Mike McCarthy as a Homer Simpson avatar is no longer something fans of the NFL and “The Simpsons” no longer have to imagine.
Welcome to 2024 and this battle of the streaming wars, as Disney and ESPN unveil its most alternative alt-cast for ‘Monday Night Football’ as the Dallas Cowboys host the Cincinnati Bengals.
“We were just so lucky also that the Cowboys are sort of like a Homer Simpson-type team, American team, and Mike McCarthy might be a Homer-type guy, one might imagine,” “The Simpsons” showrunner Matt Selman said on a conference call last week. “And then you have Joe Burrow on the other side who is a cool young, spiky-haired, blonde bad boy – he’s like Bart. And that fits our character archetypes so perfectly.”
Monday night’s Bengals-Cowboys game will undergo a virtual, three-dimension animated makeover in the style of a Homer vs. Bart showdown as “The Simpsons Funday Football” streams on Disney+ and ESPN+ across the world.
Here’s what to expect from the alt-cast and how Disney pulled off the high-tech project.
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‘The Simpsons’ and the NFL: A natural fit
Atoms Stadium in Springfield – not AT&T Stadium in Texas – will be the site of the alt-cast. That’s just one of the references viewers can expect.
The stream will feature more than 30 original ‘Simpsons’ characters, as writers wrote material for myriad circumstances for ESPN’s creative studio to approve for potential use. There will be at least seven minutes of new, original “Simpsons” content. Voice actors from the show, such as Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright, offered their talents for the skits.
Homer and Bart will rally characters to their respective side throughout the night. Marge will ask animated Bengals and Cowboys players questions in typical Marge fashion. Duff’s blimp will be a jumbotron in the sky.
“I think what we’ve been working with the ESPN and ‘Simpsons’ team on is also thinking about ways that we can make sure that we’re giving a nod to those different viewers that are tuning in from around the world,” NFL vice president for media strategy and business development Grace Senko said.
But ‘The Simpsons’ and an NFL game have one similarity that is the most useful connective thread: narrative.
“Football narratives dominate the American mindscape in a way like nothing else … That is in this game. It is about story. It is about narrative. It’s the spirit of football and it’s the spirit of the Simpsons. Whoever (the NFL) partner(s) with next, I think you can’t do it this good. I hate to be negative. I just don’t know how you’re going to top this. I don’t know. Maybe you should just quit. Maybe this should be the last one. Should we announce that?” Selman said facetiously.
And there will be some of that sarcasm in the stream. Even the “shield” of the NFL is within bounds. But don’t expect anything too over-the-top.
“We didn’t go maximum edgy for this, right? It’s not maximum edge, but there is a sense of playfulness and spoofiness of the NFL that the NFL was unbelievably cool with,” Selman said. “That I think where we’re having fun with the tropes of football and the cliches of football and making fun of the family-watching football experience in a way that these other shows wouldn’t really be able to do because they’re not – they don’t have satirical DNA.”
Why ESPN likes animated alt-cast collaborations with ‘Toy Story’ and ‘The Simpsons’
The goal for ESPN in providing an alt-cast is simple: attract a wider audience, preferably younger, and determine whether the resources devoted to the project can help turn young adults into more traditional sports fans.
“SpongeBob SquarePants” has done alt-casts for the Super Bowl under the Paramount umbrella. Last year, the NFL and Disney first partnered on an animated alt-cast with a “Toy Story” version for a Week 4 international game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons.
Disney was the right partner because of the varied and high-quality intellectual property the company owns, NFL Media executive vice president and chief operating officer Hans Schroeder said.
“They could tell stories to hundreds of different audiences,” Schroder said.
The wide reach and longevity of “The Simpsons” – on the air for 36 seasons since 1989 – made the show a fit for this type of alt-cast; additionally, the stream will be available in more than 145 countries, ESPN said.
“It’s such a big, broad audience that ‘The Simpsons’ speak to and bring in, as does the NFL, again, not only here domestically but globally,” said Schroeder.
And like Selman said, the NFL wants to tell unique stories every week. High-tech and creative partners make that goal attainable, and an alt-cast is one vehicle to pull it off.
“ESPN really has led the way with what they did with the ‘ManningCast’ as one of the truly unique, innovative alternative broadcasts, but we’ve seen other partners add to that now. We have ‘Prime Vision’ with Amazon, which is a great way to tell the really football-focused fan a more insightful view. We did ‘Toy Story’ last year.”
AI technology makes ‘The Simpsons’ alt-cast possible … and more realistic
The magic is done by Beyond Sports, an AI-based visualization company, working with ESPN and Disney to bring the characters to life in the environment of a NFL game.
Beyond Sports co-founder and chief technology officer Nico Westerhof said the foundations for the 3-D simulation come from two data sources: positional tracking data (provided by Next Gen Stats) and skeletal data tracking from Sony’s Hawk-Eye trackers.
The positional tracking data comes from a stable feed in each player’s shoulder pads. But that is simply where the player and ball are on the field. The skeletal data is provided by 29 points per player so the animation looks a lot more like an actual character’s movement.
“This is where it really becomes a special experience, ‘ Westerhof said.
Sony owns Beyond Sports, and Sony and the NFL began a technology partnership this summer.
“What we do at Beyond Sports is combine those two and take the best of both worlds so we deliver an experience to the viewer that is true to the action on the field,” Westerhof said.
Data processing helps the special ‘Simpsons’ characters fit seamlessly into the animation. It would allow a character like Lisa to catch the ball exactly in her hands, even though it would go over her head had the proper data processing not been created by Westerhof’s team.
“For the viewer it still looks believable,” Westerhof said, “and it all makes sense.”
Broadcasters for ‘Simpsons’ alt-cast will be immersed in tech
Play-by-play announcer Drew Carter and analysts Mina Kimes and Dan Orlovsky will specifically call the alt-cast. The trio have ‘Simpsons’ avatars, as do other ESPN personalities such as the Manning brothers and Stephen A. Smith.
They will be wearing a virtual-reality headset to transport them to virtual Springfield for which they are describing.
“We will actually be able to see them in the virtual world and occupy (them) occupying the virtual world even to the point where they can go onto the field and be amongst the players,” Westerhof said.