The Opportunity
The National Lacrosse League (NLL) is the world’s largest and most successful professional lacrosse league. The federation is continually looking to grow its fanbase, build its brand and bring lacrosse to audiences across the world.
To create an engaging and memorable experience for fans, NLL launched a new interactive live format called the NLL Watch Party. The format included special guest speaker appearances, social posts and comments from viewers.
The format debuted for the March 2023 fixture between Toronto Rock and Philadelphia Wings. It was presented as an alternate feed, delivered to OTT platforms ESPN+ in the US and TSN+ in Canada.
The Workflow
The format revolved around the live game feed, which was sent to Grabyo Producer from the arena via BitFire, NLL’s encoding partner. The game feed was ingested by Grabyo in SRT format and sent back to BitFire for delivery to ESPN+ and TSN+ in SRT format.
Alongside the live match, two hosts appeared on screen to call the game.
Both hosts were brought into the broadcast using Grabyo’s remote contribution platform, Producer Guest, with both using just a laptop to contribute their video and audio.
Each quarter of the game, a new special guest joined the show, again via Producer Guest, to chat to the hosts. One of these guests was current Desert Dogs forward, Jack Hannah.
During breaks in play, highlight reels and B-roll packages from previous matches were brought into the production. These are created using Grabyo’s clipping and editing platforms during each game, and made instantly available across the NLL organization within Grabyo.
Behind the scenes, the show was run by a remote, two-person crew – a director and a technical director (TD).
The TD managed video switching, layout set-up and talent cues, while the director called the shots while collecting and moderating comments from fans on social media.
The TD utilized Grabyo Producer’s Control Room for switching, leveraging its snapshots feature to create and instantly switch between multiple scenes and layouts throughout the show.
They also used Producer Guest’s intercom feature to stay in constant contact with on-air talent.
The director used Grabyo’s integration with audience participation platform Flowics to collect and moderate comments and questions submitted by fans on social media.
The Results
NLL was able to create and deliver the format without investing in any new equipment or travel for talent or crew. The entire show was produced remotely using just laptops, and slotted seamlessly into NLL’s existing live workflow.
For more information, or to see how Grabyo can help you to build your own PoC live show for social media, OTT or broadcast, get in touch.
