NFl Toy Story funday football
01.
Objective
Building on the success of Big City Greens Classic, ESPN, together with the NFL, partnered with us to produce a live alternative broadcast with two primary fan engagement goals: attracting new fans to American football through an IP-driven experience, and cultivating a multi-generational fan base. To achieve these goals, the broadcast needed to deliver a seamless viewing experience with enhanced visuals that differed from previous broadcasts. This required a technical innovation: combining two data streams (single-point and limb tracking data) from separate data tracking providers for the first time.
02.
The solution
In 2023, Beyond Sports delivered NFL Toy Story Funday Football, a live animated alternate broadcast for the London-based Atlanta Falcons vs. Jacksonville Jaguars NFL game. To capture the charm of the beloved Pixar franchise, we built a fully bespoke 3D environment that mirrored the iconic setting of Andy’s bedroom floor, complete with fan-favorite characters and playful props woven into the broadcast.
Blending storytelling with technology, we used Toy Story narratives to add context to in-game action, making the experience fun and accessible for younger viewers, families and Disney fans. For the first time ever, we combined two data streams, merging Hawk-Eye Innovations’ limb-tracking with the NFL’s NGS single-point tracking data, using AI and real-time animation to generate high-quality character movements and dynamic, never-seen-before camera angles. The result: a visually rich, immersive broadcast that redefined how sports and media can come together.
03.
Impact
NFL Toy Story Football Funday was a record breaking event, establishing itself as Disney+'s largest live event on both on ESPN+ and Disney+. It became an overnight online sensation, captivating over 140 million social media views within 24 hours. Beyond Sports’s merging of two data streams was crucial for the broadcast’s success, setting the standard for future NFL projects such as The Simpsons Funday Football which followed in 2024. The broadcast received global recognition, winning three Sports Emmys for The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award, Outstanding Graphic Design and Outstanding Studio & Production Design/Art Direction.
