The Future of Sports Media: Manage Costs and Optimize Budgets with Cloud Tiering

Sports fans live for those rare exhilarating moments that connect them to the love of the game and each other—the split-second lead, the lucky catch, the unbelievable hole in one. Advancements in digital technology allow today’s fans to chase more of those moments than ever before.

Digital content has transformed the way we consume sports media and offered sports buffs new ways to satisfy growing appetites for the highs and lows of the game. On-demand digital sports content plugs them right into the middle of the action.

Satisfying fans with a high volume of content that is accessible anytime, anywhere can be a challenge for sports media organizations. It means managing vast amounts of data and ensuring easy accessibility and high-quality performance, while also keeping costs in check. Efficient content management is key, and cloud tiering is one trend that stands out as a game changer.

The sports media industry is changing fast

Last summer was a sports lover’s dream with the Paris Olympics, plus the season’s usual fare: the UEFA European Football Championship, Tour de France, Wimbledon and the US Open, golf championships, NBA finals, and a smattering of Formula 1 races. Billions of sports buffs watched every thrilling moment as the events streamed directly to their devices, often in real time.

When you think about all the media generated around each of those events, it’s easy to see how the world of sports media has exploded in terms of both content volume and diversity. Whether it’s live broadcasts, player interviews, or social media snippets, the amount of content being created on a daily basis is staggering.

This rapid growth in content poses a couple serious challenges. First, how do you manage such massive amounts of data effectively? Traditional storage systems like on-premises servers or magnetic tape can no longer keep up with the growing needs for accessibility and scalability. Second, how do you manage the cost of storing and maintaining all of that data efficiently without breaking your budget?

Demand for accessibility requires real-time access to content

Sports content is one of the most valuable assets in the media world. Not only do fans want to see the most critical matches and events today, they also want to see behind the scenes and into the lives of favorite players.

The NHL’s Boston Bruins is but one of the sports franchises that asked that question and found an answer in Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage. The Bruins can now instantly access archived footage without data retrieval fees, enabling them to quickly capitalize on special occasions like creating a highlight reel of alumni when they come to games.

Real-time access to your vast content library is crucial for everything from producing clip packages to creating on-demand content for digital platforms. The key here is speed; you need to provide your teams with rapid access to both live and archived content in ways that enhance productivity and meet fan demand. Traditional storage methods such as tape struggle with the modern needs of instant content access, and that's where cloud-based solutions, particularly cloud tiering, come into play.

Stretched budgets and rising demand make managing costs more difficult

In an era where every department is scrutinizing costs, sports media organizations are under pressure to maximize storage budgets without sacrificing performance. With content production ever increasing, traditional storage solutions—whether on-premises or through tape-based systems—require significant ongoing investments.

Media owners are also under constant pressure to manage operational expenses, making it crucial to find cost-effective alternatives that don’t compromise content accessibility.

Moving beyond tape to the cloud can resolve modern storage challenges

While the end of tape has been predicted for years, the reality is that it’s still a viable option for long-term archiving. That is, as long as you don’t need to access that data very often. For sports media organizations, data accessibility is critical and that makes tape a poor storage choice. This is where the cloud stands out. Storing your current and archival data in the cloud gives you an efficient and scalable way to manage it all and keep it accessible.

The cloud also helps resolve challenges around the ongoing data explosion—and keeping costs down. Cloud storage is incredibly scalable and you pay only for what you use. That allows you to get the storage capacity you need at this moment and avoid overprovisioning and paying for storage you don’t currently use.

Cloud tiering simplifies sports media storage and access

Cloud tiering is more than just a buzzword; it’s a smart approach to data storage that is reshaping how sports organizations manage and store content. It can empower you to optimize your budget, scale your storage needs, and future-proof your content management strategies. It can also help you address the rapidly changing landscape of the sports media industry and the growing demands for content.

What is cloud tiering?

Cloud tiering is a storage strategy where data is categorized based on its frequency of use and then placed in corresponding tiers of storage that differ in terms of performance and cost. For instance, active data that you need to access frequently will utilize on-premises capacity that costs more but offers the high performance you need for quick, easy access. Data you access less frequently can go into lower-cost storage, freeing up space for higher value content on your active tier while still appearing as though it resides on premises.

The strategy offers media owners the high-performance storage they need for their most urgent assets and the freedom to access their entire library from anywhere. Cloud tiering ensures you’ll always have room to work on your next project and keeps your archival content within arms’ reach, appearing as a stub file on your desktop or easily viewable within your media asset manager (MAM).

Cloud tiering can help you balance performance and budget by offering flexibility in how you manage your data. It does away with the old model of “archival content” and “active content” and creates a new category of the “active archive,” where all content can be viewed and accessed with relative speed.

Advantages of cloud tiering

Accessibility

As a sports media organization, one of your most critical challenges is ensuring rapid access to both current and archived content. With cloud tiering, teams, producers, and even fans can easily retrieve data in real time from wherever they are. Cloud storage offers the agility that traditional storage solutions such as tape simply can’t match.

Scalability

Cloud-based storage solutions scale effortlessly to accommodate growing content libraries. As the volume of media continues to increase, cloud tiering makes it possible to expand storage capacity without making additional hardware purchases, and still not lose out on the advantages of premises-based storage for media production.

Cost-efficiency

Cloud tiering helps you optimize storage costs by categorizing data based on usage. On-prem storage capacity is typically more expensive than many cloud storage tiers. Keeping only the most recent content on that platform ensures you’re only paying for what you need at any given time, improving the cost efficiency of content management.

Five ways to future-proof your storage strategy by making cloud tiering integral

1) Embrace cloud solutions

To remain competitive and future-proof your operations, it’s vital to embrace cloud technology as a strategic solution rather than a temporary fix. Cloud tiering is a long-term investment that will enable you to scale, innovate, and manage content more efficiently. As cloud technologies continue to evolve, early adoption of cloud tiering can help you stay ahead of the curve.

2) Beware of fees

Your cloud provider might be a great option for cloud tiering, but in most cases the price point that’s ideal for archiving can quickly rack up fees when you need to access media content. With Wasabi, you can free up space on-prem by tiering to the cloud, and because we don’t charge for egress fees or API calls, you can count on a predictable cloud bill every month.

3) Invest in integration

For cloud tiering to be effective, make sure to integrate it into your existing infrastructure and workflows. Whether you’re using editing suites, content delivery networks, or digital asset management systems, ensure that your cloud tiering and storage solutions interoperate with your current system.

4) Stay informed of technology advancements and market trends

Things shift quickly in the digital sports media landscape. To stay competitive, stay abreast of emerging trends and technological advancements. Whether it’s new cloud offerings, AI-driven content management, or advancements in video streaming technology, staying informed is key to ensuring that your content management strategies remain future-proof.

5) Keep backup opportunities front of mind

Backups are essential to ensuring business continuity in the event of a cyberattack. Using cloud tiering in your backup operations allows you to back up works in progress and store them in the cloud as an active archive that’s easily accessible. With cloud-tiering software, you can schedule regular backups and push that copied data to the cloud.

Start cloud tiering with Wasabi

As the sports media industry keeps evolving, managing the ever-growing volume of content will continue to be increasingly complex. By embracing our cloud tiering solution, you can future-proof your content management strategies, and ensure they stay agile, scalable, and cost-effective in the years to come.

The future of sports media is in the cloud, and it’s wins it can provide.