NFL Kickoff 2016: NBC Sports Bus Takes Fans Behind the Scenes Throughout 11th Season of Sunday Night Football

NBC Sports returns to the gridiron tonight with a Super Bowl rematch between the reigning champion Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. Three days later, the Arizona Cardinals and New England Patriots — respectively, the AFC and NFC Championship runners-up in 2015 and Super Bowl hopefuls in 2016 — will kick off the Peacock’s 11th season of Sunday Night Football.

The 45-ft. bus will visit Sunday Night Football host cities.

“It’s great to be starting the second decade of Sunday Night Football,” says Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli. “I think the first decade [is] definitely the most amazing thing that happened to me in my career, and I think one of the most amazing shows in the history of television when you think [that, over the last] five years, we’ve been the No. 1 show on television. We look forward to the second decade.”

NBC’s coverage of the 2016 NFL regular season includes two primetime packages — headlined by Sunday Night Football and supplemented by five Thursday Night Football games — for a total of 24 live productions.

On the bus: a replica of the Football Night in America desk

The network will live-stream all games to desktops, tablets, and connected TVs via NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports App. All fans will be able to access a free pass to live-stream tonight’s broadcast of the Panthers-Broncos game without having to log in with their cable/satellite/telco credentials; future games will be available only to authenticated pay-TV subscribers.

NBC Sports Group’s Sunday Night Football bus returns to travel the country, visiting the host cities of selected Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football games. In total this season, the bus will travel 23,000 miles across the country through 40 states.

Fans will get a closer look at behind-the-scenes action of SNF broadcasts on the 45-ft. bus, which will take fans from the field to the studio and, for the first time, inside the production trucks. Among the features are an interactive replica of Sunday Night Football’s control room, a replica of the Football Night in America desk, and a life-size “Photo Bomb” wall.

Fans will be able to interact with a mockup of the SNF control room.

NBC plans to have the bus arrive in each of its 23 planned city stops two or three days prior to a weekend game, making stops at local landmarks and events before heading to the stadium. For tonight’s game, the bus began its tour with a stop at the XFINITY retail store in Centennial, CO, on Tuesday and one at NFL Kickoff Village at Civic Center Park in Denver on Wednesday. Today, the bus traveled to Sports Authority Field at Mile High, the site of tonight’s NFL Kickoff 2016 game.

At the stadium, the Sunday Night Football bus will give fans the opportunity to interact with the show through exclusive activities, memorabilia, and a 55-in. monitor displaying social-media elements. The 2016 bus features football-field decaling on the floor, an interactive control room, and replica of the Football Night in America studio.