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Jared Carrabis was trying to will the moment into existence.
With the Red Sox trailing the Guardians by two runs in the sixth on Sept. 2, Ceddanne Rafaela stepped into the batter’s box with a runner on.
“How about Ceddanne tying this up?” he said to Jonathan Papelbon.
Barely a moment later, Slade Cecconi hung a weak slider. As Rafaela hammered it over the wall in left field, the entire screen on NESN’s “Unobstructed Views” broadcast came to life.
Carrabis jumped out of his seat in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. Jonathan Papelbon started barking and Alanna Rizzo began clapping as the ball headed for Landsdowne Street, tying the game, 7-7.
“Every time you need a big hit, Ceddanne steps up,” Carrabis yelled.
It was a turning point in what turned out to be a critical win for the Red Sox.
When NESN conceived “Unobstructed Views” before the 2024 season, they were trying to create moments exactly like that. They wanted to create a broadcast that made the viewer feel like they were watching a game with their buddies. The celebration felt genuine.
“Unobstructed Views” is NESN’s regularly produced alternative broadcast or alt-cast, which are becoming more and more common in sports broadcasting. Most alt-casts are designed to offer the viewer a different way to watch the game and appeal to different ages, interests and depth of fandom.
There have been alternate broadcasts since 1994. ESPN carried an IndyCar race on the main network and the less-than-a-year-old ESPN2 showed views from in-car camera feeds with natural sound and minimal commentary.
In the 31 years that followed, the evolution of digital channels and streaming has created almost endless opportunities to try different approaches to presenting a game. Networks hope a slightly different product will attract new and different advertisers and new and different fans.
Networks and leagues have begun including alt-cast options into their rights agreements and have invested in technology to enhance them.
Some of the highest profile ones have been the animated events alt-casts. The NFL, NBA and NHL have all partnered with Beyond Sports to create animated broadcasts aimed at fostering interest in kids before they’ve even reached high school. According to Sportico, the SpongeBob-themed Wild Card game on Nickelodeon drew two million viewers.
There are broadcasts designed to serve sports bettors, some intended to look like video games. Advanced stats and science are part of many standard broadcasts now, but Prime Vision on Thursday Night Football offers a game’s angles and velocity, math and science, all broken down and highlighted in real time.
“Unobstructed Views” could best be characterized as a watch-along, a casual broadcast designed to make the viewer feel like they’re watching at a bar or in their basement with friends.
A viewer sees the same main picture that appears on NESN’s mainstream broadcast with Papelbon, Carrabis, Rizzo and sometimes a guest, in inset boxes down the right side.
ManningCast started a trend
It’s a descendant of ESPN’s ManningCast, the popular alternate take on Monday Night Football.
There’s a direct line to be drawn between COVID and alternative broadcasts. The ManningCast wasn’t the first time a network used the buddies watching a game together approach. But when ESPN launched the ManningCast in 2021, it turned a niche idea that had been used occasionally elsewhere into something that made directors of national networks and regional sports networks around the country take notice.
The idea came to Peyton Manning while watching ESPN commentator Kirk Herbstreit broadcast remotely from home when he had COVID.
“That just kind of hit me,” Peyton told the Los Angeles Times. “I was like, ‘Hmm, I wonder if that’s just a COVID deal or maybe that’s something that’s somewhat sustainable.’ So I met with (ESPN president) Jimmy Pitaro.”
Necessity had already caused networks to enhance their ability to broadcast remotely, with many people working from home in quarantine. They were well equipped to try it.
The ManningCast, which launched on Sept. 13, 2021, was different and interesting. For decades, watching games on TV was a lot like listening to the radio with video. The play-by-play voice was telling viewers what was happening even though they could see it with their own eyes.
On the ManningCast, fans could still see the action, but what they were hearing was altogether different. On one hand, viewing football through the lens the two quarterbacks were providing was unlike anything most fans had ever experienced. On the other, watching Peyton and Eli bust each other’s chops was incredibly relatable.
There’s no lag. Even though the game is in one place, Peyton and Eli are in their respective home studios and guests join from elsewhere, it’s easy to forget they aren’t physically together.
It was instantly popular and the resulting buzz made it a trendy place to visit. Former players, current players and entertainers all appeared remotely.
Ripe for imitation
The concept’s success naturally prompted attempts at replication.
In a period of just of less than 10 days in 2022, ESPN aired “The Bird and Taurasi Show,” a similarly conceived broadcast for the Women’s Final Four, featuring WNBA legends and under-the-radar sarcasm artists Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird. A week later, ESPN tried the KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez.
“The Bird and Taurasi Show” was a one-weekend event, while KayRod appeared for two seasons, but didn’t return after 2023.
Amazon tried one alt-cast with Dude Perfect and another headlined by LeBron James, designed to give a barbershop vibe.
Neither is still on.
But several markets, including Boston, have launched local versions. A version of “Unobstructed Views” is used for the Red Sox and Bruins on NESN and the Pirates and Penguins on SportsNet Pittsburgh, which has the same management as NESN.
The alt-cast at NESN predates President and CEO David Wisnia, who was hired last October, but it represents a philosophy he embraces.
“To NESN’s credit, and it precedes me, so I don’t deserve much of it. But we’ve been ahead of the curve in a lot of things,” he said. “We always want to be innovating. We always want to be trying new things. We want to take our swings. If some of them don’t work, so be it. That’s part of the process. But we’re always gonna be trying new things and hopefully they work.”
Look at what ESPN does with the ManningCast, what other networks are doing, it was an opportunity for us to attract a different audience,” Wisnia continued. “One of the major challenges that all the leagues are having is how do you get that younger demo?”
While ESPN had to frame the ManningCast for a national audience, NESN could choose guests and topics geared for its New England footprint.
Finding the right lineup is critical, especially in Boston, where Red Sox fans fell in love with both Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersley for the personalities they brought to the flagship NESN broadcasts. “Unobstructed Views” is a whole broadcast built around personalities.
The Mannings arrived with lifelong chemistry. NESN had to discover it or nurture it along.
Papelbon, who already worked for NESN, checked a lot of boxes, which made him an easy choice. Networks are always looking for their version of Charles Barkley. The former NBA superstar is incredibly knowledgeable about basketball, but he can and will talk entertainingly on other topics. Most importantly, as a studio analyst on Inside the NBA, he’s comfortable on camera and seemingly unafraid of offending former and current players.
So many players’ allegiance to a code of the locker room limits their on-air honesty. Papelbon’s willingness to critique players when they struggle makes his praise more believable.
“I try to relate to the player as much as I can because I did it for 13 seasons and I understand the grind,” Papelbon said. “But when you play at the big league level and you know you’re not getting the job done, the criticism comes with the territory. I don’t have any problem saying someone is sucking. … There’s no sugar coating anything on our show.”
He’s been part of NESN’s desk rotation in pregame and postgame shows, but the format handcuffs him.
“Unobstructed Views” allows Papelbon, who has never been burdened by self-restraint, to be more natural. The same energy and enthusiasm that he brought to the mound and the team’s postseason celebration in 2007 is reflected on the air.
He can be goofy and his spiky hair and southern drawl add to his larger-than-life screen presence, but it wouldn’t work if Papelbon were just a caricature. Even when he’s sharing a story about elk hunting or some other adventure, Papelbon is clearly paying attention to the game and will drop in insight, especially about pitching.
Often, when the show is straying too far into foul territory, it’s Papelbon, who often broadcasts from his mancave/home casino in Mississippi, who brings it back between the lines.
“You’re getting stories and back stories and a little bit more freedom to express your emotions. I tend to cuss, so it allows me a little more leeway,” he said. “When they give up a home run, I get pissed off. On the other broadcast, you’ve got to keep it more professional. The emotional side of the game is a lot more prevalent in the alternate broadcast.”
Hiring Carrabis gave the show an instant audience. NESN’s ads for the alt-cast call him a “super fan.” That doesn’t really describe him accurately, but there isn’t a catch-all label that does. He’s a Red Sox content-creating personality. He is a fan, but not a fan boy. He loves the Red Sox, but not blindly.
Carrabis is a popular writer and podcaster whose focus is the Red Sox, whom he has rooted for his whole life. He’s worked for Barstool and Draft Kings and currently writes for Underdog Fantasy. He’s probably most identifiable with the popular Section 10 podcast.
People in and around the organization like and respect him enough to give him information. They recognize he resonates to a percentage of the fans they want to reach.
Carrabis’ personality fits this format. If the goal is to make it feel like watching the game with a buddy, most people’s buddies are fans. But for a certain segment of the population, his feelings about the Red Sox mirror their own.
Mostly, he’s having fun and trying to make that contagious.
“I think for us, it’s entertainment first and foremost,” Carrabis said. “We want to make you laugh and we want to entertain.”
The show started as just Carrabis and Papelbon in 2024, which led each of them, at times, to be less natural as they handled the requirements of a TV show – getting in and out of commercial breaks etc. It forced Carrabis to be more of a point guard, using his podcast leader instincts to set up Papelbon.
For 2025, NESN added Alanna Rizzo. She’s a veteran broadcaster who was a host and a reporter for the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB Network and a contributor in several other places. NESN prominently mentions her seven Emmy Awards in its promotion of the show.
She gives the production a TV professional, a kind of point guard who can score. She’s comfortable knowing when to chime in, when to go to Papelbon for a player’s perspective experience, when to summon Carrabis’ passion or encyclopedic memory and when to simply watch and laugh.
“It’s fun to be able to get their approach with it,” she said. “I always try to present it as: Take me someplace I can’t go. That’s what we try to do with the stories that Pap has or a conversation that Jared had with somebody or some sort of experience I’ve had in the past, being in baseball for two decades.”
Kasey Hudson, who is a contributor to much of NESN’s original programming, will drop in to share social media reactions to the game or the broadcast to enhance or spark conversation.
With the final show of the 2025 season airing on Wednesday, Carrabis hopes they keep branching out in the future.
“There’s definitely an appetite for something different, something new, something that’s fresh, younger,” he said and mused about possibilities. “Maybe Pap is up on the monster and I’m roaming around in the concourse and Alanna’s up in the press box or something like that. I don’t know, just more. Continue to evolve. I think that there’s different ways that you could make it more engaging to the fan or incorporate the fan more.”
“Unobstructed Views” is NESN’s most utilized alt-cast, but not its only one. It has occasionally done a multiview broadcast that shows four different camera angles at the same time.
They’ve done a series of one-offs, too. There’s an annual game where Dave O’Brien and Lou Merloni call the action from atop Fenway Park’s Monster Seats. In July, they connected to the 50th anniversary of the Red Sox’s appearance in the 1975 World Series by presenting a broadcast designed to look and feel like TV coverage from that season.
Courting younger fans
In March, they aired “The Best Snow Day Ever,” an animated Bruins broadcast that incorporated STEM lessons into the program to create what it hoped would be a teaching about hockey and STEM while bringing the game to a much younger audience.
Beyond Sports created the animation. The Sony-affiliated Dutch company is the creative force behind many of the animated telecasts that have aired in recent years.
Using tracking cameras that can monitor an athlete’s body at 29 different points, they can replicate an actual game in progress with an animated production with just a few seconds of delay.
They’ve created several high-profile games.
The NFL has done fully animated games from Andy’s Room with Toy Story characters, as well as a Simpsons game with Bart, Lisa, Homer and many of the other Springfield residents appearing on the field.
In 2024, Nickelodeon aired a partially-animated alt-cast of the Super Bowl. The game itself was live footage, but the broadcast and graphics were all SpongeBob SquarePants themed.
The NHL did a fully animated broadcast using the Disney Channel show “Big City Greens.”
“Dunk the Halls” was the NBA’s Christmas Day afternoon alt-cast. The animated game was made to look like it was being played outside on Main Street USA with Disney icons Mickey, Donald and Goofy replacing the Spurs and Knicks.
“It allows them to connect with the fans of the future. Kids don’t like the analytical side of it, they just connect with the fun stuff,” said Thijs de Jong, a business development manager for Beyond Sports. “They get the basics of the sport and ideally, they turn into fans of the team they’re watching, but ideally, they get tied to a sport. Studies have shown if we don’t tie kids by the age of 15, you will never tie them to the sport.
“I don’t watch basketball,” he added. “But if I could have watched ‘Dunk the Halls,’ maybe I’d be a basketball fan.”
In addition to their work in the United States, they’ve done soccer in Europe, rugby in Australia, and other events around the world. More is coming.
“You are very likely to see more alt-casts in the coming seasons as we work more closely with partners,” de Jong said. “It’s very exciting to be in a new way of engaging with fans to offer new experiences. In five years, if we look back, I think the technology will have advanced even faster.”
The success or failure of these broadcasts might not really be known for years. They’re betting that watching a game from Andy’s Room or Main Street USA today might make a kid want to go to games at Lambeau Field or Madison Square Garden 15 years from now.
“The reason we’re doing (alt-casts) is to target that new generation of sports fans. Their way of consuming sports has changed so much compared to what we would view as regular sports consumption 30 years ago,” Zino Prins, business development manager for Beyond Sports, told BizBash. “Their attention span and their way of consuming things has altered, and we try to use that information and transform our broadcast to cater to that audience.”
BeyondSports wasn’t ready to reveal anything, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see a new version of their work show up next year at the World Cup. Maybe somewhere down the road at the Olympics.
What’s next?
All of this is just the beginning. Ideas spawn new technology, which spawns more ideas. Evolution is happening at a much faster pace than ever before. Leagues and networks are eager to take part.
The potential for artificial intelligence and or virtual reality has barely been tapped. Players who are mic’d up might someday have mini cameras attached to their equipment.
Want to see the game like Jeremy Swayman does? NESN’s 2031 Alt-Cast could be from a camera on his goalie mask.
Wisnia has been pleased with the ratings (which aren’t publicly available) and the public reaction to “Unobstructed Views.” That’s added to his desire to keep monitoring new trends and looking for ways for NESN to embrace them.
“Without getting into specifics, we literally spend time every week looking at what else we could be doing. The media landscape is so fractured and moving so quickly,” he said. “So we’re constantly trying to say, O.K., explore how do we bring in a new audience? How do we bring in a bigger audience? How do we introduce a younger demo to this? How do we keep an older demo engaged? How do we improve the shows we have and what else is out there?
“It’s a constant grind, a constant yearning to improve. That’s what again makes it interesting and fun,” he said. “What’s the next iteration, what’s the next hit that we could have?”