Now in its fourth year, ESPN’s “Is It Monday Yet?” campaign reminds football fans that for 16 weeks a year Monday Night Football is waiting for them at the end of the worst day of the week, ready to make the workday grind disappear into a glorious gridiron spectacle. It’s the proverbial pigskin carrot dangling in front of us all, as we grin and bear the drudgery that the first day back from the weekend inevitably has in store.

As the centerpiece of 2009’s multi-platform effort for ESPN MNF, an interactive storefront game was developed that invited pedestrians to let off some Monday steam with a virtual game of catch. Storefronts in New York, Chicago and Boston were branded with turf signage and outfitted with interactive touch screens utilizing gesture-recognition technology, so passersby could stand in front of the window and try to catch footballs “thrown” at them by a virtual quarterback. To encourage gameplay, yardage markers on the window tracked people walking along the sidewalk with real-time call-outs hinting at their coordination and reflexes, and users could compete for the top slot on the leaderboard. QBs could be selected from Monday night matchups and then appeared in a 3-D stadium where they began firing off increasingly difficult passes. Audio commentary by ESPN talent narrated the users’ performance until they missed a catch, which then “shattered” the window and ended the game. An RSS feed provided the game with live tune-in information.