NHL Big City Greens Classic Animated Broadcast Returns to ESPN in Spring 2024 ESPN Creative Studio and Production teams continue to innovate on a variety of initiatives By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S. Tuesday, November 14, 2023 - 2:49 pm
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The NHL, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and Beyond Sports are partnering together in early 2024 to bring the second edition of the NHL Big City Greens Classic alternative broadcast. ESPN's EVP of Creative Studio & Marketing Tina Thornton, made the announcement as part of the ESPN Edge Conference last week in New York City. The animated alt-cast will once again leverage NHL Edge tracking data Sony's Beyond Sports AI-based data-visualization platform to recreate the action on the ice in real time featuring Big City Greens characters skating alongside animated versions of the NHL players.
ESPN's EVP of Creative Studio & Marketing Tina Thornton (left) took the stage at the ESPN Edge Conference alongside Head of Event & Studio Production Dave Roberts and EVP of Executive Vice President, ESPN BET, Business Development and Sports Innovation Mark L. Walker.
Big City Greens is going to be coming back, which is amazing, Thornton said. We're excited to continue pushing that fan facing opportunity forward.
The first Big City Greens Classic production was spearheaded by ESPN Creative Studio in conjunction with ESPN Edge Innovation Center and NHL EDGE Innovation partners Verizon, Beyond Sports and Silver Spoon (which provided motion-captured animated versions of ESPN commentators).
The return of the NHL Big City Greens Classic comes on the heels of the success of ESPN and Disney's Toy Story Funday Football alt-cast on ESPN+ and Disney+, which was produced during the Atlanta Falcons vs. Jacksonville Jaguars matchup from London's Wembley Stadium last month.
[In terms of] collaboration, you also have to collaborate across Disney, Thornton added. We had to get permission to use Disney IP in a lot of these things, whether it was Big City Greens or Toy Story. To have Disney and Pixar trust us to use that brand and to take their assets and create that out of it was so special. And same goes from Big City Greens. That's really what collaboration is all about across the Walt Disney Company.
Thornton added that next year's NHL Big City Greens Classic is just the latest chapter in ESPN's long running history of alternate presentations. While much of the attention has been centered on Monday Night Football With Peyton and Eli in recent years, Thornton was careful to note that ESPN has been in the alt-cast business for the better part of two decades at this point.
If you think about alternate telecasts at ESPN, a lot of people think it started with ManningCast. No, it did not, said Thornton. We had our first alternate telecast back in 2006. It was called ESPN Full Circle, and it was the Duke-Carolina game in which we put different looks of that game on different linear platforms. And then that later turned into the Megacast and it continued to evolve And then all of a sudden we got into this volumetric business where we're taking chips and putting them in players and we're able to transition that to an animated world.
Thornton was joined on stage at the ESPN Edge Conference by Head of Event & Studio Production Dave Roberts and EVP of Executive Vice President, ESPN BET, Business Development and Sports Innovation Mark L. Walker to discuss Innovation Across ESPN Creative Studio and Marketing & Production and Talent Integration. Other key innovation initiatives on the discussion docket included ESPN's powerhouse daytime lineup headlined by the recent addition of The Pat McAfee Show, the new NBA In-Season Tournament, the launch of ESPN Bet, and First Take's HBCU Homecoming on-site shows last month.
The Daytime Murderers Row: Get Up, First Take and McAfee Roberts stressed that ESPN's daytime lineup - which now features a six-hour block of Get Up with Mike Greenberg, First Take with Stephen A. Smith and The Pat McAfee Show weekdays from 8 a.m. - 2 p.m. ET - is focused not only delivering the latest news and opinions to fans, but also having fun. He also addressed how this programming is resonating with sports fans beyond linear television.
What you have in the morning with Greeny, Stephen A, and McAfee is distinctive content and distinctive personalities who will translate not just on the linear platforms, but the innovation that happens on all the other platforms. And I can tell you that our YouTube numbers are through the roof. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but they set records every single month. And the reason why they do that is because of the innovation through distinctive content created by unique personalities. And that's the key.
NBA In-Season Tournament Ripe for Innovation' Roberts also expresssed plenty of excitement around the Inaugural NBA In-Season Tournmanet, which tipped off earlier this month and has seen viewership on ESPN go up 55% vs. the comparable windows last season (1.7M average viewers vs. 1.09M average viewers).
You're going to see unique courts at every city, you're going to see access unlike any other, and you're going to see all the players on the court committed to winning a half million dollars per person to win this championship, said Roberts. And ESPN is going to lead the way with the coverage for the next month. That's a clean slate that is ripe for innovation and big ideas.
First Take kicked off the first week of November with back-to-back roadshows at two HBCUs with a special connection to the show. First Take's HBCU Homecoming on-site shows brought iconic alums Smith and Pro Football Hall of Famer Shannon Sharpe back to their alma maters, Winston-S
