WSC Studios and ESPN Launch Animated Kids Series The Sports Explorers for ESPN JV

Sports technology pioneer WSC Sports, through its newly established creative production arm WSC Studios, has partnered with ESPN to launch The Sports Explorers, an original 20-episode animated kids series designed to engage youth demographics.

Serving as the flagship original series for ESPN JV—ESPN’s youth-oriented content vertical launched in late June 2026, the show combines live-action archival highlights with original animated characters known as “The Squad” to deliver educational, character-driven athletic narratives.

The series was developed through a creative collaboration between ESPN and WSC Studios via WSC’s ongoing partnership with the ESPN Edge Innovation Center.

Powered by WSC’s proprietary agentic production platform, the series utilises artificial intelligence to scale content creation, animation, and digital packaging while maintaining creative direction from experienced youth media creators.

The premiere episode centers on NBA superstar LeBron James, with subsequent episodes highlighting prominent global athletes.

The project extends WSC Studios’ growing roster of original intellectual property, which includes The Alley & Oop Show with the NBA, Goalitos alongside LaLiga and EA Sports, and Wagtales with the Australian Football League.

The production framework leverages WSC Sports’ existing core enterprise relationship with ESPN, which currently utilises the platform to automatically edit and distribute highlights across more than 16,000 live annual sporting events and power the personalised SportsCenter for You engine inside the ESPN App.

VP of multi-platform Video at ESPN, Celia Bouza, emphasised the importance of developing specialised youth-facing entry points to build long-term brand equity.

“The best sports stories have the power to inspire fans of any age, and The Sports Explorers gives us an entirely new way to tell them.”

“By combining ESPN’s sports storytelling expertise with WSC Studios’ creative capabilities, we’re bringing some of the biggest names and moments in sports to life for kids in a way that entertains, educates and encourages them to discover the joy of being a fan,” Bouza said.

Highlighting the role of narrative media in establishing early fandom, head of WSC Studios, Itai Epstein, added: “Every athlete has a story that can spark a kid’s love of sports.”

“The Sports Explorers turns those journeys into adventures kids want to come back to, and that’s where lifelong fandom begins,” Epstein said. 

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