Inside the Den: The 2025 NFL Draft

Detroit Lions

Vote

The 7th Annual Awards

Nominee ✨

• Best Original Film or Series: Long-Form

Share

ABOUT THIS ENTRY

This episode of Inside the Den, the Detroit Lions' behind-the-scenes documentary series, chronicles how the team's 2025 NFL Draft class came to be and the minds behind it.

How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?

I think our results show that people will continue to watch as much behind-the-scenes content as possible of their favorite NFL teams, despite longer durations. Too often, videos are limited by tight restrictions on length, leaving the piece to either feel stretched or incomplete. By focusing on the quality of the content rather than the quantity of the length, we managed to have great success reaching hundreds of thousands of more fans than usual and connect them to our brand.

Objective

The main objective as to give Lions fans a behind-the scenes look at the team's 2025 NFL Draft. By giving fans a peak behind the curtain of what goes on during a team's draft, the aim was to be transparent and informative about the team's draft class, while also creating an engaging and enjoyable story for fans to follow. Another goal was to allow the quality and quantity of the content to dictate the duration of the piece, rather than adhere to a specific time limit.

Strategy & Execution

By making the piece over 50 minutes long, the story could be told as detailed as the content allowed it to be, not limiting itself because of time restraints or perceived watching norms. While editing the video, we knew that behind-the-scenes video of an NFL team's draft would make people want to watch. We thought as long as the content remains engaging and interesting to the viewer, we would make the video as long as possible in order to maximize the total views, average view duration and total time watched.

Organizations

• Detroit Lions One Pride Productions

Links

•   Website

Featured

• Brad Holmes

• Dan Campbell
• Chris Spielman
• Tyliek Williams
• Tate Ratledge
• Isaac TeSlaa
• Miles Frazier
• Ahmed Hassanein
• Dan Jackson
• Dominic Lovett

Credits

Derek Heitman
Senior Producer
Detroit Lions

Stuart Zaas
Director of Digital Media
Detroit Lions

Celebrate in NYC

Join us for the 7th Annual Hashtag Sports Awards™ on the evening of June 24, 2025 as we celebrate finalists and reveal the winners of this year's awards live during the show.