The National Lacrosse League may just be a nine-team league that pales in popularity and stardom to the likes of the NFL and NBA, but Commissioner Nick Sakiewicz thinks it’s the “best kept secret in professional sports.”
“We’re all about digital-first and really exposing our great product out to the masses,” he said.
“The content, the athletes, are world class. They’re the best in their space at lacrosse.”
That focus on digital can largely be seen through the league’s recent two-year deal with Twitter to live stream weekly matchups on the social network along with the NLL’s subscription-based platform NLL.TV. Still, its deep-dive into testing out new technologies and mediums expanded to UHWK in late 2016, a partnership that pegs the point-of-view player camera as the Official Video Camera Provider for the NLL.
“It’s no secret that technology is changing the world — it has been. If you’re one of those people who chooses to ignore it or not embrace it, you’ll fall behind,” said Sakiewicz, who added that the NLL is the first professional sports league to use the UHWK camera during regular season games.
While there isn’t an actual live stream broadcast from the UHWK cameras just yet, Sakiewicz did tell SportTechie that it’s something the league is working towards as it continues to refine the process.
“We’re tracking to see how it develops,” said Sakiewicz of the UHWK. “It would be great to have it live streamed one day in game. There’s a bunch of stuff that we’re playing with, and we really think this is cutting edge.”
Added UHWK Founder and Chief Executive Officer Shea Kewin about the new relationship: “The NLL made perfect sense for us. They’re more of a greener and newer league, which has a higher propensity towards innovation and trying new things. They had more room to do things first and try new things. The NLL is one of the toughest, most rugged games in the world. If we can show that these cameras make it through the game, and they don’t fall off, none are broken and they don’t interfere with players’ performance, to take that to other leagues is a great proof of concept for us.”
ICYMI: @wes_berg rocked the @TheOfficialUHWK camera against the Swarm and the footage was AWESOME!
Full Video ~ https://t.co/Tfi96uMrRk pic.twitter.com/dLRtGFvmsO
— Calgary Roughnecks (@NLLRoughnecks) April 4, 2017
He explained that when he started the company three years ago, he knew the POV camera “would be a tool as much as a toy,” where both the business and marketing departments of a team or league could leverage the technology in addition to team operations and athletes themselves. Kewin, who said that UHWK is having conversations with other U.S. and international professional sports leagues/teams but declined to comment who, described that the UHWK cameras are initially mounted to a handful of players’ helmets during each game to capture footage. Then, the video is either uploaded to NLL TV, populated on the league’s YouTube channel, posted on social media, reproduced in a broadcast or edited into a wrap-up show.
Simultaneously, coaches are using the POV cameras for training and coaching purposes while players are posting content to their own social channels and using it for their own film study as they break down their performance from that first-person perspective.
“The more that you train on repetition, we know that’s the father of learning, so the more you see the play from your own eyes, it’s undoubtedly in my mind the best thing an athlete can do to develop his or her IQ,” said Kewin, who added that currently UHWK is geared towards hockey and lacrosse but the company is looking to soon expand into football and baseball, too.
According to Sakiewicz of the NLL, the league office has even used the UHWK cameras to review controversial plays.
“With the changing world of technology from linear TV to digital — with everybody wanting something in their hands now in terms of content — when you’re able to provide something like UHWK for a broadcast and through the eyes of an actual player, my god, if you’re a 15-year-old kid and you’re watching these players what they’re going through, it’s amazing. It really is amazing,” Sakiewicz said.
From a player development perspective, Sakiewicz said that the Toronto Rock’s Tom Schreiber is one of the top American players in his inaugural year with the NLL. He alluded to how maybe Schreiber’s use of the UHWK during the 2016-17 campaign has played some type of role in his early professional success, currently sitting No. 14 in the league with 28 goals and 52 assists.
“I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, but he’s having a helluva year with the Rock. He’s probably one of the candidates for Rookie of the Year. Maybe the UHWK camera had something to do with that,” Sakiewicz suggested.