ESPN’s animated alt-casts reimagine live sporting events by replacing athletes on screen with beloved characters such as Mickey Mouse, Buzz Lightyear, Lisa Simpson and Mike Wazowski. The concept began as an effort to create what the network described as “magical moments in sports”, offering viewers an alternative way to experience games rather than watching players shoot hoops or score touchdowns.
The project is led by Michael “Spike” Szykowny, ESPN’s vice president of edit, animation, graphics innovation and creative production. Speaking at Disney’s D23 convention, Szykowny explained that the animated broadcasts draw a different audience to sports. “We took a bunch of technologies like live player tracking — we can track what the players are doing in the game and make our animated characters do the same things,” he said. The team combined Disney intellectual property with face-tracking and motion-capture technology.
The Technology Powering Real-Time Animation
ESPN studio host Drew Carter has served as a live animated commentator for every alt-cast. For the first broadcast, he wore a full motion-capture suit, but the process has since been streamlined so that he now only needs a virtual reality headset. Jay Ward, creative director of franchise at Pixar, called the ability to track players in real time “a technological feat”.
Athletes on the field wear devices that generate tracking data for NFL Next Gen Stats, feeding into Sony’s Beyond Sports engine and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking. These systems build the live animation, rebuilding each throw, route, block, kick and tackle as it happens. The commentators’ calls from the booth are synced with their animated avatars through their VR headsets. Ward said Pixar wanted to be involved because the studio is centred on technology, creativity and storytelling.
From Funday Football to Dunk the Halls
The Toy Story version of Funday Football, which aired in 2023, placed the main toys within an NFL game set in Andy’s room, with real players appearing as toy-scale versions of themselves. Blocks stood in for goalposts, the claw machine operated by the three-eyed aliens delivered the ball for kickoff, Slinky Dog served as the 1st and 10 marker, and a Duke Caboom halftime show featured. Carter appeared as a Pixar-styled version of himself.
The second Funday Football broadcast featured the characters of Monsters, Inc., requiring the scene to be animated from scratch as the film is 25 years old. Selected players became Mike and Sulley on the field, while others appeared as animated versions of themselves and Roz acted as a sideline reporter. The original voice actors returned to contribute, alongside Carter.
Dunk the Halls, a Christmas NBA game between Mickey and his closest friends, aired in December last year. It was animated to resemble a replica of Main Street, USA, at Walt Disney World, with animators from Walt Disney Studios brought in to achieve the look. Disney Legend and animator Eric Goldberg drew hundreds of sketches of the “bits” the characters could perform during the game. According to Renée Johnson, creative director at Disney, the tracking was off at one
