Tennis Australia Finds Efficient and Cost-Effective Media Asset Management Solution with Wasabi + Imagen

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Tennis Australia hosts numerous broadcasted tennis events throughout the year, including the Australian Open, which is one of four tennis grand slam championships. Along with presenting and host-broadcasting the Australian Open, Tennis Australia is responsible for content production and distribution throughout the tournament. Content produced by Tennis Australia is sold to broadcasters, sponsors, and partners to repurpose for their respective outlets around the world.

Manual content process ignites search for new media management solution

Tennis Australia’s broadcast partners and sponsors access event content globally via tier-based subscriptions, but the backend process of uploading content for users was entirely manual. John O’Neil, Supervising Producer at Tennis Australia, explained, “Our previous solution functioned like shared folders. We’d put content into folders that our users could access, but found ourselves having to upload the same piece of content multiple times to fit into our different customer tiers.” With over 50 sponsors to manage and hundreds of content files (at times, spanning hundreds of gigabytes per file), Tennis Australia found their manual system hard to manage, time-consuming, and inefficient. “We had to manage and track everything manually through spreadsheets,” explained O’Neil. “The process put much pressure on our media managers. The platform simply didn’t fit our needs.” Tennis Australia needed a more automated, user-friendly solution to deliver media effectively across the globe.

Imagen & Wasabi provide hand-in-hand cloud asset management solution

For robust media management, Tennis Australia went with Wasabi technology partner, Imagen, a media asset management platform designed to deliver fast, secure and easy access to content. With Imagen, Tennis Australia eliminates the burden of manually processing and managing its files. The team can upload directly to the platform and track user activity with ease, while users can view and preview content within the platform. “One of Imagen’s biggest benefits is its ability to present our content to a wider group of people, like news agencies and third parties who don’t have a subscription to our content, which creates plenty of buying conversations. We never had that access previously.” O’Neil explained that an added benefit for Tennis Australia is Imagen’s ‘view-only’ access to content, which allows non-broadcasting partners to view clips before requesting to purchase the content.

Lack of egress provides a seamless storage experience for all stakeholders

To effectively deliver content from its Imagen platform, Tennis Australia wanted to be mindful of stakeholders’ abilities to access and retrieve data across continents. While hyperscaler cloud storage vendors have such capabilities, the accompanying costs per retrieval or API request would snowball into huge fees for Tennis Australia. “We didn’t want egress to be a bottleneck,” said O’Neil. “When comparing storage providers, we looked at the cost to upload one file, but we knew that file would potentially be downloaded fifteen, fifty, or maybe one hundred times. We looked at ingress cost and, more importantly, asked what egress costs would look like.” Since Wasabi doesn’t charge for egress or API requests, O’Neil and the team at Tennis Australia didn’t have to worry about accruing charges for transferring or accessing their data. “Like all technology decisions, cost is an incredible factor, and the cost offering from Wasabi was a deciding factor for us. We’ve had a seamless experience internally, and our external stakeholders also have a great experience.”

Next Steps: Migrating tape library to the cloud

With Wasabi’s low cost and no fees for egress or API requests, Tennis Australia can store more content in its Wasabi cloud. “By saving on cloud storage costs, we can digitize more content in our backlog,” said O’Neil. “We have 10,000 physical tapes to digitize into our Imagen and Wasabi platform, and we will continue to grow.” With an Imagen and Wasabi joint solution, Tennis Australia can rest easy with a solution fit to meet their needs. “We have a complete, full integrated solution,” said O’Neil. “I don’t have to manage the storage separately; it’s all together and managed on our behalf by Imagen in conjunction with Wasabi. Wasabi and Imagen understand what we’re trying to achieve. They’re supportive, and their solution helps us achieve our goals.”