Winning On and Off the Field: Automating Game-Day Content for the Cleveland Guardians
Executive Summary
The Cleveland Guardians partnered with ApertureXI Technologies (AXI) to automate the creation of their daily media communications, Game Notes—an essential media asset produced for all 162 regular-season games and when possible, postseason matchups as well. Previously compiled using Word documents and combining data manually in Adobe InDesign, the process required over four hours of daily effort. AXI delivered a custom automation solution for a portion of Game Notes that integrates directly with official MLB data feeds, processes complex statistics, and outputs fully formatted in InDesign, in just minutes.
The solution not only improves accuracy and saves more than 40 hours per month of valuable marketing resource time—it ensures every Game Notes document consistently reflects the Guardians brand voice, colors, and visual identity. This alignment with brand standards enhances professionalism, reinforces credibility with media partners, and elevates the overall experience.
With automation handling the heavy lifting, the Guardians communications team can now focus on storytelling, media strategy, and deeper fan engagement.
“At the Guardians, technology is a lever to unlock and transform our organizational capacity, and tech like this is how we work smarter, not harder.”
— Chris Hart, Director, Digital Experience, Cleveland Guardians
The Story
Devotees and even casual fans of baseball know how valuable data and statistics are to the game. Media and game announcers—like Cleveland Guardians Hall of Fame radio voice Tom Hamilton and longtime TV analyst Rick Manning—live and breathe data, relying on this information to bring each at-bat, catch, and pitch to life in their broadcasts and coverage.
Every major league team compiles baseball data into a packet of statistical stories known as Game Notes, a daily process that requires referencing the MLB SportRadar database and other statistical sources to manually update a reference document over a few hours each game day.
“We help tell our story on and off the field through Game Notes,” says Austin Controulis, Assistant Director of Communications, Cleveland Guardians. “Whether we’re winning or losing, it gives everyone something to talk about. It’s important, but it’s also time-consuming.”
Faced with a labor-intensive Game Notes creation process, the Guardians turned to ApertureXI Technologies (AXI) to develop a custom automated solution. The goal was clear: transform a manual, 943-data-point production workflow into a streamlined, reliable system that would save hours each day, reduce human error, and ensure game-day accuracy. Just as important, the solution needed to preserve the Guardians’ distinctive brand voice, tone, and visual identity—delivering professional, on-brand content that media partners and fans could trust and recognize.
The Game Notes automation process has been in consideration for the last 10 years, according to Controulis.
“We just never found the right partner to get it done,” he says. “AXI’s willingness to step up and dive in with us is what made the difference. It’s been years in the making.”
“We absolutely need it to grow and do our jobs better,” Controulis says. “We need as many man hours back as possible to do other facets of our job well or even think about doing other facets of our job.”
Covering the (Data)Bases
The AXI team met with the communications team at the Guardians to understand the manual process and the value of the automation project to the business.
In addition to aggregating data for each game day, the Guardians needed a tool to maintain data persistence for specific stats and blurbs. AXI quickly rose to the challenge, delivering a tailored portal solution in under 72 hours.
AXI designed a modular, cloud-based system integrating live sports data feeds with automated publishing workflows, drawing together SportRadar’s real-time MLB sports data API, AXI Harvester and Summarizer engine, an admin web portal, Adobe InDesign, and Box.com.
The automation powers up and retrieves the latest MLB statistics from SportRadar and within 5 minutes, the data files are generated and uploaded to Google Cloud Platform (GCP), eliminating hours of manual data retrieval.
Minutes later, the game notes automation imports to Adobe InDesign with the latest data and saves to Box for marketing edits and review. From beginning to end, the new process requires less than 15 minutes of human engagement to compile more than 100 unique statistics.
AXI Solution Architecture
- Database: PostgreSQL
Cloud-hosted on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), it stores structured stat and metadata across games and players for real-time retrieval.
- APIs: SportRadar
Official MLB statistics feed, automatically retrieving nearly 1,000 data points per game.
- Automation: Adobe InDesign Server (IDDI)
Generates fully branded Game Notes in PDF format using server-side scripting and layout templates.
- Hosting & Storage: Box.com and Google Cloud Platform
Secure storage and sharing of automated outputs for internal review and media distribution.
- Frontend Interface: Custom Marketing Admin Portal
A secure, web-based UI that enables staff to manage game-day content, trigger automations, and review output.
A Home Run Collaboration
Just like in baseball, winning with automation takes a team. The success of the Cleveland Guardians Game Notes transformation was the result of seamless collaboration between the Guardians Communications team, their IT department, and the experts at AXI. Working together, the teams orchestrated a powerful lineup of technologies—including Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for secure cloud infrastructure, SportRadar for real-time MLB data, and Adobe InDesign Server for automated publishing.
From concept to execution, every player had a role: AXI led architecture design and integration, the Guardians shaped the vision, and the combined team delivered a fast, reliable, and brand-consistent solution. Like a well-executed double play, it all came together through communication, trust, and teamwork.
Controulis credits AXI with exceptional responsiveness, organization, and setting clear expectations during the development process. In addition, as challenges arose, the team provided timely recommendations, solutions, and updates, with an eye toward future automation improvements.
“AXI has made a difficult process seem very easy,” he says. “Everything we envisioned at the beginning of this process is really coming to fruition.”
“We just never found the right partner to get it done. AXI’s willingness to step up and dive in with us is what made the difference. It’s been years in the making.”
— Austin Controulis, Assistant Director of Communications, Cleveland Guardians
Faster, Smarter, and On-Brand: Game Notes Reimagined
Through an elegant blend of intelligent automation, data integration, and intuitive design workflows, AXI helped the Cleveland Guardians transform its Game Notes into an efficient, powerful resource and elevate a storied sports franchise into the leading edge of sports content operations.
The game notes are now generated in a fraction of the time, are more readable and retain the team’s branding. The result is a more accessible, usable game day reference document for the media members and play-by-play announcers interacting with this data.
- 40+ Hours Saved Per Month: Freed up staff time to focus on fan engagement and content quality
- Increased Accuracy: Improved reliability of game-day publications and access to historical player data boosts continuity
- Faster Turnaround: The Guardians Communications team receives a complete draft of Game Notes earlier than the manual process.
- Improved Collaboration: Centralized PDF access via Box.com for seamless team reviews
- Brand Elevation: Consistent, professional-grade Game Notes enhance fan experience and media perception
From a culture and career-building standpoint, the Game Notes automation creates strategic growth opportunities for the Guardians communications staff.
“When it comes to being creative and brainstorming strategic comms solutions, or doing media outreach on behalf of the organization, there’s a lot more a communications department could and should be doing,” says Controulis.
“It’s life-changing to get hours back in a day and the ability to focus on other facets of our work.”
Beyond the time savings realized, automation is critical for advancing the Guardians broader vision.
“Technology is a lever to unlock and transform our organizational capacity, and tech like this is how we work smarter, not harder,” says Chris Hart, Director of Digital Experience, Cleveland Guardians.
“We believe that digital innovation can make the experience better for everyone from fans, stakeholders, or teammates,” Hart adds. “What excites me most is how this kind of automation lets us really dig into telling amazing stories, connecting with media, and giving fans new reasons to connect with and love the Guardians.”
Interested in automation for your business?
Explore how intelligent automation solutions can save time and boost efficiency in your operations.