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 this year’s multiplatform effort, Wieden+Kennedy New York has developed an interactive storescape game that invites pedestrians to let off some Monday steam with a virtual game of catch. Storefronts in New York, Chicago and Boston have been branded with turf signage and outfitted with interactive touchscreens utilizing gesture-recognition technology, so passersby can 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 track people walking along the sidewalk with real-time call-outs hinting at their coordination and reflexes, and users can compete for the top slot on the leaderboard. QBs can be selected from Monday night matchups and then appear in a 3-D stadium where they begin firing off increasingly difficult passes. Audio commentary by ESPN talent narrates the users’ performance until they miss a catch, which then “shatters” the window and ends the game. An RSS feed provides the game with live tune-in information.