ESPN, Disney and ABC have launched The Victory Challenge, a campaign to raise an additional $10 million for pediatric cancer research at the V Foundation, timed to the run-up to ESPN’s first Super Bowl broadcast in February.
The announcement came Friday, September 4, in a video from ESPN Citizenship, the network’s corporate social responsibility arm, which said the money will go toward accelerating research and expanding treatment opportunities for children with cancer. Donations are being collected at V.org.
In celebration of ESPN’s first Super Bowl broadcast in February, we are proud to come together with Disney and ABC to launch The Victory Challenge to raise an additional $10 million for pediatric cancer research at the V Foundation. Pediatric cancer research is needed now more than ever, and we hope this campaign accelerates research, expands opportunities and helps children and their families declare Victory Over Cancer. Join us at http://V.org.
— ESPN Citizenship (@ESPNCitizenship) September 4, 2026
A Foundation ESPN Started
The V Foundation is not an outside charity ESPN adopted. It was founded in 1993 by ESPN and Jim Valvano, the North Carolina State basketball coach and ESPN commentator who announced it during his “Don’t Give Up” speech at the first ESPYS, weeks before his death from cancer. ESPN says it has raised more than $100 million for the foundation since, through programming such as its annual V Week and the ESPYS.
The pediatric side of that work is anchored by the Dick Vitale Pediatric Cancer Research Fund, named for the ESPN college basketball analyst whose annual gala in Sarasota raised $12.5 million in 2025 alone, with more than $100 million granted to researchers from the fund to date. The foundation says cancer is the leading disease-related cause of death for American children over the age of one, that childhood cancer research receives about 4 percent of the National Institutes of Health’s annual budget, and that more than 15,000 children and adolescents are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. The Victory Challenge’s $10 million goal is framed as money on top of what ESPN and its partners already raise every year.
Why The Super Bowl
Super Bowl LXI in February 2027 will be the first Super Bowl broadcast by ESPN, with ABC carrying it as well, and it is the largest audience the network will have ever had for a single game. The Victory Challenge gives Disney, ABC and ESPN a shared charitable banner to carry through the season, and the announcement names all three.
Disney has already started dressing the occasion. ESPN unveiled special football-themed Mickey and Minnie outfits earlier this year for the Super Bowl, the kind of parks-and-broadcast crossover the company reserves for its biggest events.
How To Take Part
The campaign is asking the public to donate directly through the V Foundation’s website. ESPN has not yet detailed any on-air components beyond the launch video, and the network’s Super Bowl coverage will give it the largest audience it has ever had to make the ask.
The push comes at a moment when ESPN is absorbing NFL Network and reshaping its on-air lineup ahead of the game, which makes the Victory Challenge one of the first campaigns the reshaped network has put its name on alongside Disney and ABC.
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