Sports Media Company Streamlining Media Storage and Collaboration

The company operates in the sports media and event management sector, focusing on a new winter sports league centered around snowboarding and pre-skiing. Their team is small and nimble, consisting of about two to three full-time employees with additional contractors brought in as needed. They generate a substantial amount of video and media content through a series of four annual events, resulting in approximately 200 terabytes of data yearly. Their operations are growing, and they require scalable solutions to handle large volumes of digital assets efficiently.

Currently, the company stores all raw and edited content on cloud storage (AWS S3 buckets) and uses a combination of hard drives and Frame.io for sharing and reviewing media assets. The workflow involves physically shipping hard drives to transfer large files, relying heavily on manual organization and “tribal knowledge” to find and manage assets across different platforms. Frame.io is used for review and approval, but the overall asset management and distribution process remains fragmented.

- **Data Transfer Delays and Costs:** Moving 50 terabytes per event via hard drives is slow and expensive, with shipment delays impacting project timelines. - **Fragmented Asset Management:** Assets are spread across S3, local hard drives, and Frame.io, making it difficult to locate files quickly, especially for users with varying access levels. - **Scalability Challenges:** The small in-house team struggles to scale operations without adding significant headcount or logistical overhead. - **Limited Integration:** Existing tools focus on cloud storage or review workflows but do not offer an integrated solution that covers data sharing, collaborative review, and metadata management. - **Cost Sensitivity:** The company is concerned about rising costs associated with data egress and cloud storage usage, requiring a tactical approach to optimize spend.

Shade would streamline the company’s media operations by providing a cloud-native platform that simplifies secure, efficient data sharing directly from AWS S3 without the need for physical drives. Shade’s solution integrates review and approval workflows alongside asset management, allowing teams and external partners to collaborate seamlessly in one environment. Automated metadata tagging and AI-driven search capabilities would reduce reliance on manual organization and tribal knowledge. Shade’s flexible seat licensing would accommodate the company’s fluctuating staffing needs, enabling easy scaling without upfront commitments.