The Toy Story broadcast with Slinky Dog as the chains. The Toy Story broadcast with Slinky Dog as the chains.
ESPNNFLBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Sunday’s international NFL game from London, featuring the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars, has its main broadcast on ESPN+ (plus local stations in the team’s home markets). But it also has another alternate broadcast on ESPN+, the Toy Story Funday Football broadcast. And that one drew a lot of attention Sunday, from a look at broadcasters Drew Carter and Booger McFarland’s motion-capture setup through a number of highlights:

But it also hit some technical difficulties:

Overall, the first quarter of the broadcast received some very positive reviews, but also a few less positive ones.

All in all, though, this certainly seemed to draw positive reviews from people watching with kids, despite some of the technical challenges. And that’s the main thing ESPN is going for here (and helps differentiate this from other themed broadcasts), and may help bring in a new audience.

And ESPN is definitely putting a lot of resources into this particular alternate feed. And it’s generating a lot of discussion, with even SportsCenter anchors Gary Striewski and Randy Scott dressing up as Buzz Lightyear and Sheriff Woody Pride for a segment on that show Sunday morning. We’ll see how the broadcast winds up being received overall and if this is something we see more of down the road, but it definitely got people talking.

[Image from @highlightheaven on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz