After a relatively quiet offseason and a handful of pro days for new and prospective athletes, the 2016 pro GRID season will have its first major event on April 19th with its annual draft. Unlike previous seasons, the draft will NOT be live streamed, and fans can instead follow along via the NPGL site’s draft tracker or by tuning into the league’s Twitter feed. Proceedings start at 2 p.m. EST, 11 a.m. PST.
Watch the live draft tracker on https://t.co/XFGUBarLW2 or follow along on Twitter. #GRID2016 #draftday #GRID pic.twitter.com/OcpFZRC0TZ
— NPGL (@TheGridLeague) April 16, 2016
Honestly, the lack of a live streamed draft isn’t a big loss for anyone except the hopeful athletes who might want to have their moments captured for re-watching; it can be some slow, boring TV for any pro sports league, and the outfits are normally more notable than the announcements or reactions.
Overall, there isn’t a ton of buzz around GRID at this point in the year, and it’s been a slow offseason punctuated by only a handful of team signings and transactions. As of this writing, only five players who weren’t returning to existing rosters — one to the San Francisco Fire, four to the two-time reigning champion DC Brawlers — have been signed pre-draft.Â
This year, the GRID Score and tryout system took place primarily online as opposed to the live combines of the league’s first two seasons.
Remember the 2014 draft with the stage, backdrop, tables of team managers, etc.? It took over two hours — and in case you’d like to relive any portion of that, we’ve embedded it at the bottom of this article.