ESPN Uses Star Wars Crawl To Promote Monday Night Football

Tonight the National Football League will make a journey to a galaxy far, far away, and ESPN is honoring the occasion with a Star Wars-style crawl for tonight’s game between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings.

The crawl plays up the Star Wars similarities between the division rivals, using the opening paragraphs of both The Phantom Menace and The Force Awakens as inspiration for their latest video to hype up the game.

Check out the clip below!

Bears rookie Mitchell Trubisky will start his first game for the season tonight after Mike Glennon sat atop the depth chart for the team’s first four games. But they have yet to get a convincing win except for a close game over the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are struggling themselves this season.

The team hopes their first round pick will give them the shot in the arm needed to turn their season around and contend for the playoffs.

Meanwhile the Vikings started out promising but lost starting quarterback Sam Bradford to injury in Week Two. Currently sitting at 2-2 in the division, Bradford returns and will reportedly start this evening when the team goes up against their division rivals.

The game is being heavily promoted as part of the journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, with a brand new trailer set to debut during the evening’s halftime show.

Some fans have criticized this move from the NFL, which has been shrouded in controversy with players kneeling in protest for the National Anthem, as an attempt to boost ratings with the help of Star Wars. But that’s simply not true as Disney has already established this precedent.

Monday Night Football remains one of the highest rated programs on cable despite the protest controversy, and Disney wants as many eyeballs as possible on their new trailer.

Disney owns both Monday Night Football broadcaster ESPN and Star Wars producer Lucasfilm, and employed the same tactic around the same time two years ago when Star Wars: The Force Awakens was gearing up for release.

Fans who are looking forward to the new movie should tune in to the halftime show to get another look at Luke Skywalker’s return.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi premieres in theaters December 15.