated with the ESPN event will be free and open to the public, which matters. This isn’t a private corporate takeover of one of our most beloved community assets; it’s an opportunity to share the Pier with the world while keeping the door open to residents and visitors alike.
Our team will be working closely with ESPN, the NFL Host Committee, and our Public Works, Police, Fire, and Recreation departments over the coming months to coordinate the operational logistics, public safety, and access management an event of this scale will require.
More to come as plans firm up, but this is the kind of week that puts Santa Monica’s name in front of the world, and it’s a real result of long-term positioning work paying off. For more on the City’s broader major events programming, visit https://www.santamonica.gov/programs/summer!
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