NEW YORK, N.Y. – Engaging college sports fans through visual content on multiple platforms is paramount for today’s university athletic departments. In order to assist universities to best leverage their photos and videos, SIDEARM Sports and Libris by PhotoShelter today announced a partnership effective immediately to provide schools of all sizes a seamless, efficient sharing process between the two platforms, enabling the fastest possible workflow to move content from point of capture to a school’s website.
The integration of these two established leaders in their respective niche industries marks a first-of-its-kind for the collegiate sports industry. No other digital asset management platform and content management system have come together to combine the benefits of both for the end user. SIDEARM Sports is the nation’s leading digital provider, serving more than 940 collegiate athletic partners. Libris by PhotoShelter is a recognized industry leader in digital asset management, representing 275 clients in the college space, as well as hundreds of other brands across industries.
“Visual storytelling is a huge driver in how collegiate athletic departments communicate with their fans. Teams are constantly innovating with photos and videos to catch their fans’ attention. We are well aware of the tremendous need for these departments to move fast and deliver eye-popping creative, and are always looking for ways to make this easier for our clients,” said PhotoShelter CEO Andrew Fingerman. “We knew it only made sense to align with SIDEARM as their strength and position in the marketplace is unprecedented. They deliver an exceptional product for their partners and now, our two companies are coming together to bridge a gap and provide a valuable visual content solution in the college space.”
Iowa State University Athletics, a client of both Libris by PhotoShelter and SIDEARM Sports, has been one of the early partners using the integrated feature in order to provide sound feedback and insight on the collaboration prior to the national roll out. Iowa State relies on Libris to centralize all newly captured visual content, along with decades of archived content. Now, the school can instantly move content via Libris to their athletics website by SIDEARM Sports as a result of the new integration.
“The integration of Libris and SIDEARM is a game-changer for us. Working in the fast-paced world of athletics, we are always looking for ways to improve our product and this will allow us to deliver content to our fans more efficiently. This collaboration will also be greatly beneficial to our daily operation and content management,” Nicole Leusink, Assistant Director for Athletics Communications, Iowa State University.
“We have always listened to our partners and considered our customer service first-rate, which clearly has attributed to our growth and success as a company,” said Jeff Rubin, SIDEARM Sports’ president and CEO. “Part of that is identifying where needs still exist for our partner schools, where today’s top priority is fulfilling the insatiable desire of the collegiate sports audience to consume more visual content. We all want to be on the forefront of how we can best deliver for our clients, and this partnership with Libris is exactly that. Not to mention they are a leader in their own space and the only asset management platform that offers an NCAA compliant way to generate revenue from selling images. Libris is affectionately known as ‘the fastest workflow in college sports’ and we believe that to be true.”
Libris is a cloud-based digital asset management platform built for visual media. The software provides collegiate institutions of varying enrollment numbers an easy and fast way to organize and provide stakeholders access to photos and videos in order to engage their audiences anytime, anywhere. The Libris platform gives the university team control and flexibility so multiple people can upload, organize and access assets in a way that best works for them, including wireless direct uploads during sporting events. Libris is known for ease of use and exceptional NYC-based client services. With no local hardware, software or IT requirements, teams can launch in days—even hours. Libris is trusted by hundreds of brands across industries, and built on top of the owned-and-operated PhotoShelter network founded 12 years ago that today manages half a billion assets.
Acquired by collegiate marketer Learfield in June 2014, SIDEARM Sports is the nation’s leading digital provider serving more than 940 partners. Based in Syracuse, N.Y., SIDEARM Sports was founded in 1998 by Jeff Rubin, who continues to lead the business. Clients applaud SIDEARM for its service, reliability and customization, and its easy-to-use interface allows schools to customize their content streams and digital presence. As a leader in collegiate athletic web solutions, SIDEARM Sports provides the software and technology that powers websites, mobile applications, live stats, social presence and video streaming for its school and conference partners. Learfield is a diverse media enterprise anchored by its core collegiate business managing multimedia rights and sponsorship initiatives for more than 120 institutions, conferences and arenas nationwide.