How UMD Athletics Built A Real-Time Content Engine

Growing athletics program needed content fast

University of Maryland Athletics supports more than 550 student-athletes just outside Washington, D.C. The department competes at the highest level of collegiate athletics while maintaining a strong commitment to academic achievement and personal development. As the program grew and the visual content demands of modern sports media intensified, so did the pressure on the team managing every image. What started as a fragmented collection of contractor-submitted files needed to become something the whole department could actually use.

The challenge: Content demand outpaced the systems

Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, manages a constant flow of images from games, events, and freelancers. Her team works in real time, supporting social, marketing, and communications across the department. The job demands speed, coordination, and control, and when Mackenzie stepped into the role, the prior infrastructure wasn’t ready for it.

• Finding anything took too long. The library was messy and hard to use. “When I inherited everything, it was kind of chaotic… galleries were kind of all over the place, permissions weren’t updated, and it wasn’t easy for staff or external partners to find things.”
• Freelancers made consistency difficult. Remote photographers worked differently from the internal team. Files came in inconsistently, which slowed down publishing. Mackenzie needed a way to standardize how content entered the system.
• Archives older than five years were effectively invisible. Older assets weren’t properly tagged, meaning any search for historical content turned into a manual hunt. “A lot of the older stuff wasn’t tagged with metadata, so it was hard to go back and find specific things.” Valuable content existed, but it was not usable.
• Game day volume was overwhelming. “We can have five games going on at the same time,” explained Mackenzie. The team needed to ingest and route content instantly without confusion.
• Sensitive content risked leaks. Some projects had to stay private until launch. “Being able to secure those galleries so nobody could leak them… is super important.”

“Having PhotoShelter as a hub where different people can upload and access photos, while keeping our internal workflow consistent, is super important in sports. Even now, when I hire freelancers for away matches, I can set them up to send images directly into our library so our workflow stays the same for everyone. That consistency is unmatched.”

Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, University of Maryland Athletics

The solution: A modern DAM built for speed and control

PhotoShelter gave Maryland Athletics the structure it was missing, with enough flexibility to match the pace of a major sports media operation. The team rebuilt its workflows from the ground up, and the results are visible every game day.

• Real-time delivery became standard. Live FTP pipelines push images directly into the right folders during games. “Being able to transmit in-game with one click has been a huge change for us.” Social and comms teams now get content instantly.
• Structured subfolders make assets findable. Rather than one flat wall of galleries, sports are now organized into distinct categories. “We’ve split our sports into subfolders,” Mackenzie said, “assets, events, games, miscellaneous, and practices, so it’s easier for people to find things rather than digging through all the galleries.”
• Smart Galleries removed manual work. With Smart Galleries, metadata automatically sorted content into usable collections. Marketing and design teams could grab what they needed without asking.
• AI Visual Search makes untagged content searchable. Old content became usable again. “We’ve searched for fans wearing red sunglasses or Hawaiian shirts… Being able to AI search for those specific things has been super helpful.”

• Workspaces give teams independence. Marketing can collaborate without bottlenecks. “[In Workspaces], they can collaborate within their department instead of always having to go through me.” The workload spread out naturally.
• Permissions added control without friction. Permissions were tailored by team and use case. “I like being able to control who can see our photos… Having that control is really important.” Sensitive content stayed secure.

“We keyword all of our photos when we’re adding metadata for mascot, fans, and cheer, so they automatically populate into Smart Galleries. It makes it easier for marketing and graphics to quickly find what they need.”

Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, University of Maryland Athletics

A content hub that works for the whole department

PhotoShelter became the system the entire department runs on. The photo team spends less time fielding requests and more time doing the work that matters. As the program continues to grow, the infrastructure is built to grow with it.

“PhotoShelter has so many different attributes. Not only can you archive all of your photos and use it as an internal source, but you can also use it as an external source sharing galleries from donor events or NIL events quickly and easily. I would describe it as our archive and our content hub. It’s where we store everything, and everyone has access to what they need.”

Mackenzie Miles, Director of Photography, University of Maryland Athletics

UMD runs on PhotoShelter across campus and departments. See how University of Maryland Medical System manages their media library with PhotoShelter.