MLS delivers eMLS 24 Hours of FIFA 20 charity stream using Grabyo

As part of Major League Soccer’s (MLS) month-long ‘Kick Childhood Cancer’ campaign in September, MLS WORKS, the league’s social responsibility platform, and eMLS, the league’s competitive gaming property, teamed up to hold their first-ever 24-hour charity live-stream on Twitch.

Delivered using Grabyo, MLS produced a broadcast featuring 19 MLS clubs and their eMLS professional FIFA players playing the newly released FIFA 20. Held from September 24th 6:00pm ET to September 25th 6:00pm, the stream brought in donations from a previously untapped gaming community. All donations were passed through to the Children’s Oncology Group Foundation.

The live-stream built awareness around the larger MLS ‘Kick Childhood Cancer’ campaign on social media helping, contributing to more than 2,000 posts with the hashtag #KickChildhoodCancer during the course of the stream.

Using Grabyo’s cloud-based live production platform, MLS tailored the broadcast towards younger, more digitally native FIFA 20 fans to drive donations for the campaign. Using dynamic graphics and picture-in-picture streaming, MLS created a compelling viewing experience around each eMLS player. With Grabyo, MLS could differentiate the broadcast experience without significantly increasing the cost or complexity of delivering the event.

Every hour of the broadcast featured a different gamer who streamed FIFA matches, completing various challenges to spur further donations. MLS leveraged Tiltify, a Twitch extension, as the donation platform. Each gamer had a customised donation ticker that showed the amount of money they raised individually against the goal amount. The donation stats were updated in real-time, via Tiltify, so the community could see the impact of donations as the event progressed.

This type of fan-first digital activation was designed to bring fans closer to their favourite gamers, whilst aligning the worlds of sports and gaming for a worthy cause.

Grabyo enabled MLS to integrate player perspectives, live stats and customised graphics into the broadcast. By creating a high quality viewing experience tailored to its audience, MLS was able to increase its reach, drive donations and raise the profile of its ‘Kick Childhood Cancer’ campaign. Engine Shop was the eMLS production agency that executed the broadcast leveraging Grabyo.