Disney and ESPN to Animate NHL Game to Attract Young Viewers
By Movieguide® Contributor
Disney recently announced their plan to draw a younger audience into hockey by animating the game and its players.
On March 14, ESPN will air an NHL game between the Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers on Disney, DisneyXD and Disney+.
The game, called the NHL BIG CITY GREENS CLASSIC, will be animated and feature some characters from the popular cartoon BIG CITY GREENS.
Using the NHL’s own technology that maps the movement of the players and game puck, young viewers will see the cartoon characters skating alongside animated versions of the real-life hockey players, and the game’s action will follow that of the real match.
This plan to animate hockey games is part of ESPN and Disney’s plan to attract younger viewers to sports.
“Disney Channel and Disney XD fans are, on average, 30 years younger than the ESPN audience,” Ilan Ben-Hanan, ESPN’s senior vice president of programming and acquisitions, said of the decision. “Naturally, we ought to make things a little different to capture their attention.”
“Maybe a decade ago, the primary means of fan consumption was by attending the game or watching it on TV,” David Lehanski, the NHL’s senior vice president of business development and global partnerships, explained.
He continued, “What our research is showing us is that there are going to be a lot of people, especially young people, who may have their first engagement with our fans or players that will be out of the live game experience—not by attending a game and not by watching a linear channel.”
The network and the NHL are still testing this idea but shared that the data they receive from the broadcast of the animated game will inform further decisions about attracting kids to sports.
Lehanski said this could even open the door to having games take place on popular gaming sites like Minecraft or Roblox.
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