The Boston Red Sox Are DAM Champions with PhotoShelter

A vast archive, a growing challenge

The Boston Red Sox are a legendary baseball team from Boston, born in 1901 as one of the American League’s original eight. They’ve called Fenway Park home since 1912 and play in the AL East Division with a massive fanbase. With a deep archive of historical and modern imagery, the Red Sox needed an efficient way to manage, organize, and distribute their digital assets.

The challenge: Stuck on first with outdated technology

As the Red Sox’s Manager of Photography, Maddie Malhotra oversees the team’s vast library of visual assets, from game-day photography to historical archives, ensuring images are readily available to internal teams, external partners, and media outlets. Outdated processes and a lack of centralized storage made managing the Red Sox’s digital assets a major challenge.

• The archive was stuck on-site. Before PhotoShelter, all Red Sox images were stored on an internal server, accessible only on-site. You had to be at the office to reach the server. Billie Weiss, former Director of Creative Services & Photography, said, “Back when I started in 2012, there was no cloud-based system that housed the Red Sox photo archive.” It was a pain for anyone not physically there.
• Sharing files took forever. They emailed pictures, burned CDs, or mailed hard drives. Upload and download speeds were slow, and there was no streamlined method for distributing galleries to internal stakeholders, external partners, or the media. The whole process was slow and messy.
• Finding assets was a mess. Finding the right image was an uphill battle without a dedicated media library equipped with tagging and search features. Team members struggled to locate specific assets quickly, leading to department delays and inefficiencies. This hit hard with both new shots and 100 years of history to sort.

“There were very slow download and upload speeds, no ability to share galleries or distribute photos easily throughout the organization. And no way to get photos to external partners, media, players, or anyone, really. So it was a pretty clear need. And part of it was because we had to house the current stuff that we were shooting year over year, but also the deep archive of Red Sox photos that go back 100+ years. We wanted a centralized place for the most important stuff in that archive.”

Billie Weiss, former Director of Creative Services & Photography, Boston Red Sox

Photo by Maddie Malhotra

The solution: Red Sox cover all the bases of asset management

Life before PhotoShelter was a grind for the Red Sox photo team. Managing the digital assets was fragmented and inefficient. Now, their workflow is smooth, efficient, and accessible from anywhere. Here’s how they fixed it:

• Everyone grabs visuals quickly. Designers and office staff find what they need with AI Visual Search. Maddie said, “Our designers are probably the heaviest users of PhotoShelter, aside from the corporate sponsorship team. One tool that they’ve been finding to be handy is the AI Search function. The other day, for example, we were just looking for a basic detail shot of our gray road jersey. And that’s not something that we’ve tagged in the past… With a really simple search, they were able to track down that photo. And I think without the AI function, that’s not necessarily one that would have come up so easily.”

• Numbers show the wins. PhotoShelter Analytics tracks uploads and downloads, while sponsors get slick galleries. “There are some metrics we’ve been able to pull out of PhotoShelter that show the sheer number of assets we’re uploading… It’s also provided some really powerful information on the most popular images that different departments are downloading. It’s also clued us into what players are most popular as far as downloads and what areas of Fenway are getting the most downloads. And I think that has helped justify a lot of what we do, budget-wise,” Maddie shared.
• Work flies, even on the road. FileFlow and Shared Libraries keep things moving. Maddie loves it: “I use the FileFlow app constantly, particularly when I’m on the road… When I’m not near my laptop, I have found FileFlow to be insanely valuable. And it’s been incredibly easy to use… It has saved my life in some instances. It’s also been a really fun way to connect with fans or family members, friends, or someone who was at Fenway. When they remember a photo or a specific moment, I can say, ‘Well what if I told you I have it right here?’”
• History stays alive and easy to find. Old and new images live in one spot, searchable by all. Maddie stressed, “A huge metric for success for us is that our shareholders, our players, our front office members, and members of the community have access to the photos we’re taking, that we deliver on the promise to share those pictures, and that we just get as many eyes on our work as possible.” Every moment is ready to shine.

“When it comes to how we tag images so that they’re searchable across every department, PhotoShelter has helped us quantify the value of our photos. And I think the presentation of it has always helped us deliver a really polished product to all of our stakeholders – whether that’s fans, sponsors, or even front office members. It’s always just a very clean, simple, user-friendly, kind of way to engage with the thousands of pictures that we take.”

Maddie Malhotra, Manager of Photography, Boston Red Sox

A game-changing solution for an iconic franchise

With PhotoShelter fully integrated into their workflow, the Boston Red Sox have transformed the way they manage, distribute, and leverage their visual assets. From game-day moments to historic milestones, every image is now accessible, searchable, and ready to be shared at a moment’s notice. For an organization with over a century of history, having a modern, efficient system to manage its visual legacy is a home run.

“PhotoShelter is just so ingrained in our daily workflow, that I don’t notice it, which is another benefit for sure.”

Maddie Malhotra, Manager of Photography, Boston Red Sox

Go behind the scenes with the Boston Red Sox

This video highlights the historic legacy of the Boston Red Sox, documented and described by former Director of Creative Services & Photography, Billie Weiss, former Staff Photographer, Reginald Thomas II, and current Senior Director of Brand & Social, Kelsey Doherty. PhotoShelter for Brands was previously known as Libris.