ESPN Teases Look for Dunk the Halls' NBA Animated Altcast With New Player Animations ESPN offers a first-look at San Antonio Spurs stars Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama, New York Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 12, 2024 - 9:52 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
In advance of its Dunk the Halls animated broadcast of the San Antonio Spurs vs. New York Knicks game on Christmas Day, ESPN has unveiled its next set of visual assets, including the first-look at Spurs stars Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama and Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Disney, ESPN, and the NBA are teaming up to present Dunk the Halls, a real-time animated broadcast of the Spurs-Knicks matchup on Christmas Day. The virtual, live re-creation of the game will leverage Sony's Beyond Sports technology. Set on iconic Main Street, USA in Magic Kingdom Park, Dunk the Halls will be presented on ESPN2, Disney , and ESPN . The special alt-cast marks the first animated presentation of an NBA game and the first NBA game to stream on Disney .
Dunk the Halls is the latest chapter in Disney and ESPN's real-time animated-broadcast effort. ESPN recently announced that, on Dec. 9, it will produce an animated, real-time alt-cast, titled The Simpsons Funday Football and streaming on Disney and ESPN , for Monday Night Football. Other animated alt-casts include Toy Story Funday Football in September 2023 and editions of the NHL Big City Greens Classic in both March 2023 and March 2024. Dunk the Hall will be the first animated alt-cast in a sports without helmets, thereby requiring more facial details than previous efforts that primarily utilized generic player animations.
Each Spurs and Knicks player will appear as a motion-enabled, animated player for the special Christmas matchup. Real-time visualization technology enabled by Sony's Beyond Sports, combined with Sony's Hawk-Eye Innovations' optical tracking, will enable fans watching Dunk the Halls to see all the action from the game at Madison Square Garden as it happens.
In addition, ESPN has released the official explainer video for Dunk the Halls:
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
02/05/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
01/05/2026
January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...
01/04/2026
January 4 2026, 18:00 (PST) DOLBY AND DOUYIN EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATON OF CREATORS WITH DOLBY VISION
Douyin Users Can Now Create And Share Videos With Stun...
17/02/2026
As the FCC explores a potential clawback of Upper C-Band spectrum currently used for broadcast distribution, BCNEXXT is working with broadcasters and operators ...
17/02/2026
Celebrating 21 Years of the RT Choice Music Prize
RT Choice Music Prize
In association with IMRO and IRMA
Classic Irish Album
And the winning album is
T...
17/02/2026
RT has today announced that as part of its public-service remit, it will expand...
16/02/2026
The production infrastructure scaled seamlessly from regular-season games to the...
16/02/2026
The operations team reimagined traditional workflows were reimagined and built a...
16/02/2026
Once again an in-house operation, the league's network is producing shows fr...
16/02/2026
The league is producing its first All-Star with NBC, Intuit Dome, and, once agai...
16/02/2026
When a customer in London needed a 4K video wall that could take 12G input, the media company found no video wall suppliers that could meet their specs and time...
16/02/2026
Grass Valley, a media and entertainment technology innovator, has won a competitive NATO-wide tender to provide the new camera system for NATO's main broadc...
16/02/2026
Comcast Business announces it is again partnering with NBCUniversal to architect and manage critical components of the linear and digital broadcast for three of...
16/02/2026
Week two of the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics are underway and crucial to the NBC Sports efforts has been the NEP Group which is providing a full range of...
16/02/2026
The Film Independent Spirit Awards have officially switched things up. This Sund...
16/02/2026
SBS's Powerhouse Current Affairs Line-up is Back with the Conversations and ...
16/02/2026
A THAAD interceptor is launched during a successful Missile Defense Agency intercept test (Photo Credit: Missile Defense Agency)...
16/02/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, is increasing capacity and ramping up p...
16/02/2026
Content Vault, the patent-pending content security platform originally developed for the film, television and entertainment industries, has today announced a ma...
16/02/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Releases the Second Season of Gangs of Galicia on April 3
Entertainment
16 February 2026
GlobalSpain
Link copied to clipboard
Wat...
16/02/2026
Back to All News
"Unscripted" Producer MEGUMI Signs Exclusive Partnership with Netflix
Entertainment
16 February 2026
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboard
...
16/02/2026
RT News & Current Affairs has today announced the new appointments of journalis...
16/02/2026
The NVIDIA Blackwell platform has been widely adopted by leading inference provi...
15/02/2026
With new partnership between the league and NBC, workflows distinguish more between live, broadcast sound
There'll be a lot new for the 75th NBA All-Star W...
15/02/2026
After 24-year absence, NBC Sports returns to NBA All-Star Weekend with unique ca...
15/02/2026
New to NBA coverage, the viewer experience offers several angles in addition to ...
15/02/2026
Coverage features 4X-slo-mo Supracam and Steadicam, Nucleus 4K cameras, closer play-by-play angle, 10 player mics
NBC Sports is in the midst of its first NBA A...
14/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
14/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
14/02/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
14/02/2026
Boston Conservatory Orchestra Helps Peter and Leonardo Dugan Complete Their Dre...
13/02/2026
Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) has provided an update on its adoption of the cloud as it continues on its journey to fully migrate to IT-based systems by 2...
13/02/2026
France T l visions has successfully launched France 2 UHD featuring Dolby Vision...
13/02/2026
Partnering with Worldwide Olympic Partner TCL, OBS deploys connected Athlete Mom...
13/02/2026
The men's figure skating long-form program is tonight, and it promises to be an exciting night for fans in the stands, fans at home, and even the production...
13/02/2026
With new partnership between the league and NBC, workflows distinguish more between live, broadcast sound
There'll be a lot new for the 75th NBA All-Star W...
13/02/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level have one major thing in common: the intensity and attention to detail ramps up dur...
13/02/2026
Teradek announces the launch of RF-X Auto Switcher, a revolutionary appliance designed to deliver flawless, uncompromised signal integrity for the world's m...
13/02/2026
Globecast and Synamedia announces that Pitch International (Pitch), the leading London-based sports marketing agency, has gone live with cloud-based distributi...
13/02/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
13/02/2026
Far from the action in the snow and on the ice, the team controls the production...
13/02/2026
The Daytona 500 is called The Super Bowl of Racing for a reason. Whether it's the culmination to five days of action on the track, the sheer size and scop...
13/02/2026
For the Milano Cortina Games, Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) is delivering more than 6,500 hours of content, with more than 900 hours of live action, sprea...
13/02/2026
After 24-year absence, NBC Sports returns to NBA All-Star Weekend with unique ca...
13/02/2026
By Jessica Herndon
We may have just wrapped an unforgettable 2026 Sundance Film...
13/02/2026
By Jessica Herndon
One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Fest...
13/02/2026
This Wednesday in Los Angeles, Spotify brought together a group of podcast creat...
13/02/2026
Yesterday, Spotify and LoveShackFancy hosted a Galentine's and Gents Lunch a...
ESPN Teases Look for Dunk the Halls' NBA Animated Altcast With New Player Animations ESPN offers a first-look at San Antonio Spurs stars Chris Paul and Victor Wembanyama, New York Knicks stars Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. 
