Disney, ESPN and Beyond Sports bring back Dunk The Halls, adding Stitch this time

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Dunk The Halls is back, with a Stitch focus

Last month saw the news that ESPN parent Disney had signed an expanded deal with Sony's Beyond Sports for more real-time animated altcasts, including NFL, NBA, NHL, and WNBA broadcasts in the 2025-26 season. The first one announced under that deal was a Monsters Inc.-themed NFL altcast on Dec. 8, following past Toy Story and Simpsons-themed altcasts in that sport. Disney, ESPN, and Beyond Sports have now announced their next planned altcast, a return of Dunk The Halls for the noon Eastern Christmas Day clash between the New York Knicks and Cleveland Cavaliers. It will air on ESPN2, Disney+, Disney Channel, Disney XD and the ESPN App, with the traditional broadcast available on ABC, ESPN, Disney+, and the ESPN App. Here's a promo they released for it Tuesday:

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I covered Dunk The Halls' first incarnation in advance last year, and there are a lot of similarities in this year's edition. It will again feature an animated version of Main Street USA at Walt Disney World, and returning Disney Animation characters including Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, Pluto and Chip and Dale. Characters will again sub in for NBA players at crucial points in the game, with Donald Duck particularly starring as the Knicks' Mikael Bridges last year. But there's a big addition this time, famed blue alien Stitch. Here's more on that from ESPN's release:

Stitch (who has appeared in many more things than you might think; beyond the original 2002 animated Lilo and Stitch and this year's live-action animated remake, there are three other films, an American animated series, a Japanese anime series, and a Chinese animated series) is an interesting addition to this project. And part of that is the character's incredible worldwide popularity, especially in merchandise. As Sherwood's Max Knoblauch noted this week, Disney's Consumer Products division expects to hit $4 billion in Stitch product sales alone this year, up from $2.6 billion last year, and similar to what Harley-Davidson gets from sales of motorcycles, parts and accessories, and apparel. So featuring this character more on their broadcasts, especially broadcasts particularly aimed at younger audiences, certainly can't hurt. (And Disney is well aware of the potential in combining merchandise with broadcasting; in addition to all their own successes there over the years, they also famously bought Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion in 2012, an empire created by George Lucas giving back $500,000 of his directorial paycheck in order to keep merchandising rights, which had led to $20 billion in merchandise sales by 2012).

As I wrote around the Monsters Inc. announcement, while some older sports fans have poo-poohed these animated altcasts, leagues and broadcasters believe they have tremendous potential to capture audiences they're not currently reaching with standard telecasts, especially kids and families. And that goes even further with the recent waves of these telecasts actually inserting these animated characters into the game. As we saw with last year's Dunk The Halls and Simpsons efforts, that creates not just excitement for the kids already watching, but leads to viral clips that drive huge social media traffic. Ahead of last year's Dunk The Halls, ESPN VP (production) Phil Orlins had some notable comments on that on a conference call I attended:

There remain technical challenges with that, of course. As of last year's Simpsons and Dunk The Halls broadcasts, the animated feed was about a minute behind the live action; that allows for substituting characters when a player is about to be involved in a big play, but can lead to spoilers if people are watching this while also checking social media. (However, given that the target audience here is kids and families, this probably isn't a major concern for the broadcasters.) And there still are times where these feeds hit some hiccups.

But given the amount of effort and money it takes to do these altcasts, it's significant that companies continue to double down on them. They're clearly seeing some notable results from their investments so far, and reaching some audiences that might not typically consume a live sports game. (And it's worth noting that each of these broadcasts not only builds on what's come before technologically, making them a little easier each time, but also creates technology innovations ESPN can work into non-animated broadcasts.) And a Christmas Day altcast (especially so early in the day, starting an hour before the kickoff of the first NFL game) has some further merit beyond the norm in trying to bring in families, as does adding an incredibly-popular character like Stitch. We'll see how this one works out for Disney, ESPN, and Beyond Sports, but the resources devoted to this are another indication of the importance they're placing on this animated altcast approach.