Are You Ready for Some 'Toy Story' Football?

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Mark Jeffries

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Sep 12, 2023, 10:47:57 PM9/12/23
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on Sun. Oct. 1, while the Atlanta/Jacksonville NFL game from London televises on ESPN+ and the team markets OTA, a special live motion capture presentation on ESPN+ and Disney+ will present the game as it might be played by toys in the bedroom of Andy, the central home of the Pixar "Toy Story" series--your favorite "Toy Story" characters will all be present (but I don't think Tom Hanks or Tim Allen will be doing voices):


The above includes a promo for the show, beginning with the familiar Monday NIght Football theme.

Tom Wolper

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Sep 12, 2023, 11:01:46 PM9/12/23
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ESPN+ did this with an NHL game last season. They used some characters from a Disney+ series i never heard of (Meet the Greens, maybe) and I watched a few minutes of it. Doing a game this way might hold the attention of a child who would get bored watching the live game. The gimmick got tedious for me very quickly and I went back to the live game.

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David Bruggeman

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Sep 12, 2023, 11:57:19 PM9/12/23
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Didn't someone try to simulcast or simulate a football game with one of those electric football setups that was basically a small vibrating field?  No, I figured I was imagining it.

Seriously though, I'd last longer with a game played by the toys, especially if the Army men were the linesmen.  But I'm not in a position to add another streaming service, so I'll pass.

David

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M-D November

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Sep 14, 2023, 4:52:39 PM9/14/23
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“Big City Greens”. 

Tom Wolper

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Oct 1, 2023, 4:53:50 PM10/1/23
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I watched a few minutes of this presentation of the game this morning. It was more restrained than the NHL game. There might be something to doing an alternate stream of a game targeted at kids, especially as alcohol and gambling become a bigger part of the sport and its ads. The graphic part of showing Andy’s room rather than the stadium didn’t seem to add anything to me.

Adam Bowie

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Oct 1, 2023, 5:13:22 PM10/1/23
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I noticed on Disney+ (in the UK) a couple of hours ago as they were featuring it. So I spun to a random section to see how it sounded and was left unimpressed. I'm sure the tech that allowed them to capture the players' locations on the field in realtime, as well as identify the ball's location and animate the ball getting from A to B is all very impressive (although I'm sure teams have something similar available for tactical purposes). But the commentary seemed to be a regular one with no real changes made for the target audience.

It felt a bit like one of those YouTube channels where someone does their own commentary of a game to which they don't have the rights, and rustle up some graphics, all while fielding live comments. 

Surely, if you're really after getting kids into the game, you probably just need to show the real pictures but create alternative commentaries and features around the game? 

This feels like a solution in search of a problem.


Adam


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PGage

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Oct 1, 2023, 8:49:46 PM10/1/23
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I watched it for a while as well. It was a specialized commentary, aimed at children or people who did not understand much about gridiron football. This was the team that used to do MNF on ESPN (at least I recognized “Booger’s” voice.

While I was watching they said they were having technical difficulties that prevented them from showing field action for a bit. As you say when it returned it was kind of impressive from a technical perspective.

I am kind of glad it was not over the top “Slime Bowl!” (At least for the interval I watched), but it seemed like a half baked idea, not fully thought through. Surely there is something cool they could do with that tech, but they haven’t really found it yet.

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Kevin M.

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Oct 1, 2023, 9:29:07 PM10/1/23
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On Sun, Oct 1, 2023 at 5:49 PM PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
I watched it for a while as well. It was a specialized commentary, aimed at children or people who did not understand much about gridiron football. This was the team that used to do MNF on ESPN (at least I recognized “Booger’s” voice.

While I was watching they said they were having technical difficulties that prevented them from showing field action for a bit. As you say when it returned it was kind of impressive from a technical perspective.

I am kind of glad it was not over the top “Slime Bowl!” (At least for the interval I watched), but it seemed like a half baked idea, not fully thought through. Surely there is something cool they could do with that tech, but they haven’t really found it yet.

How about replacing the cyclists in Le Tour De France with the characters from Mario Kart?

Tom Wolper

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Oct 2, 2023, 2:41:10 PM10/2/23
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My guess is the technical people showed them what is possible and they’re trying to figure out what to do with it. The NHL game and this NFL game are experiments and they’re getting feedback which will tell them if they should continue.

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