Grabyo, Greenfly Power National Lacrosse League Social Media Content Creation, Distribution

The National Lacrosse League (NLL) efforts around social media and content creation exemplify a growing trend among all sports content creators: using the power of social media and automated production tools to quickly create, conform, and distribute content via as many channels as possible.

The NLL is relying on Grabyo and Greenfly to help streamline the creation and publishing of content to social media channels.

With the help of Grabyo production technology and Greenfly’s distribution technology the NLL’s players are able to quickly access gallery content and share clips on their own social media channels. This kept the league’s fans, consisting mostly of a younger and more mobile-first demographic, connected and engaged.

Joel Feld, NLL, head of broadcast and content, says the workflow was especially valuable during the 2020 NLL entry draft. Leading up to the draft the league pulled together photos and videos from the incoming draftees, created social media content using Grabyo clipping and editing tools, and then made it available to players so they could distribute to their own followers both during and after the draft.

“The process had no friction as the teams could share the media on the league social channels and then during the draft, we could also provide reaction shots and other unique moments,” he says. “The selection moment videos were a great collaboration and a big part of our effort to embolden players and get them more content. Greenfly is a great platform to do that going down the road.”

NLL player content posted through Greenfly generated 65% higher average Instagram reach and 7% higher average Instagram engagement than general NLL draft content.

Nick Sakiewicz, National Lacrosse League commissioner, says the live draft is a major moment for the league where it relies on fast-paced, high entertainment games, clips and highlights to engage fans.

“When we were forced to suspend the season due to COVID-19, we knew we had to double-down on our digital strategy to power a live draft that would be fully virtual,” he explains. “We knew that getting as many short-form videos into the hands of athletes would provide a significant organic lift across social media. We immediately turned to our marketing and creative teams to work together to help us connect with our loyal community of fans, teams and players.”

Mike Kelley, Grabyo Americas, president, says that Grabyo and Greenfly have discussed ways to work together as the goal is to help make workflows easier for digital and social teams at clients like the NLL.

“We brought the platforms together and it has worked out for everyone,” he says. “We can’t do it all so partnering with different third parties, like Tagboard for social media commentary and Singular for live graphics. Greenfly is a natural association for the distribution side.”

Daniel Kirschner, CEO at Greenfly, adds that by working with Grabyo both companies become more valuable to those looking to distribute large volumes of content as there is a greater need to make it more targeted. Content from Grabyo is organized and tagged and placed in a Greenfly gallery where it can easily be accessed by social media publishers and then quickly published.

“Our thesis is the organizations, teams, and leagues are most powerful when they have an army of advocates that can put the right content on the right platform for the right person,” says Kirschner. “The collective followers of players are often higher than the team and they also get much higher engagement rates than the teams.”

Adds Kelley: “Even tier two or three sports have engagement that matters for brands and at the end of the day it’s about how to monetize that content. As the world moves from managed distribution to individual channels and social media this partnership is more important because cloud-based distribution will only accelerate. It’s changed the world forever.”