Creative teams in professional sports are facing increasingly tight deadlines. Photographers, graphic designers, social media managers and more are expected to work at an unprecedented pace to deliver high quality, relevant visual content to fans, partners, media and sponsors.
More and more pro sports teams are relying on digital asset management (DAM) to meet the incredible demand for content and move assets from one team member to another at record speeds. DAM streamlines a team’s workflow whether they’re sharing photos in real time on social media during the game or delivering a set of creative assets to a sponsor on a typical day. Teams and sports leagues, including more than half of Major League Baseball teams and three-quarters of the National Football League, use PhotoShelter Brands to help their creative teams work faster.
At last year’s Major Level Creative Connect conference, a gathering some of the top creatives in the sports industry, we asked three creatives to share the impact of DAM on their creative teams and their organizations as a whole. Watch the video to hear creatives from the Atlanta Braves, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Sacramento Kings talk about how they use PhotoShelter Brands (formerly Libris), the ROI of DAM, and their tips for helping your team members understand the value of digital asset management.
7 DAM Game Changers for Pro Sports Creatives
1. Keywords
Tina Urban, Director of Graphic Production for the Phillies, says her favorite DAM feature is the keywords.
“I think that’s really ‘key’ because it does really help in the search effort,” says Tina. “I think that’s what separates the men from the boys when you’re looking to find your collateral.”
2. Cloud-based storage
Storing their creative assets in the cloud not only helps these teams take a load off of their IT departments’ servers, it also allows them to work from home or on-the-go.
3. File backup
Because PhotoShelter has multiple data centers around the country and multiple network providers at each data center, teams can rest assured their assets are always safe and accessible.
4. Fast file delivery
DAM helps these teams deliver files to anyone who needs them in record time. The Phillies’ sales team can send images out to VIP guests as a thank you note immediately after an event. The Kings can use the Quick Send feature to send a set of images straight into the inboxes of their internal clients.
5. Self-service access
Teams grant stakeholders access to specific collections and galleries to make image requests self-service. The Kings creative team no longer wastes time searching for images for another team’s project, because those team members can now look through the library on their own. The Braves’ public relations, marketing and ticketing teams can access any photo from the last ten years without having to email a photographer for help.
6. Easy previews
Sara Molina, Design Manager and Photographer for the Kings, says her favorite PhotoShelter Brands (formerly Libris) feature is the ability to customize the thumbnail of a gallery or collection so she can quickly spot moments from important games.
7. Making moments in team history easily accessible
DAM gives teams the ability to bring their entire visual media collections to life. If your assets are easily accessible, your team can use them in new and creative ways. The Phillies are able to share decades worth of photos with their fans because they are easy to find.
“We have a tremendous library being one of the oldest teams in baseball,” says Tina. “We have a huge library dating back at least to the early 1960s with a lot of our color images, and our black and white images go back further, so we’re able to bring them all into the digital world so they’re kept safe and they’re all easily accessible – that’s the beauty of it.”
Cover photo: Patrick Duffy/Beam Imagination/Atlanta Braves/Getty Images
