The National Hockey League (NHL) and its new franchise the Las Vegas Golden Knights have partnered with GroupNine’s NowThis video arm on a new series for Facebook Watch called “Home Team”.
The new sports team series launched for the social media goliath’s streaming service essentially profiles the new Nevada-based side, the league’s latest expansion franchise, which made its league debut in October at the start of the new (100th) NHL season.
The series, which is being co-produced by the league’s own NHL Original Productions, spans scene and subjects from the first team training camp, its early competitive games and how the side responded to the tragic Las Vegas shooting (following the players as they worked with the community to provide support).
Teased on-air, digitally and socially by the club, the league and the media partners ahead of the programme launch,
NEWS: NowThis Sports and NHL announce new show: “Home Team: The Vegas Golden Knights.”
More: https://t.co/uTTD9lUvUO pic.twitter.com/WlO7ePsA3w
— Vegas Golden Knights (@GoldenKnights) November 6, 2017
The first episode debuted on 8 November on NowThis Sports, a channel focusing on athletes and the intersection of sports and politics, and the series will continue to run on Wednesdays for five weeks.
“This is a terrific opportunity to continue to super-serve our fans with compelling content that helps them understand who our players are behind the mask and to connect them with our newest franchise on a more emotional level,” trumpeted the NHL’s chief content officer Steve Mayer.
“The world saw the entire hockey community come together in solidarity with the Golden Knights and in support of the victims and first responders. Home Team: The Vegas Golden Knights will bring fans into the locker rooms and living rooms of the players that helped bring comfort to Las Vegas.”
“We’re honored to be partnering with the NHL to create such a meaningful series. It’s not often that a professional sports team is launched, but given the extra weight of the recent events in Las Vegas, our goal is to tell this story with sensitivity and on-the-ground perspective,” stated Athan Stephanopoulos, president of NowThis.
“We’re excited for viewers to experience both the launch of the Vegas Golden Knights through the eyes of the athletes and also experience the fans’ reaction as they come together to grieve and heal in the wake of such tragedy.”
Comment:
This league-curated, sports team-specific streaming service show series trend went mainstream with the NFL’s ‘All Or Nothing’ series on Amazon: which has thus far seen documentary series on both the Arizona Cardinals and the LA Rams.
Which itself followed on from the NFL’s series with HBO called ‘Hard Knocks’.
Early November also saw Manchester City announce that it has teamed up with Amazon for its own club-specific, multi-episode behind-the-scenes documentary.
The Premier League side will produce a multi-episode Amazon Prime Original series that will follow the team’s 2017/18 season featuring action from matches, footage from training sessions and insights into interviews and executive meetings.
How long will it be before there is more behind-the-scenes sports content than on-field action?
Links:
Las Vegas Golden Knights
https://www.nhl.com/goldenknights
https://twitter.com/goldenknights
https://www.instagram.com/vegasgoldenknights/
NowThis
NHL
https://www.youtube.com/user/NHLVideo
