ESPN's Dunk The Halls Altcast Increases in Viewership Amongst Christmas Day NBA Programming

ESPN has shared some impressive ratings for their Christmas Day NBA Lineup, which also showcased a dramatic increase in viewership for the Dunk The Halls NBA Altcast.

What’s Happening: 

• In its second year, ESPN’s Dunk The Halls viewership was up 25% from the debut installment of the animated altcast in 2024.
• The news was revealed as ESPN announced the impressive viewership for this year’s Christmas Day programming slate. 
• The network has touted that they have delivered their largest average NBA Christmas audience since 2018 across its platforms, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel. 
• The five-game slate on Thursday, December 25th, averaged 5.5M viewers, up four percent from 2024. The Christmas games reached 47.2M fans, up 45 percent from 2024. It is the largest audience reach for ESPN’s Christmas NBA games since 2010, excluding the season-opening Christmas day in 2011.
• The Dunk The Halls animated altcast - which saw Mickey and his pals (plus Stitch too!) play a live game on Main Street USA, added to that viewership. Playing alongside the actual game, the Altcast saw the Cavaliers go against the Knicks, with the animated version contributing 280k viewers to the game.
• The number was a 25% increase in viewership of the altcast for the same event from last year. 
• Despite some technical hiccups, the altcast proved to be a success yet again, and you can find out more about it in our Dunk The Halls review. 

All About the Altcast

• Dunk The Halls was just the latest in a series of different Altcasts - or Alternate Broadcasts - of live sporting events. 
• Using state-of-the-art technology, these broadcasts play alongside a real live game in various sports. So far we’ve seen Basketball, Hockey, and Football, with animated characters from various series in place of real players. 
• It’s a great way to introduce the games to new viewers, young and old. 
• Just ahead of Dunk The Halls, we also saw another Funday Football experience, this time themed to the Pixar Animation Studios favorite, Monsters, Inc. Prior to this, we also saw Toy Story and The Simpsons take over the sport. Fans of Big City Greens also got to see a live hockey game take place not once, but twice in the middle of Times Circle in Big City with the NHL Big City Greens Classic.