Disney, ESPN, and the NBA are bringing back Dunk the Halls, the real-time animated NBA alt-cast, on Thursday, December 25 at noon ET. This year’s game will feature an Eastern Conference showdown at Madison Square Garden when the New York Knicks tip off against the Cleveland Cavaliers in a virtual Magic Kingdom Park setting.
The second edition of the animated broadcast will air live on ESPN2, Disney Channel, Disney XD and simulstreams available on Disney+, and the ESPN App. Fans who prefer the traditional hoops presentation can tune in to that telecast on ABC, ESPN, Disney+, and the ESPN app.
Featuring a real-time animated re-creation of live gameplay, the festive Disney-style alt-cast is the centerpiece of ESPN’s Christmas Day lineup. To bring the cartoon overlay to life, Dunk the Halls will use Sony’s Beyond Sports visualization and Hawk-Eye optical tracking. Each NBA player is motion-tracked and rendered as an animated version of themselves, so viewers see every dunk, pass and layup as it happens. However, they’ll be inside a fully animated Main Street, U.S.A. at Magic Kingdom Park, complete with snowfall, Cinderella’s Castle, and other jolly holiday surprises. By blending live sports data and immersive animation, the alt-cast is a complete 180 from your traditional TV Christmas Day broadcast.
The holiday spectacle will feature a range of legendary Disney characters, including Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy, Goofy, Pluto and Chip & Dale cheering courtside. Everyone’s favorite Experiment 626 is also joining the fun this year, with Stitch leading a Christmas Parade at halftime. The action off the court will also bring animated joy with Daisy Duck reporting sideline interviews, Santa’s elves as camera operators, and Santa piloting ESPN’s “SkyCam.”
This Christmas, the Dunk the Halls experiment is returning for Year 2, and you can stream an exciting blend of NBA live action and Disney’s blend of visual storytelling with ESPN Unlimited, DIRECTV, Fubo, Hulu + Live TV, Sling TV, Disney+, or YouTube TV.