The 2023 NFL season is finally underway and pretty soon, the annual batch of international games will begin. The Week 4 matchup between the Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars will take place at Wembley Stadium in London on Sunday, October 1 at 9:30 a.m. ET and one of the alternate broadcasts will have an interesting twist.
It was announced today that there will be an alternate broadcast on both ESPN+ and Disney+ where the action will be re-animated from the room of Andy from the legendary franchise Toy Story. Wait, what?
Toy Story ESPN
— ESPN (@espn) September 11, 2023
When the Falcons and Jaguars face off in London on Oct. 1, an alt broadcast on Disney+ and ESPN+ will be fully animated in real time from Andy’s room. pic.twitter.com/S13cCoHNar
Ok, so how this will work is that the players for both the Falcons and Jags will be converted into animation style football players within the Toy Story world. The action of the game will be recreated through tracking technology like NFL Next Gen Stats and Beyond Sports. Characters from the series like Woody, Buzz Lightyear, Jesse, Rex, and others will make appearances during the game, adding to the Toy Story feel.
ESPN tried this out with the NHL this past March, with a matchup between the Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers being converted into the Big City Greens Classic.
Similar to what it has done with its Nickelodeon broadcasts in recent years, the NFL is trying to reach a younger audience and this broadcast will even feature explainer segments to teach the game to children watching. We’ll see how much of a success this turns out to be come October.