For small to midsize professional sports leagues in the U.S., it’s no longer a competitive advantage to have all your games broadcast or streamed live; it’s a necessity.

The National Lacrosse League has establish a REMI-based production workflow to produce all of its games for distribution across ESPN+ in the United States. The games are produced largely by crews in centralized production facilities. Freedom Broadcast Group (pictured) in Clifton Park, New Jersey is one of those facilities.

That’s what makes this season one of the most important in the history of the National Lacrosse League (NLL), a professional men’s box-lacrosse league that launched in 1987. Up to 139 games — regular-season and playoff — are produced and distributed via a centralized-production model established by the league to meet the demands of a new live-rights agreement under which all games stream on ESPN+ in the U.S. and the TSN app in Canada.

“To be able to execute on these breakthrough deals,” says Joel Feld, EVP, broadcast and content, NLL, “we had to create a production model that could effectively and efficiently distribute those games. It’s a very extensive and complex offering that we are producing and distributing.”