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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), 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
ESPN had experimented with using its then-recently launched 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" feed, 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 additional 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 also experiment with alternate broadcasts that year, including a web stream focusing on Augusta National's 11th, 12th, and 13th holes (dubbed "Amen Corner").

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.

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 analysis of plays, 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 its 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, and broadcasts featuring alumni from 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 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 sports and celebrity guests. 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' studio 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 sports output, including an NHL broadcast hosted by Paul Bissonnette and the panel of his Spittin' Chiclets podcast for sister channel TruTV (which Bissonnette billed as an NHL "version" of the "Manningcast"), and NBA All-Star Game headlined by Inside the NBA panelist Charles Barkley and the Golden State Warriors' Draymond Green.

The use of augmented reality effects and player tracking also led to several notable instances of alternate broadcasts tailored towards youth audiences