What Does It Take To Turn A Live NFL Game Into An Animated Alt-Cast?

Go inside the tracking technology, 3D animation, and split-second production decisions behind ESPN’s live broadcasts in this exclusive interview with the creators

Animated alt-casts transform live NFL action into a real-time character-driven experience by combining player-tracking data, 3D character models, and a fast-moving broadcast team. In this exclusive interview, ESPN’s Michael ‘Spike’ Szykowny and David ‘Sparky’ Sparrgrove explain how the technology, storytelling and live production process come together.

Animated NFL Alt-Casts Explained

An alt-cast, short for alternate telecast, presents a live NFL game through a different creative or technical filter so that it looks like some of your favorite characters are playing the game in their world.

How are animated NFL alt-casts made?

Animated alt-casts combine player-tracking data, optical tracking, 3D animation, and live broadcast production. Each on-field player wears a device that generates “player tracking data” that feeds NFL Next Gen Stats into Sony’s Beyond Sports engine and Sony’s Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking. This special technology is used to create the animated action shown during an alt-cast, rebuilding each throw, route, block, kick, and tackle in real time. The system even syncs the commentators’ booth calls to their animated avatars, thanks to a virtual-reality setup that lets them watch through headsets as they work. Our interview below explains how the team turns that data into a coherent animated world while responding to the game as it unfolds.

Exclusive Interview: How Animated NFL Alt-Casts Are Made

For a deeper look at how animated NFL alt-casts come together, we spoke with two of the brains behind the operation, Michael "Spike" Szykowny, VP of Creative Animation and David "Sparky" Sparrgrove, Sr. Director of Creative Animation, both of ESPN.

What makes an animated alt-cast different from a standard sports broadcast?

Spike: What makes it unique is that there’s a real NFL football game happening and we use tracking technology to [bring that game to life in animation]. We can’t change the outcome of the game, nor do we want to. We need to represent the game as accurately as possible.

What makes it fun is knowing that it has to be the same. Once we find the right [characters and world], we create new secondary storylines and bring out the magic.

We’re creating animated moments that people enjoy on the fly, so that’s the challenge and it’s a lot of fun.

We’ve done Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story, and The Simpsons alt-cast games, now we’re on to Disney and Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. What made it feel like the right world to jump into for this year’s Funday Football?

Spike: We had a bunch of ideas on the table and Monsters, Inc. just felt [right]. It’s iconic, people haven’t seen it out in the world in a while, it’s magical, and it stretches across generations. That’s what drew us to it. Wow, Mike, Sulley, and Roz, what could be better than that?

When we started working on it, everything we did made us smile, and if it makes us smile, it’s going to make everybody smile. 

Sparky: There’s a nostalgic element with Toy Story, and Monsters, Inc. is the same way. [It was Pixar’s] third animated feature when they really started to build steam. 

Spike: We love working with the Pixar people, we gel. Toy Story was such a huge hit, [so] partnering with them again and doing something else iconic in the Pixar world [felt] comfortable.

The game is “powered by” the NFL’s Next Gen Stats and Sony’s Beyond Sports / Hawk-Eye technology. How does tracking data come to life as an animated world?

Sparky: NFL’s Next Gen Stats track players through a chip in the jerseys and ball that [tells us] where those objects are on the field. Beyond Sports has cameras around the stadium to triangulate the position of the players’ arms, legs, and bodies; it's called skeletal tracking.

What you get is a little skeleton that represents a player, and that information can be applied to a 3D character, like an [animated] NFL player, Mike, or Sulley.

That’s the real power and excitement, when an NFL player does something in the real game, that same motion drives the characters in the alternative broadcast. They can take live data and translate it very quickly, it’s pretty amazing. 

What are other Disney characters and movies you’d love to see in an alt-cast? What other sports could be fun?

Spike: Disney has the biggest cavalcade [of characters], there’s so much to choose from, it’s almost endless. We’re only bound by our imaginations. 

Sparky: We can be very deliberate with our choices because there are so many.

Spike: The sports we’ve done so far are basketball, football, and hockey. Soccer works, we just haven’t tried it yet. [The tracking] limits what you can do with some sports. 

From an animation standpoint, what are the most challenging and rewarding things to bring to life in real time?

Sparky: If it’s challenging, it’s rewarding when you overcome obstacles.

Speaking for the animation team, one of the most challenging things is being true to how the characters are represented.

In this case, we’re bringing Mike, Sulley, and Roz to life, so that’s something we take to heart. Once we get approval from Pixar on the animation and they [say], that’s a really good representation of our characters, that feedback is the reward the animators really enjoy getting. 

Take us behind the scenes, are there any interesting pivots that can be made on the fly, when you’re live in the game?

Sparky: There are technical things with quality or tracking that can happen. For in-game pivots, you cut away to another camera shot or roll a pre-animated piece. That’s very much like a normal game. We’re incredibly well-prepared going in, so by the time the broadcast happens, the changes are really mitigated. 

Spike: We do this on a delay for a number of reasons. What people most enjoy is characters being in the game.

We know what play is up next, we’ve seen it. Someone will say, there’s a touchdown coming up, that allows us to put in characters.

The Simpsons is the perfect example, we built up adults vs. kids the whole game. The Bengals were driving, and on one of the last plays, they [made] a touchdown to go ahead. We were able to quickly insert Bart as the quarterback, Lisa as the wide receiver, and Homer as the cornerback guarding Lisa. They threw the touchdown pass, Lisa beat Homer, and sealed the storyline that the kids triumphed over the adults. That happens in under a minute, we make choices, and boom, the play runs.

Sparky: That’s a really good behind the scenes example. Not everyone realizes it, even though the game is the game, we can work the storyline. Great point, Spike. 

Spike: Sparky and I aren’t making all these decisions, there’s an amazing production team, a game producer Andy Jacobson and a director (Jeff Nelson), and an Executive Producer (Phil Orlins) putting players into the game when it is warranted.

Our production team is fantastic; we work so well in concert with each other.

Normally when you do a game, you have a producer and a director, it’s just the two of them. For this game, there’s a director (Jeff Nelson), his game-cutting technical director from Beyond Sports (Suman Vinas), the overall show technical director (Aaron Bedenbaugh) who’s making sure all the football elements get in. On the other side of the director, there’s me weaving in secondary storylines by rolling in animations created by the ESPN Creative Studio. Our director, at least on the football ones, has been Jeff Nelson. Everybody’s yelling at him, do this, put this in, it’s organized chaos…

Sparky: It is chaos!

Spike: …in the best way possible. You have to be there to see it work, but it’s like a chaotic symphony. We know how to stay out of each other’s way, yet we’re all next to each other, doing our thing. It’s one of the most rewarding production experiences I’ve been part of, it’s very unique.  

The monster-fied football game includes iconic Monsters, Inc. elements: the Cheer Floor, Cheer Canisters, and hovering bedroom doors above the field. How did you decide which details and characters to bring in?

Spike: When we started concepting, we were like wait, monsters fear adults, this might not even work! So we [talked with] the Pixar people: the Scare Floor turned into the Laugh Floor, and if we go a step further, why couldn’t it be a Cheer Floor where cheering powers things? Now [adults and monsters] could co-exist with cheering, you work through stuff like that.

Sparky: Necessity is the mother of invention sometimes. There are characters we wanted to have, but they’ve got eight crab legs or four arms, and those can’t be tracked or they’re difficult to animate, so decisions are made for us. Once we figured out what the storyline was, [we discussed the] environment. Pixar gave us Scare Floor 3D models from the movie that we put together into this new stadium in Monstropolis. A lot of times, one thing leads to another and the animator who [designed] the Cheer Floor said, what if we add this big canister in the corner? Then Spike said, that could be “The Canister Club” because every stadium has a VIP area.

Spike: Yeah, an exclusive club to hang out in for monsters!

Sparky: Things build on each other, Pixar [does] their part, it’s collaborative. Some things fall to the edit floor and others go forward.

Spike: As Sparky said, you start to ideate, it starts to build. We wanted to have a Gatorade bath, but it should look like a monster-fied bucket, not a regular [one]. Everything had to feel like it was monster-fied, we worked with Pixar on all that. It’s a lot of fun once you get going, it really is.

What do you hope families take away from animated sports alt-casts?

Spike: The coolest thing we see on social is a parent sitting with a kid and they’re watching together. A lot of times we’ll [hear], my son wouldn’t watch football at all, now he’s glued to the TV the entire time. Those are the things that touch you, and we go wow, we’re doing something cool here. To me, that’s the “Funday” in Monsters Funday Football. Sparky what do you think?  

Sparky: I was going to say the exact same thing, but I’ll add, these are also educational. We have minute-long-ish things called “Explained” that explain parts of a football game. What’s a Pick Six? What’s a Celebration Dance? The core aspects of football not every kid knows. Along with co-viewing, if people had fun, enjoyed something they [haven’t] experienced before, and learned something, we’re batting 1,000. 

Spike: Sparky keeps mentioning the nostalgia, that is so huge. If you think of the [stories] we picked, like Toy Story, Monsters, Inc., The Simpsons, and Dunk The Halls with Mickey and Friends, it’s not only kids that love them, but parents remember when they first saw [the movies] or [met] Mickey Mouse.

That’s the beauty of these things. Even though they feel like they’re geared toward a younger audience, we try to make sure everybody can sit together and enjoy the experience.

About The Monsters Funday Football Alt-Cast Featured In This Interview

Our interview originally accompanied the Monsters Funday Football alt-cast. The event serves as a case study for the creative and technical process Spike and Sparky explored.

Which teams played in Monsters Funday Football 2025?

The 2025 Monsters Funday Football alt-cast featured a matchup between the defending Super Bowl Champions, Philadelphia Eagles and the Los Angeles Chargers. Each player appeared as an animated version of themselves in real time on the field in Monstropolis, mirroring the live action from SoFi Stadium.

When did Monsters Funday Football 2025 air?

The Monsters Funday Football game aired live on Monday, December 8, 2025 on Disney+.

Which Monsters, Inc. characters appeared in the 2025 NFL Funday Football game?

Mike Wazowski

Mike Wazowski, voiced again by Billy Crystal, suited up alongside the Eagles.

Sulley (aka James P. Sullivan)

James P. “Sulley” Sullivan, brought to life once again by John Goodman, anchored the Chargers’ animated lineup.

Roz

“Always watching,” Roz, voiced again by Bob Peterson, slithered into the sideline-reporter role.

What else appeared in Monsters Funday Football?

The Child Detection Agency monitored the crowd and the game for more fan-favorite characters. Mike and Sulley competed to collect the crowd’s cheers in Cheer Canisters, similar to Scream Canisters. At the end of the night, one player became the Cheer Champion.

Which other animated alt-casts have ESPN, Disney, and the NFL created?

The collaboration extends beyond Monstropolis with each production transforming a different familiar world into a football setting.

The Simpsons Funday Football 2024

Springfield’s Atoms Stadium hosted the Dallas Cowboys and Cincinnati Bengals in a presentation that scored multiple Sports Emmy® nominations.

Toy Story Funday Football 2023

The alt-cast that started it all, featuring the Atlanta Falcons, the Jacksonville Jaguars, and everyone’s favorite Disney and Pixar’s Toy Story characters, earned three Sports Emmys® for Production Design, Technical Achievement, and Graphic Design.

Head to NFL.com for everything football.

Watch More From Monsters Funday Football