How PSA Squash Tour Serves Up Content Fast for Fans and Players

PSA Tour’s journey to efficient content distribution

The Professional Squash Association (PSA) Squash Tour is a global showcase of top-tier squash, featuring over 1,500 registered players and more than 1,000 events each year in stunning locations worldwide. It highlights the sport’s best qualities: athleticism, skill, and passion. Managing content for players, sponsors, and fans was a manual slog and growing challenge for the PSA’s small team.

The challenge: Manual processes squashed growth

Sean Reuthe, PR and Communications Manager at PSA, oversees a lean media team responsible for capturing and sharing the excitement of squash tournaments. Before PhotoShelter, their days were clogged with time-consuming tasks and inefficient ways of distributing content. These issues held back their ability to support players and partners.

• Content delivery took too much time. Players had to reach out directly for photos, and the team would send them via WhatsApp or Dropbox links, a slow and clunky process. Sean knew what they were using “was very unsophisticated” and that “sending out a load of links to players just wasn’t going to cut it.”
• Players and sponsors couldn’t easily access assets. Only a few athletes asked for content, leaving others in the dark, while sharing updates with sponsors was a drawn out, manual process. This inconsistent system stunted players’ ability to build their personal brands and limited sponsor engagement.
• Tracking impact was a challenge. The team manually logged social media metrics in spreadsheets, a tedious job that drained their energy. Sean explained, “Before PhotoShelter, we would have been going through and manually putting these metrics in a spreadsheet and adding them up.”

“What we were using prior was very unsophisticated. A player would Whatsapp me or a photographer and ask for photos. We would either send them a link to our Dropbox or just Whatsapp them over. Basically, we wanted to help players fill their social media feeds with content… We were a very small team and thought, ‘How do we create a portal and a repository for players where we can host all of that content?’ Sending out a load of links to players just wasn’t going to cut it.”

Sean Reuthe, PR and Communications Manager, PSA Squash Tour

The solution: Real-time content distribution and analytics

Life before PhotoShelter was full of manual work and missed opportunities, but now the PSA team runs a smooth operation that benefits everyone involved. PhotoShelter’s social content distribution tool, automation, and smart features turned their workflow around. Here’s how they made it happen:

• Content now flows to athletes automatically. With rules tied to metadata, photos and videos land with the right players or groups instantly, cutting out the middleman. Sean said, “What really drew us to PhotoShelter’s social media content distribution tool was all the automations and integrations. It’s all well and good having a portal.” But his favorite part was “the fact that we could have an integration that allows us to have all these rules set up (if the metadata has Ali Farag, it’ll go right to Ali Farag, etc.) was obviously a game changer for us.”

• Sponsors stay in the loop effortlessly. Partners get fresh content as soon as it’s uploaded, boosting their involvement without extra work from the team. “We started thinking, how can we actually get some of our sponsors and commercial partners involved as well? And they were keen because it basically meant they were getting stuff the second it was uploaded… it just helps automate all of that as well,” Sean shared.
• Player growth lifts the brand. By arming athletes with timely content, the PSA helps them shine online, which in turn boosts the sport’s visibility. Sean put it this way: “Sharing with our players has helped a lot… being able to update fans with how their tournaments are progressing and just getting content into their hands more effectively.”
• Analytics reveal what’s working. Usage and performance data are now a quick export away, helping the team prove their impact to the board. “The fact that we’re able to track who’s using it is quite useful. We’ve used it as part of our reports to the board… We take a look at metrics across our socials, how much reach the top 20 players get in, how many followers they have, etc…. It’s pretty important,” Sean noted, highlighting how it tracks player and PSA growth.

“For our partners, we would house all of their content on Dropbox, and they would just get the links to what they need. But now, I’ve not heard one sponsor complain about moving away from Dropbox or say they preferred it to be the way it was before. And I think that’s a testament to the usability of the PhotoShelter platform. And speed is also a key thing as well. It just makes their lives a lot easier. The fact that they’ve got a chronological feed of content coming in also helps them too.”

Sean Reuthe, PR and Communications Manager, PSA Squash Tour

PSA Tour Maximizes Content Impact and Reach with PhotoShelter

The PSA Squash Tour’s switch to PhotoShelter’s social media content distribution tool opened the door to a bigger, brighter future for squash. Players are posting more, fans are seeing the action up close, and sponsors feel the love, all while Sean’s team spends less time on grunt work and more on growing the sport they’re passionate about.

“More players than ever before are getting content into their hands. And that’s a great thing in terms of showcasing to their fans what they’re doing. It’s also great from an event perspective because more players are posting about the event. And it’s great from a fan’s perspective because they’re getting more cool squash content on their feeds. Ultimately, it’s ideal for us too, because all three of those things are beneficial for PSA.”

Sean Reuthe, PR and Communications Manager, PSA Squash Tour