SVG Sit-Down: Backlight CEO Kathleen Barrett on Building Media Infrastructure for a Global, AI-Driven Sports Landscape

She addresses why media organizations need more than asset storage, how sports teams can localize content across international markets, and where AI can create meaningful workflow efficiencies

As sports organizations expand into new markets and create more content than ever, the ability to find, govern, and activate media within one's own library has become a competitive differentiator.

Backlight CEO Kathleen Barrett spoke with SVG about why traditional media-asset-management systems are no longer enough, how teams can support global content operations without undertaking massive migrations, and the role that AI and automation can play in helping organizations work faster and smarter.

You recently spoke about the importance of getting more out of existing media infrastructure. As companies acquire other companies, with entire media libraries changing hands, why is a strong, intelligent media infrastructure so important today?

For a long time, we described this as the media-asset-management category, but I think we are outgrowing that label. Asset management sounds like a filing system. What organizations really need is a system of record: one place that knows where content exists, who is allowed to touch it, what rights come with it, and where it has already been used - not simply where it is stored.

I break it into three layers. The first is data and control: metadata, permissions, rights, and governance. The second is storage: where the content actually lives. The third is activation: the ability to edit, review, approve, clip, and publish.

Audiences want to be met where they are, in the format they prefer, at the time they want it, and as close to the live action as possible. Storage can live wherever it needs to, but the system of record and the activation layer should be tightly connected so that organizations can act on content quickly and easily.

With that contextual layer in place, you can clip a live moment that is resonating with an audience and immediately bring archival material into the story. That is especially relevant as leagues and teams reach new audiences that do not have longstanding relationships with the sport. You can pair live clips with archival context and give people access to that content without forcing them to wait for someone in another time zone.

Your recent op-ed on the FOX-Roku deal argued that owning content is no longer enough. What separates organizations that effectively activate their media libraries from those that assume the content itself will carry them?

We see organizations say, We have this huge archive. We have so much media. But no one knows where it sits, what is in it, how to access it, who can access it, or what they are allowed to do with it.

There is the media itself, and there is the layer of understanding around it. That understanding helps you search for content, find it, and determine what it contains. It also allows you to activate it without worrying that you are using the wrong asset or distributing something for which you do not have the necessary rights. That foundation is what sets organizations apart.

It is becoming even more important as new tools and AI models emerge. Content is constantly moving, and context can be lost along the way. Organizations may also be trying to work locally while relying on external partners. Without a strong foundation, it becomes very difficult to do that quickly and simply.

At the same time, you do not want to turn this into a two-year cloud-migration project in which you are moving enormous numbers of assets. That is when these initiatives die. Rather than undertaking a massive migration, organizations need a layer that provides visibility and understanding while allowing them to plug into the tools and models that continue to emerge.

Those tools can make it easier to understand what is in an archive. Sports organizations already have structured metadata coming from a variety of data feeds, but there are opportunities to create a deeper understanding of the content. Permissions governing who can access and activate that content also need to be connected to the media, rather than stored in spreadsheets.

There was a time when operating in a silo could make a group faster and more accountable. Everyone knew where everything was and could act independently. Today, access to all the content and the data tied to it is the differentiator - provided you can act on it.

There are also different types of content creation. For a live moment, you need to move very quickly. Then there is the craft of going into the archive, finding contextual material, and building a deeper story. The archive can make the live moment much more powerful by surrounding it with that additional context.

The goal is to make the movement of media simple without losing any of the understanding attached to it. Otherwise, you are effectively starting over each time, remaining stuck in silos, and relying on institutional knowledge about whom to call when you need something.

Where do these initiatives typically break down? Is the migration itself the biggest barrier, or is it more often an issue of metadata and workflow design?

When a project is presented as a migration, it can be very intimidating. There are two potential breakdowns: the movement of the content and the workflows themselves.

We like being able to sit on top of an organization's existing infrastructure and provide an additional layer of visibility. That allows the organization to begin seeing an impact without moving everything first. People become discouraged when they are unable to demonstrate value until the end of a long migration.

The other breakdown occurs when organizations force many different teams to work in exactly the same way. A social team clipping live content needs to optimize for something very different from an archival t

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