Grabyo Tapped for APL’s First Ever Virtual Dolan Warren Awards Ceremony

The Australian Professional Leagues (APL) presented the most prestigious achievements in the A-League and Westfield W-League this season with a brand-new, virtual 2021 Dolan Warren Awards night using Grabyo. The event, which was hosted by Claudio Fabiano and Fox Sport Australia’s Victoria Slater, allowed fans to watch the event from anywhere in the world and interact with the awards ceremony in real-time. The night culminated in the announcement of the top awards; the Julie Dolan Medal and the Johnny Warren Medal.

Production company I Want It Yesterday produced clips and a recording of the event, using Grabyo’s cloud-based live production platform, Grabyo Producer, to play it out ‘as live’ to a global social audience.

The production team utilized Grabyo Producer’s playlisting functionality to queue multiple clips and VOD assets to play out throughout the broadcast. This allowed the small team to prepare an engaging live event with dynamic graphics and overlays ahead of time, freeing the team to focus on facilitating interaction with the audience.

The APL was able to keep fan engagement high for the awards in its new virtual format. Its digital team utilized Grabyo’s integration with audience participation platform Never.no to maximize fan participation.

Fans could engage with the awards show throughout the evening, with social comments displayed over the broadcast in real-time. This gave fans a more immersive experience, making them feel part of the night even if they couldn’t be there in person.

Grabyo’s cloud-native platform allowed the production team to work fully remotely, collaborating from multiple locations. Using minimal resources, APL created a broadcast-quality event for fans to enjoy.

“We knew that delivering the 2021 Dolan Awards was going to be different and present some new challenges” comments Rob Nolan, Director, Marketing & Data, APL. “Working with local production company I Want It Yesterday and Grabyo allowed us to go above and beyond in this new, virtual environment. We saw lots of direct engagement with fans and the reception was fantastic.”

The event was streamed to the A-League and Westfield W-Leagues Facebook pages, My Football YouTube channel, and the My Football Live App.

“It is a real honor to be chosen by the APL to manage the creative and delivery of such a prestigious event in the Australian football calendar. Such a premium event deserved to be underpinned by a leading technology and Grabyo’s cloud-native production tools were our first choice” adds Joey Ferrone, Creative Director, I Want It Yesterday. “Creating the event virtually gave us new and innovative ways of delivering the broadcast, whilst allowing football fans and creators to feel part of the celebrations.”

“Adoption of live production in the cloud is growing at rapid pace. It provides so much flexibility in terms of delivery and cost and supporting the Australian Professional League and I Want It Yesterday in delivering the Dolan Awards virtually was really exciting for us” adds Elliot Renton, Executive Vice President for APAC, Grabyo. “Grabyo simplified their workflows while using our dynamic integration with partner Never.no to deliver compelling fan engagement opportunities. The event was a great success for everyone involved”