I wrote a bit about the new NLL+ service a little while ago. Most of the information came straight from the NLL press release and a Sports Business Journal article, and there was a bit of speculation on my part. Since then, I was fortunate enough to speak to a couple of people from the NLL to get some more inside information on this new service and how it came about.

Last week, I spoke to two NLL executives about NLL+. Joel Feld, EVP Broadcast and Media, and Ed Derse, SVP Technology and Broadcast Operations were instrumental in getting this service off the ground and onto our screens for this NLL season. Thanks to Joel and Ed for speaking with me.

One of the primary ideas behind the development of this service is to expand the league’s media footprint internationally. With lacrosse being included in the 2028 Olympics – and especially because the version of lacrosse being played is “NLL-style” sixes – it was important to the league to make it easy to get as many eyes as possible, from as many countries as possible, on “our” game. The best way to do that is to have the games available to everyone, everywhere, for free.

The current broadcast partners such as TSN and ESPN are still critical for North America, but the exclusivity deal that ESPN has means that in the US, games cannot be shown live on NLL+. There is also a week’s delay before full-game replays are available. However, highlights are available right away. In Canada, the restrictions are different; all games are still on TSN+, TSN’s streaming service, but unless they are shown on one of the TSN linear channels, they can also be shown on NLL+. Full-game replays for the non-linear games will also be available immediately after the game.

Internationally, a few places outside the US have to follow the US rules. The Pacific Rim, Caribbean, and Latin America provide ESPN+ through either Watch ESPN or Disney+, and you can only watch live games if you subscribe to those services. But everywhere else in the world, including Europe, Africa, and Asia, all live games are available on NLL+.

How it works

This is far too big of a project to hire a handful of people and do it in-house. The NLL has created partnerships with a number of companies around the world to provide all the services and handle any problems. All of these companies have been doing this for a long time and are used by many other groups, big and small, both sporting and otherwise.

The company that provides the streaming services is called InFront Lab. They are a broadcast partner of a number of Olympic federations and various other sports leagues around the world. They also use software from WSC Sports, a company that uses AI to create content for many sports leagues including the NBA, NHL, and NASCAR. WSC is able to create things like game highlight videos and condensed games. If you want to watch more than just the highlights but don’t have time to watch the full game, the condensed game will show you all of the important plays, and is able to skip over play stoppages and commercials and such. Highlight videos, ranging from about three to seven minutes long, as well as condensed game videos, about 20 minutes long, for all the 2025 games are already there on NLL+.

The actual transmission is done by a company called Bitfire. The camera and scoreboard feeds are sent from the arenas directly to Bitfire, and then they handle streaming it out to the league’s three production partners, Dome Productions, Freedom Broadcast Services, and Dragonfli Media Technologies. They do the production of the show and then feed the final product back through Bitfire. There is about a 2½ second delay between the live play and when the broadcast partners get the stream, and then another 20 seconds for production and delivery.

One clarification / correction: I mentioned in my earlier article that Champion Data, the NLL’s stats provider, was also involved (true), and I speculated that this might mean new stats pages or options as part of NLL+ (false). InFront does get some information from Champion, but only scheduling data, i.e. dates, times, locations, etc. of all the games, so that they know when games are happening and can provide links and a schedule for upcoming games. The stats pages will remain on NLL.com.

The final piece is from a company called GreenFly. They take all of the reams of output from WSC as well as content produced directly by the league, and provide a way for the league, each team and even each player to see the content they want. This means that after a game, each team can download all of the highlight videos featuring their players, and each player has access to videos of his own highlights. The league, team, and player can use those videos in their marketing and on social media. The player might even use such videos come contract negotiation time to prove that they’re worth that 15-year $765 million contract.

The NLL has spent a lot of time, effort, and money creating this streaming solution. Some of us remember as far back as the be-lax.com days, and there have been a number of different streaming providers including YouTube, CBS Sports, NLL TV, Bleacher Report, and most recently TSN+ and ESPN+. It’s still early days but NLL+ seems to be the best of all worlds. Even though they’ve broadcast less than a dozen games so far, there have been very few glitches, high-quality audio and video, great new features that we’ve never had before, and you simply cannot beat the price. The NLL has hit it out of the park with this one.