ESPN voice Joe Buck will guest-judge next week’s Dancing With the Stars for its first Super Bowl Night, a Disney crossover timed to Super Bowl LXI.
Daily Mail reported that the coming episode will put competitors through routines inspired by iconic Super Bowl halftime shows, with Buck joining the regular panel.
Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli, and Derek Hough will share the desk with the longtime play-by-play man. The stunt ties ABC’s hit ballroom series to the sports side of the same corporate house.
ABC airs Dancing With the Stars. ESPN employs Buck. Both sit under The Walt Disney Company, which has been pushing Super Bowl LXI hard for months with spots starring ESPN talent and Disney characters.
At the end of the current NFL season, ESPN and ABC are set to broadcast Super Bowl LXI from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. It will be ABC’s first Super Bowl in more than 20 years, since Super Bowl XL. For ESPN, it will be the first Super Bowl telecast in the network’s 47-year history.
Buck is already slated to be on the call when that game airs. Parking him on the DWTS panel a little earlier keeps the same familiar voice in living rooms while the company builds the bigger night.
The show has never run a Super Bowl Night before. Contestants get the brief: build numbers off famous halftime performances. Viewers get football flavor without leaving the ballroom format.
Football players have won the mirror-ball trophy before. Emmitt Smith took Season 3. Hines Ward won Season 12. Donald Driver claimed Season 14. Rashad Jennings finished first in Season 24.
More recently, Danny Amendola reached fifth place in Season 33. The league-to-dance pipeline is not new. Buck’s guest seat simply puts a broadcaster in the chair instead of another former player on the floor.
No calendar date for the episode appears beyond “next week.” No list of the current celebrity cast was attached to the announcement. The core booking is plain enough: themed dances, a four-person panel for one night, and a house broadcaster crossing over.
Disney gets another on-air reminder that its sports and entertainment arms share a calendar. Buck gets a lighter assignment before the heaviest broadcast of the year. The show gets a ratings hook tied to the biggest game in American sports.
Corporate synergy rarely looks this on-the-nose, and fans will decide whether the scores sound more like football or foxtrot.
