Contents:
Highlights:
- 1,000+ hours saved in content handling
- 24,217 assets managed with Pics.io DAM (and counting)
- 10-minute halftime → 120-second social media post workflow
There’s no playbook for starting a soccer club in the middle of a global shutdown—but that’s exactly what one Pics.io customer did. Five years later, Real Central NJ has grown into a thriving operation, with men’s and women’s teams, youth programs, and a media library brimming with abundant photos, graphics, and matchday content.
We spoke with Jeremy Ryan, the club’s Chief Marketing Officer. He leads most of the marketing, creative, and content efforts — and when things started piling up, he knew they needed a system that could keep up.
What follows is Jeremy’s story, in his own words.
Background:
- Industry: Sports
- Company size: 11-50
- Department: Marketing
- Use case: Digital asset management
- Region: North America
The club started with three of us. I had just moved back to Lawrenceville after years of working in marketing and consulting across the country. I met Ira, one of the founders, by chance—we got paired up as volunteer coaches in the local league. We hit it off. One night at a soccer bar, he said, “I want to start a team.” I said, “Then do it.” That’s how it began.
We weren’t aiming just to start a men’s team—we wanted a real club including men’s, women’s, and youth teams as a platform for local talent, and a community-first culture. Our players are mostly college athletes, many with pro ambitions. Some have already gone on to play professionally. For us, it’s about building something sustainable.
We launched in 2020, right as the world shut down. Not great timing, but we used that year to build: branding, operations, and finding a home field. When the governor finally gave the green light, we were ready.
"We wanted to be a platform for exceptional local talent, although we also have national and international players. The goal was to give local players a chance to grow, and if they have pro ambitions, to help them get there."
Challenge:
Fast forward a few seasons, and we did such a great job of capturing content that we exceeded our ability to manually manage and curate that content. On matchdays, we have interns snapping photos, and I have about 10 minutes at halftime to pick 2–3 great shots from about 100 taken by each photographer, and get them out on social media. It used to take me 10–15 minutes just to sort through the files. That obviously doesn’t work.
We also have a library of tens of thousands of assets: player portraits, action shots, videos, graphics, press materials, and more, all sitting in folders on a Google Drive, hard to search and hard to manage. I needed a tool that could help me move faster, stay organized, and most importantly, something that my high school interns could actually use.
"That’s where your platform has been a game changer for us. In soccer, I need to ingest and sort through photos at halftime, which only lasts 10 minutes, to publish 2–3 optimized photos for social media. Before, that took 10–15 minutes at best just to find the right photo assets. Now, with facial recognition, jersey tagging with player numbers, and AI, it takes 60 seconds. I can search by player number, collection, date, or tagged player, and instantly find what I need."
Solution:
I came across Pics.io while looking for a way to organize all our media without overhauling our whole storage setup. We already used Google Drive and didn’t want to switch. That was the first big win: Pics.io works on top of Drive.
Then I saw the AI tools. We started tagging players by face and jersey number. So now, at halftime, I can search for “Number 5” from a collection or a particular game or opponent, and I have what I need. More recently, I’ve been searching within a subset of photos that the interns uploaded just a few minutes prior! It’s game-changing; the search is fast, accurate, and visual.
Pics.io also made it easy to bring our interns into the workflow for bigger archival contributions. They upload, tag, search, and even credit themselves as photographers—all in the same place. I don’t have to hunt down high-res files, rewrite image captions, or go on the hunt for Instagram handles to tag for credit.
"I do the pro work in Photoshop, InDesign, and Lightroom, but we use what interns know, too. That's why Pics.io’s simplicity is essential—it works for everyone, from pros to interns."
Result:
We’ve already saved at least 1,000 hours across everyone who participates in the media. No exaggeration. Just from this season, we’re talking about hundreds of hours saved. Everything runs smoother: social posts are faster, photo tagging is cleaner, and I don’t waste time digging through folders.
Pics.io has even helped us think about our photography assets differently. We’re exploring ways to monetize our media assets that could help cover the cost of the system, turning our DAM into a revenue source. That will be a big win.
And it’s not just about speed or money. It’s about sanity. I’ve got a soccer club to help run, interns to mentor, and partners to support. I needed a system that wouldn’t slow me down, and Pics.io fit right into our culture like it was built for it. If you’re in Central NJ, come to a match (https://realcentralnj.soccer), take pictures, and share them with us!
Did you enjoy this interview? Give Pics.io a try! — Or book a demo with us, and we'll be happy to answer any of your questions.
