NEW YORK (AP) — There's a Christmas Day basketball game at Walt Disney World, featuring Mickey, Minnie, Goofy and Wemby.
An animated game, anyway.
The real game takes place at Madison Square Garden, where Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs face the New York Knicks in a game televised on ABC and ESPN and streamed on Disney+ and ESPN+. The special alt-cast, the first animated presentation of an NBA game, will be shown on ESPN2 and also stream on Disney+ and ESPN+.
Madison Square Garden is a staple of the NBA's Christmas schedule. Now it merges with a bigger home of the holidays, because the “Dunk the Halls” game will be staged at Disney, on a court set up right smack in the middle of where countless families have posed for vacation photos.
Why that location?
Because it was Mickey Mouse’s Christmas wish.
“Basketball courts often have the ability to make a normal environment look special, but in Disney it can only turn out incredible,” Wembanyama said in an ESPN video promoting his Christmas debut.
The story — this is Disney, after all — begins with Mickey penning a letter to Santa Claus, asking if he and his pals can host a basketball game. They'll not only get to watch one with NBA players, but some of them will even get to play. Goofy and Donald Duck will sub in for a couple Knicks players, while Mickey and Minnie Mouse will come on to play for the Spurs.
“It looks to me like Goofy and Jalen Brunson have a really good pick-and-roll at the elite level,” said Phil Orlins, an ESPN vice president of production.
Walt Disney World hosted real NBA games in 2020, when the league set up there to complete its season that had been suspended by the COVID-19 pandemic. Those games were played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports.
The setting for the Christmas game will be Main Street USA, at the entrance of the Magic Kingdom. Viewers will recognize Cinderella’s castle behind one baseline and the train station at the other end, and perhaps some shops they have visited in between.
Previous alternate animated broadcasts included an NFL game taking place in Andy's room from “Toy Story;” the “NHL Big City Greens Classic” during a game between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers; and earlier this month, another NFL matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and Dallas Cowboys also taking place at Springfield’s Atoms Stadium as part of “ The Simpsons Funday Football. ”
Unlike basketball, the players are helmeted in those sports. So, this telecast required an extra level of detail and cooperation with players and teams to create accurate appearances of their faces and hairstyles.
"So, this is a level of detail that we’ve never gone, that we’ve never done on any other broadcast," said David Sparrgrove, the senior director of creative animation for ESPN.
Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 phenom from France who was last season's NBA Rookie of the Year, looks huge even among most NBA players. The creators of the alternate telecast had to design how he'd look not only among his teammates and rivals, but among mice, ducks and chipmunks.
“Like, Victor Wembanyama, seeing him in person is insane. It’s like seeing an alien descend on a basketball court, and I think we kind of captured that in his animated character,” said Drew Carter, who will again handle play-by-play duties, as he had in the previous animated telecasts, and will get an assist from sideline reporter Daisy Duck.
Wembanyama's presence is one reason the Spurs-Knicks matchup, the leadoff to the NBA's five-game Christmas slate, was the obvious choice to do the animated telecast. The noon EST start means it will begin in the early evening in France and should draw well there. Also, it comes after ABC televises the “Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade” for the previous two hours, providing more time to hype the broadcast.
Recognizing that some viewers who then switch over to the animated game may be Disney experts but NBA novices, there will be 10 educational explainers to help with basketball lingo and rules.
Beyond Sports' visualization technology and Sony’s Hawk-Eye tracking allow the animated players to make the same movements and plays made moments earlier by the real ones at MSG. Carter and analyst Monica McNutt will be animated in the style of the telecast, donning VR headsets to experience the game from Main Street, USA.
Other animated faces recognizable to some viewers include NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who will judge a halftime dunk contest among Mickey and his friends, and Santa himself, who will operate ESPN’s “SkyCam” during the game.
The players are curious how the production — and themselves — will look.
“It’s going to be so crazy to see the game animated,” Spurs veteran Chris Paul said. “I think what’s dope about it is it will give kids another opportunity to watch a game and to see us, basically, as characters.”
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This illustration released by ESPN shows from left, San Antonio Spurs' Chris Paul (3), Victor Wembanyama (1), and New York Knicks' Karl-Anthony Towns (32) and Jalen Brunson (11), before an animated Christmas Day basketball game at Walt Disney World, featuring Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse and Goofy. (ESPN via AP)
