On Sunday, ESPN, The Walt Disney Company, and the NFL teamed up for Toy Story Funday Football. During the broadcast that morning, Fans were able to enjoy a fully animated offering on Disney+, ESPN+, and on mobile devices with the NFL+ app. This pioneering NFL presentation was made possible by ESPN, ESPN’s Edge Innovation Center, The Walt Disney Company, NFL, Pixar, Next Gen Stats, Beyond Sports, and Silver Spoon. The game, which was happening live between the Atlanta Falcons and the Jacksonville Jaguars in London’s Wembley Stadium, was recreated live in Andy’s Room from the iconic Toy Story films. For some fans of animated media – this concept seemed a bit familiar.
Back in March, ESPN+ hosted the NHL Big City Greens Classic, which also aired simultaneously on Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney+ and recreated a live NHL game in the animated universe of the hit Disney Channel series, Big City Greens. So how did Toy Story Funday Football differ from the first event, and what lessons were learned?
Michael “Spike” Syzkowny, Senior Director at ESPN Creative Studio, shared more, saying, “Rather than start from scratch, as we’d done with Big City Greens, we built upon it. From the Beyond Sports point of view, the characters are now football players instead of hockey players. What improvements could we make there? How could we make the environment—Andy’s room—even more interesting? We knew how to do the [motion-capture] characters, but Silver Spoon said, “Let’s take what we did and build on it.” And then in the game presentation, the Toy Story brand is so iconic that there was a lot more for us to build upon in the animation package. So, we took the playbook of Big City Greens—which had great 2D animations, by the way—and we built upon it even more. Taking the lessons learned from the NHL Big City Greens Classic—starting 50% up from where we were last time—really helped us out.”
Comparatively, the animation system is nearly the same in terms of animating a live sports broadcast in real time. Spike explains, “The principle is the same as before. We’re using tracking chips on the players and a tracking chip in the ball. Some of the bigger differences from last time are that hockey’s only six people per team on the field at the same time, and it’s almost constant motion. Football has 22 players on the field, and there is downtime between each play. With hockey, everyone kind of skates the same way and takes a shot the same way; they’re the same motions. With football, you have so many variations: a lineman acts totally differently than a quarterback does, and a running back acts totally differently than a receiver does. It’s a little more challenging to make everybody do what they need to do [in animation]. And, honestly, this has never been done before—combining the single-point tracking with the optical link tracking.”
Drew Carter, who had done play-by-play for the NHL Big City Greens Classic returned for a second round of this unique broadcast, and was joined by Booger McFarland who served as an analyst. Both of whom were strapped into some motion-capture suits for the broadcast. The suits were nothing new for Carter, but it is reportedly the first time that McFarland has worn such an outfit. This time around, there was a difference, according to Spike. “We learned during the Big City Greens telecast,” he explained, “that you have to watch where you place the hockey stick; you can get an occultation that intersects with the other characters, so you have to be careful. But ultimately, once they’re in their mocap suits, we practice quite a bit to make sure that the movements feel good.”
And while Big City Greens is a hit series on the Disney Channel, recently starting its fourth season with a movie in development, it is nowhere near as big as the Toy Story universe. The idea came when brainstorming an alternate presentation for ESPN, with someone just tossing the idea into the conversation. Spike adds, “We looked into it, and there’s research to prove how powerful the Toy Story brand is with a lot of different age groups. It just resonates with everybody, so it was a great property to use.” As such, such a beloved IP isn’t as ripe for placing into experimental events, with such a large, multi-generational fan base.
“We have two IPs, Toy Story and the NFL, and we have to be respectful of both of them,” according to Spike. “And that’s the balancing act, right?…[Pixar Animation Studios] told us what we can and can’t do. They’ve supplied us with some elements to get us started. The ESPN Creative Studio animation team is doing all of the animating past the stuff they gave us. Pixar gave us clips in a tool kit, and then we took those clips and said, “OK, Woody and Jessie are dancing. When would that happen in the game? Oh, on the sidelines after a touchdown!” So, then we had to build the correct background and put them in the correct environment. After a team scores a touchdown, we can cut to that clip, and it looks like because of the touchdown, Woody and Jessie are dancing on the sidelines. That’s sort of the magic behind it. We’re also doing the Duke Kaboom daredevil spectacular at Halftime—which is a brainchild of our group—and Pixar loved the idea. Even though we’re animating the entire piece, we got to work with the animator who actually did the animation for the movie [2019’s Toy Story 4]. It’s been a great collaboration overall. We want to be respectful of their IP.”
Those who watched both also noticed a bit of a difference in terms of character voices. During Toy Story Funday Football, nearly all character appearances were just of the character. In the NHL Big City Greens Classic, there was direct involvement with the creators of the show, Shane and Chris Houghton, as well as actress Marieve Herington. With their help, characters from the series were brought to life and even took the place of actual players in the game. Though that may be a slight difference between the two, there is sure to be lots more to compare these events to, as ESPN alternate presentations are seemingly here to stay.
Spike explains, “Alternative broadcasts are a great way for audience expansion. The world has changed a lot, and people have a lot of different things going on. Traditional sports games are still super compelling, but how do you reach the casual fan? After Big City Greens, I had so many people say, “My kid would never sit down and watch hockey, but because of how you presented it, they sat there for the whole game.” That’s the way the world is going. To be relative and to continue to expand our audience, we need to find new ways in. These alternate presentations are great.”
As for future events, “A lot of sports are interested in doing this,” Spike says. “With the NHL, we scratched the surface a little bit; it opened a lot of people’s eyes. The difference is the NHL one was a little bit more under the radar for us. I think once everybody saw that, it was like, “Oh! This is pretty cool.” Now it’s like, “OK, how can we expand this out?” These aren’t easy to do. It’s a lot of work and they’re time consuming; a lot goes into it. The bigger the hype, the bigger the sport, are more challenges to overcome. But I think the plan is to try and do these on a regular basis where they make sense and where they can make the most impact.”
After a bit of technical difficulties early on in the broadcast, many fans seemed to truly enjoy Toy Story Funday Football. You can read more about the event itself in our post here.