How NFL Teams Win the Big Game with Content

On Feb 8, 127M+ fans will watch the NFL championship game while actively scrolling their social feeds. They want instant highlights, behind-the-scenes photos, and real-time reactions.

For NFL media teams, this creates a massive operational challenge. They need to capture thousands of moments, process them, and deliver them to a global audience in seconds. But the work doesn’t start on game day.

The teams that succeed are the ones that prepare. They build systems ahead of time so that when the moment comes, nothing slows them down. This means setting up workflows that can handle volume, implementing AI tools that eliminate manual bottlenecks, and organizing their content library so anyone can find what they need instantly.

From the field to your feed

For content teams in the NFL, the first to post owns the moment. “We’re all in the business of speed,” says Ben Liebenberg, the NFL’s Director of Photography. “Everyone wants something as soon as it’s shown on TV.” 

The Kansas City Chiefs (championship winners 1970, 2020, 2023, and 2024) are proof of this. Director of Photography Steve Sanders uses wireless FTP to beam images straight from the camera to the archive. He prioritizes sending files that “look as real and natural as possible” right out of the camera. The social team can post immediately, without wasting minutes on color correction or file conversion, while the game is still moving.

How AI helps teams move faster

To sort through thousands of photos from a single game and get the right ones out in seconds, teams rely on artificial intelligence to automate manual work. 

The Philadelphia Eagles (championship winners 2018, 2025) use AI to automatically tag athletes the second a file uploads, turning a dump of raw images into a searchable library. Jennifer White, the team’s Senior Manager of Digital Assets, explains the difference: “Before we could be sifting through photos and miss it. Now… we can find results.”

That speed drives performance. By getting content to players instantly, the Eagles fuel a player advocacy program that generates 8x more engagement than standard brand posts.

And it’s not just about tagging players. The Baltimore Ravens (championship winners 2001, 2013) use it to find partner content without searching through individual folders. Jake Rose, the team’s Digital Designer, notes, “That cuts out so much time.” This is AI in its most useful form: a tool that frees up creative professionals to focus on what they do best.

The role of digital asset management

Of course, none of this would be possible without a strong foundation. For NFL content teams, that foundation is a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system. 

It acts as a central library for all of a team’s photos and videos. A cloud-based DAM is especially important for events when teams are working on the road. 

Dave Lang, Sr. Director of Digital Strategy & Innovation for the Ravens, knows this firsthand. He remembers having to “load up TBs of photos onto an external hard drive and also not have access to any of our historical photos” before they had their current system. Now? Jake summed it up perfectly. “Being able to get everything together cohesively and publish it to our fans almost instantaneously is huge for us.” It is a powerful example of how the right solution can bring a brand’s story to life in an instant.

The New York Giants (championship winners 1987, 1991, 2008, 2012) know the pain of the old way. “We were the library,” recalls Senior Creative Director Matt Swensen. Assets sat on local hard drives. Every request meant a manual email chain. Moving to PhotoShelter turned that slow process into a self-serve engine. Now, everyone from social to sales can grab what they need.

A DAM gives the entire organization one place to find and share content. “PhotoShelter plays a critical role in our day-to-day lives,” explains Matt. “We really use it as our key library for everything.”

It’s about more than technology

Winning the content game isn’t just about having the fastest cameras or the best photographers. It’s about having the right infrastructure in place. A real-time workflow, powered by practical AI and built on a reliable DAM, is what allows NFL teams to deliver moments that matter, as they happen. It’s the difference between leading the conversation and trying to catch up.