- Source: Altcast
An alternate broadcast, also known as an altcast, is a secondary broadcast feed of a sporting event. Altcasts are designed to showcase an event from a different perspective, including specialty camera angles, extended analysis, simulcasts with alternative commentary (including personality-based broadcasts containing entertainment elements, or geared towards specific demographics), and other unconventional formats. These broadcasts are sometimes carried on secondary linear channels owned by the event's rightsholder, but are more often carried on digital platforms.
History
After its launch in 1993, ESPN experimented with using its new sister channel ESPN2 to carry alternative broadcasts of events from the main network, such as carrying a CART race entirely from the perspective of in-car cameras in 1994. In March 2006, to mark the one-year anniversary of its college sports channel ESPNU, ESPN introduced a format known as "ESPN Full Circle" during a North Carolina–Duke college basketball game; ESPN would carry the main telecast, while ESPN2 would carry an "above the rim" camera angle, ESPNU would carry a feed focusing on Duke's student section, the network's broadband service ESPN360 carried a statistics-focused feed, while ESPN.com and Mobile ESPN offered supplemental digital content and interactive features (such as polls and chat rooms). ESPN reported a total viewership of 3.78 million viewers (with 3.5 million on the main ESPN feed), making it the network's most-watched college basketball game since 1990. The Masters Tournament in golf would begin experimenting with supplemental webcasts that year, introducing an "Amen Corner Live" broadcast focusing upon Augusta National's 11th, 12th, and 13th holes.
ESPN would extend the Full Circle concept to other events, including a 2006 NBA playoffs opening game between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat in April (which featured most of the aforementioned offerings from the North Carolina–Duke game), and a Florida–Florida State football game in September—in which a split-screen feed of eight camera angles (including isolated shots of the teams' coaches and starting quarterbacks) was shown on ESPN2, and a skycam feed aired on ESPNU. The Los Angeles Times reported that the ESPN2 broadcast faced a mixed reaction from viewers, with one considering the split-screen format to be the "stupidest" thing they had seen in a sports broadcast since Fox's "glowing" hockey puck.
With its joint rights to the NCAA men's basketball tournament with CBS Sports, Turner Sports began leveraging its networks for altcasts for its biennial broadcasts of the Final Four beginning in 2014; in conjunction with the main broadcast on TBS, TNT and TruTV would carry "Teamcast" feeds (later branded as "Team Stream powered by Bleacher Report"), which would feature coverage from the perspectives of the participating teams.
In 2014, ESPN revamped the Full Circle concept for the BCS National Championship Game as the "Megacast", with its networks carrying broadcasts such as "BCS Title Talk" (featuring celebrity guests discussing the game), a "Film Room" broadcast on ESPNU with extended examinations of plays by a panel of analysts, a commentary-free feed on ESPN Classic, a "Command Center" with on-screen stats on ESPN Goal Line, and other viewing options on ESPN3 (including simulcasts of the teams' radio networks with additional camera shots focused on their respective players). These offerings would continue into the College Football Playoff era, with other concepts such as special editions of The Paul Finebaum Show on SEC Network (particularly when a team from said conference is participating), and broadcasts with alumni of the opposing teams as analysts.
TNT extended its "Players Only" franchise of NBA broadcasts with alternate All-Star Game broadcasts on TBS, featuring a panel of players as commentators. In 2017, MLB Network carried a statistics-oriented broadcast of a game hosted by Brian Kenny, with contributions from Mark DeRosa and MLB.com analyst Mike Petriello. In 2018 and 2019, Amazon Prime Video partnered with Funny or Die to present a comedic broadcast of the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, which featured comedians Will Ferrell and Molly Shannon portraying the fictitious local newscasters Cord Hosenbeck and Tish Cattigan (joined by fellow Saturday Night Live cast member Tim Meadows as a reporter).
In 2021, ESPN2 began to carry Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli during selected Monday Night Football games, which featured brothers Peyton and Eli Manning discussing the game with celebrities and sports personalities. The entertainment-oriented broadcasts proved to be critically successful, winning a Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Live Sports Series in 2022, and leading to ESPN entering into a long-term agreement with the Mannings' Omaha Productions to produce altcasts in a similar format for other ESPN sports properties.
The popularity of the "Manningcast" influenced similar entertainment-oriented offerings from competing networks; in February 2024, TNT began scheduling more altcasts on TruTV as part of a gradual expansion of its sports output, including an NHL broadcast hosted by Paul Bissonnette and the panel of his Spittin' Chiclets podcast (which Bissonnette billed as an NHL "version" of the "Manningcast" in an interview), and NBA All-Star Game headlined by Inside the NBA panelist Charles Barkley and the Golden State Warriors' Draymond Green. Amazon Prime Video introduced several altcasts for its Thursday Night Football broadcasts upon their move to the platform in 2022, with selected games featuring broadcasts hosted by sports comedy troupe Dude Perfect, and LeBron James' The Shop.
There have been several notable instances of alternate broadcasts tailored towards youth audiences. ESPN has offered a "KidsCast" broadcast for the Little League World Series and MLB Little League Classic, featuring students of the Bruce Beck School of Broadcasting. The use of player tracking for analytics have also enabled entertainment-oriented broadcasts targeting youth: since 2021, CBS Sports and sister network Nickelodeon have partnered on altcasts of selected games aimed towards family co-viewing; all of the games have been called by Noah Eagle (son of sportscaster Ian Eagle) and Nate Burleson. The games have included augmented reality effects such as a geyser of the network's trademark green slime on a touchdown, replays with animation effects added to them, cameo appearances by other Nickelodeon characters as "reporters" (played live in-character by their respective voice actors), attendees, or to provide additional explanations of rules, and other youth-centric features. These efforts culminated at Super Bowl LVIII in 2024, where CBS provided the Super Bowl's first-ever altcast.
Beyond Sports involved itself in two NHL altcasts re-creating a live game using real-time 3D animation. A 2023 ESPN altcast was themed around the Disney Channel animated series Big City Greens, with players represented by avatars of characters from the series; Vincent Trocheck of the New York Rangers and Evgeny Kuznetsov of the Washington Capitals were represented by the series' lead characters Cricket and Tilly Green, with their respective voice actors providing live facial motion capture In 2024, TruTV aired a similar production using various Warner Bros. Discovery-owned characters, in promotion for its video game MultiVersus. Beyond also worked with ESPN on a Toy Story-themed broadcast in a similar style for an NFL London Game in 2023.