The NFL held the first London game of the season on Sunday as the Jacksonville Jaguars took on the Atlanta Falcons. In addition to being the first ESPN+ exclusive game of the season, the game also featured a kid-focused, Toy Story-themed simulcast.

Similarly to how the NFL did their SpongeBob SquarePants simulcasts, trackers on all the players allowed for the game to be transformed into the world of the beloved Pixar film series.

ESPN had a similar simulcast earlier this year in its NHL coverage, having a game transformed into the Disney show Big City Greens.

Several across sports media had positive reactions to Sunday’s Toy Story Football.

While the majority of the reaction was overwhelmingly positive, there were some who didn’t care for the simulcast and how it was presented. Barstool’s Kevin Clancy was in that group.

NFL Sunday Ticket is in the midst of its first season being accessed through YouTube and YouTube TV as part of a 7-year deal worth a reported $14 billion. In being available on an over-the-top (OTT) streaming service, fans have had to adjust to new ways to sign up and find the content to watch on each Sunday. While feedback for the platform has been stellar across the board as it pertains to the user interface, latency levels and viewing options, one area that endured levels of sustained criticism was multiview functionality.

In the past, NFL Sunday Ticket users had the capability to fully customize their screen, placing the games they want to watch in different windows and customizing the order thereof. With the new iteration of the service though, users are subject to preset layouts of games compiled for viewing, essentially losing a sense of jurisdiction over the totality of their experience. In a recent interview with Deadline, YouTube Chief Business Officer Mary Ellen Coe commented on how the service plans to adapt going forward.

“That is a very hard thing to do technically,” Coe said. “Put it this way – the feedback is [that] we hear you loud and clear. We have a seven-year relationship and will be looking to innovate in the future, and one thing that we’re doing to address that is [in having] a lot of insights on the game combinations and what matchups fans are interested in. So, we can use those insights.”

Coe believes that an interminable number of combinations is superfluous for fans and that the company is instead basing their decisions from bonafide, quantifiable data. Through these metrics, NFL Sunday Ticket is able to appeal to the largest faction of viewers interested in engaging with a multiview combination.

“We actually will have insight into what are the games that are must-watches, and then we can preload those combinations,” Coe explained. “I think as you see the season goes on, the demand [for customization] will become less because people will see the combinations they want will be up.”

Within the Deadline interview, author Dade Hayes made a shrewd observation in that when The Walt Disney Company and Charter Communications were embroiled in a carriage dispute, both companies offered YouTube TV as potential viewing solutions. While a resolution was reached on the morning of the Week 1 broadcast of Monday Night Football and season debut of New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, YouTube as an entity has not yet extrapolated and bifurcated the data to see if there was any substantial effect therein.

“We’re having incredible growth because of the Sunday Ticket relationship with YouTube TV,” Coe said. “It is interesting that both Charter and Disney referred to YouTube TV as a place to go when they couldn’t get content. I think that’s an endorsement for the user experience on YouTube TV, which we appreciate.”

In past years, New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone would have guest appearances either on WFAN or on ESPN Radio in New York during the season. This year, the Boone guest spot went from traditional radio to Jomboy Media as Jomboy and Jake had Boone on Talkin’ Yanks every week.

Of course, it was a different year for the Yankees as they will fail to make the postseason. With that being said, the Boone effect did help the show in a big way.

On the latest edition of The Morning Meeting (Building Jomboy Media) podcast, Jomboy said that while sometimes the weekly guest spots got tough toward the end of the season, it was still a worthwhile endeavor.

“Talkin’ Yanks had the best couple months ever while they sucked and I think that’s because we had access to Boone and we started being silly again. Boone definitely had a big part of that and just people used the quotes kind of changed it.” 

August was the most viewed month of episodes in terms of average views in the history of the show, which is when the Yankees were starting to fade away from playoff contention.

In fact, Jomboy felt the most recent Boone interview was the best episode they had this year because of the familiarity and looseness they all felt.

“We’ve been having fun. I thought that one felt like the best because there was also some good convos of learning as well as just goofiness.”

As for next year, nothing has been decided as to whether or not Talkin’ Yanks will have Boone on again. While Jomboy is interested in running that back, he knows that if the other radio stations want back in, it will be tough to compete with them.

“If ESPN Radio or WFAN all of sudden realize they want back in and we get into a bidding war, we are not going to really do that.”