With the number of games that a play-by-play broadcaster has in a particular year, it’s tough to always find out what impact the game they are calling has on a viewer. For Drew Carter, he got the opportunity to feel that impact with some of the alternate broadcasts he has done for ESPN.
Carter was a guest on the One Shining Podcast with Tate Frazier and before he got into his experience calling the Toy Story game this month, he recollected his experience calling the Big City Greens NHL alternate broadcast last year between the Capitals and Ranger
“March of this past year during the NHL season, we did an animated broadcast in the world of this Disney Channel show called Big City Greens. I first heard about that in December 2022 (four months before the actual game),” Carter said. “That was when the planning started. I think they asked me to do that because they know I have no problem making myself look like an idiot on TV. It’s essentially what I do anytime.”
“I’m not going to take myself seriously, but I will take the show seriously. That was in mid-March and went really well. I got some awesome feedback. When you’re doing the stuff we do, it’s kind of hard to tell the impact.”
Drew Carter said that he would read messages from social media saying how much a child who had never watched a hockey game enjoyed that experience. When he was assigned to do the Toy Story broadcast, he did both prep from the movies and for the game itself.
“I watched all 4 Toy Story movies, basically rapid fire. I had seen them, but I had to re-watch them.”
“That was part of the prep and then you have to prep it like a typical game. I’ve got my notes on Bijan Robinson and Drake London and Calvin Ridley and all that stuff and it really came together I think in a beautiful way.”
At the beginning of the broadcast, Carter was worried that the technical difficulties that came at the beginning of the broadcast were going to ruin the experience, but the technology was fixed and he thought it was cool that he got to be a part of it.
“We did have some technical difficulties off the top and we were on camera in animated fashion for about 3 minutes at the start. At that point, I’m like this is going to be the biggest disaster in ESPN history, and Booger McFarland and I are going to be the faces of a total train wreck. Thankfully, we figured out the technology and people seemed to enjoy it. We got some messages on social media that we’re really cool and made it sort of feel worth it.”
“We’re really small parts of that show. The parts that matter are animating the players in real time and that technology is incredible. The characters everybody loves from Toy Story, that was the part everybody really loved. But it was cool that we were the faces and the voices of it,
