Case Study: National Football League achieves a secure, low-latency virtual NFL Draft reaching 55 million viewers with Haivision

How SRT and Haivision Brought the Virtual NFL Draft to Life

The National Football League needed to pivot quickly when the planned live NFL Draft in Las Vegas became impossible due to the coronavirus. With under three weeks to convert to a fully remote, at-home broadcast, the league faced challenges around unreliable Wi‑Fi and public internet, secure feeds from players’ homes, and the need for very low latency distribution (including providing Sportradar a feed for sportsbooks). To meet those needs the NFL leaned on Haivision’s video solutions — notably the SRT protocol, Haivision SRT Gateways and Makito X decoders — which it had been using since 2014.

Haivision deployed cloud and on‑prem SRT Gateways (including at NFL HQ, ESPN Bristol and NFL Media LA), Makito X decoders to clubs, and AES‑128/256 SRT encryption to ensure secure, reliable low‑latency delivery and local multicast for production. The solution supported roughly 100 camera kits, over 132 live SRT feeds, 7 SRT Gateways and 32 Makito X decoders, helped cut Sportradar latency from 9 to 1 second, and powered a virtual draft that drew 55 million viewers — a 35% increase over 2019.

National Football League