I fully support professional photographers covering youth leagues. I appreciate the work they all do and I always review the photos of my kids. On occasion I do purchase a picture or two when they’ve captured something that I appreciate.
What I don't like are comments made by some that imply parents are an impediment to the photographers that "should" be there. Providing a service is fine and appreciated. Trying to exclude me because I may reduce someone's sales is not appreciated. And trying to exclude non-professional photographers is an attempt at stopping sales erosion - it's not about the safety of the kids or the safety associated with being insured. That's just a red herring.
I started out doing LL and other sports stuff years ago because my kids were in the programs. That progressed into more and more gear and ultimately a business. I am also on the LL board and HS booster associations. I am on both sides of this issue. I also shoot schools and leagues that I have no connection with too. I have carefully considered everyone’s comments and have watched this argument (exclusive vs. non-exclusive and pro vs. non-pro) for some time. I am well familiar with the politics of local vs. district vs. state. So from my position here is what I will recommend to the parents of our area and sports venues; Do not do an exclusive contract with anyone. Get your team and individual photos from anyone you choose. That is how it has been done for the past several years and it has worked well. If you have a parent that can do the photos and who is willing then go ahead and do that. I as a board member and booster member will continue to shoot games and pass out my business cards. In reality, very few people ever have a parent do team and individual photos. Yes there are some, but not many. This is how it works in my area. We (me included) will continue to use “so and so” (company name withheld) to do our team and individuals. We won’t ask for competitive bids because we are happy with the lady whose company does our team photos and we have been using her for years. She already has an exclusive because no one wants anyone else. With regards to my business, it works the same for me. It is just assumed that I will shoot the games (LL, junior and senior high) and be selling photos. I already have an exclusive because no one else does it. This situation is not unique it is just the way it works in my area and as I would suspect most of rural and semi rural America.
From a board of director’s point of view, we have responsibility to manage the money and program to get the maximum value to our parents. Photos are very important in sports at all levels. But from a board of director’s point of view, it better serves our parents to present them with as many options as possible. I invite as many of you “pro photographers” as possible to shoot our events and present your products to our parents. Seeing a few white color lenses will make the kids feel important. I will make sure you have field access and can post your advertising. However, I am willing to bet that our area is like much of the country, there isn’t enough business to support you or any other full time photographer. It is only those areas that have large populations that will ever attract many of the “professional” photographers. So until our population picks up, my friend Molley will get all the T&I shoots and I will get every single game in every sport at every school in multiple districts because I am the only one who ever shows up. An exclusive? I get repeatedly thanked by parents for my service because no one has ever bothered to come to their junior high and shoot photos and sell them before. But yet this thread is all about exclusivity. There is hundreds and hundreds of school districts in this country who would love to have a dedicated professional photographer at every sporting event selling photos. Most of the people who complain about exclusivity would never be interested in these smaller districts because there is no money there for them, but they are happy to complain about people shooting photos and giving them away in these same areas. Sorry about the rant but this pro vs. non-pro, exclusive vs. anyone argument just seems so arrogant. Case in point; I did a wrestling tournament this past weekend. It wasn’t very big, only nine schools. I was the only photographer there selling photos. I had to use my 13 year old son to help shoot the photos. No "pro photographers" showed up, just me with my cameras and my 7th grade son. These events are well established and published.
What am I saying? Don’t worry so much about exclusive access because there are lots of schools where no one shows up to take photos and who would be happy to see you there to taking photos.
I personally am not "worried" nor complaining about exclusivity. What gets me most is when I take the time to properly introduce myself to a board, put together a proper proposal, have taken the time and made the committment of getting properly insured, have background checks for myself and any shooters working for me, make sure all my shooters are properly identified (t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, etc), spend the money for quality online gallery and lab, spend the money on creating a website to that's informative and easy to use, shoot hundreds of images, spend hours processing and uploading images, making sure orders get processed in a timely manner, making sure that the client gets the best possible prints and sometimes eating the cost of reprints when they don't, donating products and services for league fundraisers and banquets . . . basically making a committment to my clients ONLY to then see some other person with a camera (and not much else) shooting games and then telling people behind my back not to bother buying my "overpriced" pictures since he'll give them 4x6 prints for $.75 or the digital files for free.
So as I read it in your opinion $.75 prints from some photo hobbyist are of more value to your parents and athletes than having a properly trained, properly insured, photo professional who operates and behaves as a business? You may think differently the first time your cheap photographer ends up involved in a player injury, or parents start calling to complain that their child's photo was seen on the internet without their knowledge or consent. If that is the case, I've obviously gone about this all wrong.
Whether or not exclusivity is by contract or implied makes no difference to me. When a league tells me "you're our photographer" it is more an affirmation that they appreciate the respect I've shown to them and the committment I'm making to their league by operating in the manner that I do. I don't expect them to stop others from taking photos but I would expect that they would at least promote me as their photographer. For example in all cases, my current clients list my company name and logo on their web sites, they only link to my galleries, and they post regular updates about any specials I may be offering. Luckily for me they treat our business together as a relationship rather than simply a business transaction.
I have been watching this thread for a while and enjoy reading the very well written (for the most part) and well thought out arguments for each side. Not having to count on my photos feeding my family allows me to be emotionally detached from the issue.
So, unless you want to stop reading now, you'll get my two cents.
Exclusivity for the most part benefits only the photographer.
A sports authority or governing body (LL, HS, etc.) should rightly require anyone photographing the event not in typical spectator areas (spectator areas is a whole other topic), should be properly credentialed. The sports authority or governing body controls who gets these credentials and can require them to get background checks, carry x amount of insurance, wear blaze orange vests, whatever they choose. Basically however they want to control coverage of their events they can, and some could argue, must do. Does this happen in reality, not very often. Why do some sports authorities put more time and effort into controlling who is photographing their events, I believe it is because some actually get the liability issue.
Not being an attorney (however I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) I would venture that one could make the argument that by entering into a contract that provides exclusive access to the event would require one of the parties to actively enforce that exclusivity. If neither party takes action to enforce that part of the contract, one could argue that that part of the contract may be invalidated.
It sounds like what gripes people most is when you already have a supposed exclusive contract and some guy with a camera shows up and starts giving away pictures to parents. If the pictures are taken from the stands, I don't believe that unless the venue has a policy to not allow camera into the facilty you're going to be winning any , 1) friends or 2) more work, by trying to stop it.
If the rogue photographer (i.e. uncredentialed photographer) is taking photos from a "controlled" area, I believe either you or the sports authority has the contractual right, and I would argue, the obligation to try to halt that activity. I would recommend spelling that part out in the contract, on which party is required to take affirmative action to halt the forbidden activity.
I see most of the youth leagues in my area are funded by parent contributions and supplemented with some corporate sponsorship. So in my narrow view of how the world works, unless someone in the sports authority or league administration is "on the take", a photographers "donation" or "give back" to the league would be money that the parents would have to put up to fund whatever it is you're "giving back" to.
It would seem that it would be best if photographers stuck to shooting photos and parents stuck to supplying the talent and funding stream for the leagues. However, you're never going to get rid of the parent who wants to photograph their kid and perhaps give some of the photos to the other parents. If the parents are satisfied with a Dodge, then you're probably not going to get them to buy a Corvette, even if that's all that you're selling.
Now if you're selling Dodge's . . . we'd better have a talk.
Yet another very informative topic here on FM. Thanks to all who contributed. I know I got a ton of information and views from both sides that are going to help me in the infant stage of my small business. I feel that I can better tackle this issue with the information gleaned from here. I love this place!
Paul Conlin wrote:
I have been watching this thread for a while and enjoy reading the very well written (for the most part) and well thought out arguments for each side. Not having to count on my photos feeding my family allows me to be emotionally detached from the issue.
So, unless you want to stop reading now, you'll get my two cents.
Exclusivity for the most part benefits only the photographer.
A sports authority or governing body (LL, HS, etc.) should rightly require anyone photographing the event not in typical spectator areas (spectator areas is a whole other topic), should be properly credentialed. The sports authority or governing body controls who gets these credentials and can require them to get background checks, carry x amount of insurance, wear blaze orange vests, whatever they choose. Basically however they want to control coverage of their events they can, and some could argue, must do. Does this happen in reality, not very often. Why do some sports authorities put more time and effort into controlling who is photographing their events, I believe it is because some actually get the liability issue. ...Show more →
I've likewise just read the three pages so far and have found the comments interesting. However, I think there's a few points that haven't been mentioned. It is possible to have competition in the marketplace even with an exclusive contract. For starters, the vendor(s) for T&I as well as for action photos can be put out for bid. In addition, there are few "for life" contracts (unless the vendor is a long time board member or married to one). If a selected vendor doesn't perform well to the satisfaction of the league, they can be bounced for another vendor when the contract expires. These concepts are in place all around the free marketplace. Pepsi and Coke compete fiercely on a constant basis to be a given restaurant's exclusive soft drink.
The bottom line is that in most cases, if the potential for profit doesn't warrant the time and investment, there's not much reason for a photographer to want to bother covering a league. Having to split the photo sales with one or two other photo outfits will only dampen interest for shooters willing to expend significant resources. If the photographer isn't going to get something of value in exchange for the revenue sharing, then there's little reason to even offer it in the first place. If no reasonable guarantees of income can be given by a league, the natural response of a shooter still willing to provide their services would be to cut back on the amount of expenditures that would be "at risk" and try and do it "on the cheap".
If a league would be unwilling to give me an exclusive, then fine. I'd keep the 10%, shoot from just the other side of the fence(*), put business cards in the hands of parents in the stands and/or on the car windshields, and leave it at that. The parents might be "happier" if two or three photographers are at the LL diamonds instead of just one on a given evening, but the league would then need to figure out how the income from the photo revenue sharing in their annual budget would be replaced. In addition, keep in mind that making sure that parents have good action photos of their kids isn't exactly a prime concern of most youth sporting organizations.
* - We host one of the Little League divisional World Series here and I'm on the committee. I shoot the games for fun from "public" areas and find it quite easy to "out shoot" the Official Photographer on-field who simply plants himself behind the first and third base coaches, a little more towards the plate, and shoots from there 85% of the game.
You mentioned "properly introduce yourself to the board". How big is the area that you serve? How many teams in that particular league? My area here in the Pacific North West has four or five leagues in differant cities. I would guess that between the machine pitch to twelve year old boys Little League and the softball leagues, there must be about 1000 kids combined from the three differant cities. This is the rec level and does not include the travel teams or high school teams of which there are many. That is also just baseball/softball. Throw in soccer, football, basketball, and wrestling and the number really gets large. Over the last several years that I have been involved in these programs, I have never seen one professional photographer at any of the events taking photos to sell.
I would be interested to know what size leagues and areas need to be in order to attract professional photographers to work the games.
From my point of observation, there is very little business here in my area otherwise there would be photographers setting up shop. Also, we are just several miles from much larger leagues where there are thousands of kids. Even in this much larger area I can't recall anyone out shooting when I have attended. I have traveled all over our state with two differant soccer teams (rec and high school) and the only time I ever encountered a pro shooting for retail photo sales was at a multi day tournament event where over a hundred teams and thousands of people were present.
My conclusion is that unless it is tournament play, most pros are not interested, otherwise you would see them at regular league games. It appears it is because there is no money to be made in regular league games. Is your experience similar or differant?
These concepts are in place all around the free marketplace. Pepsi and Coke compete fiercely on a constant basis to be a given restaurant's exclusive soft drink.
I understand the idea of exclusive contracts and I understand that they are very common. However, I question how well they benefit you the consumer? As a Diet Coke drinker, I have to constantly switch to Pepsi products at restaurants that have exclusive contracts with Pepsi. (I suppose I could switch to beer but sometimes that is not appropriate )
The bottom line is that in most cases, if the potential for profit doesn't warrant the time and investment, there's not much reason for a photographer to want to bother covering a league. Having to split the photo sales with one or two other photo outfits will only dampen interest for shooters willing to expend significant resources. If the photographer isn't going to get something of value in exchange for the revenue sharing, then there's little reason to even offer it in the first place. If no reasonable guarantees of income can be given by a league, the natural response of a shooter still willing to provide their services would be to cut back on the amount of expenditures that would be "at risk" and try and do it "on the cheap"....Show more →
As I stated in my initial post, if the league or sports authority is not going to enforce the exclusive part of the contract, then why have an exclusive contract and offer the "donation", which is actually a tax on the parents or purchases of our photographs, and giving it to the league. It is embedded in your price you have to charge.
Paul Conlin wrote:
I understand the idea of exclusive contracts and I understand that they are very common. However, I question how well they benefit you the consumer? As a Diet Coke drinker, I have to constantly switch to Pepsi products at restaurants that have exclusive contracts with Pepsi. (I suppose I could switch to beer but sometimes that is not appropriate )
In the case of sports shooting, the consumer can benefit by having a photography outfit that very well likely would be willing to make a greater effort at covering a league given that they known that such efforts will be move likely to provide a financial return based on the exclusivity.
As I stated in my initial post, if the league or sports authority is not going to enforce the exclusive part of the contract, then why have an exclusive contract and offer the "donation", which is actually a tax on the parents or purchases of our photographs, and giving it to the league. It is embedded in your price you have to charge.
FWIW. Paul
You are making an assumption that prices to the parents will be raised by the amount of money given to the youth organization. I don't think that can be assumed. For a photographer, the bottom line is going to be the amount of profit made at the end of the day. Incremental sales made through exclusivity can more than offset any split of the revenue made in exchange. Retailers don't raise prices to offset the costs of offering discount coupons or rebates, the retailer offers such deals in the belief that incremental sales (and profits) due to such offers will more than offset the discounts given. As for league enforcement of the exclusivity, usually the revenue sharing language puts those payments in jeopardy if the league doesn't hold up their end of the deal. As for parents in the stands with cameras, even though I shoot our World Series in such a manner for the players we host each year, they still buy stuff from the exclusive photographer in addition to what I give them because he offers things that I don't such as faux SI cover photos, instant on-site printing (a big $$$ investment), and such.
graycat wrote:
I would be interested to know what size leagues and areas need to be in order to attract professional photographers to work the games.
Yeah, I'd be interested in knowing this as well. In my area, we have a "Metro" league that organizes games between teams from 3-4 different towns (they are all one now). The remnant of this is a league for each area (former town) and they manage their own teams the way they want to. If I want to setup an arrangement with a league, I need to do it for each area as the Metro league is not an overall governing body. This makes things complicated, but if the number of kids is there, then it may be worthwhile. I just don't know what the magic number is for number of kids...
graycat wrote:
From my point of observation, there is very little business here in my area otherwise there would be photographers setting up shop. Also, we are just several miles from much larger leagues where there are thousands of kids. Even in this much larger area I can't recall anyone out shooting when I have attended. I have traveled all over our state with two differant soccer teams (rec and high school) and the only time I ever encountered a pro shooting for retail photo sales was at a multi day tournament event where over a hundred teams and thousands of people were present.
My conclusion is that unless it is tournament play, most pros are not interested, otherwise you would see them at regular league games. It appears it is because there is no money to be made in regular league games. Is your experience similar or differant?
Shawn, your observations about the presence of pros at regular season games apply to my area as well. You don't live in Quebec, Canada do you? I'm reluctant to take on tournaments at this time. I may do a bit of work for another photographer who does these things, but mostly to learn by doing. I'm not sure the investment for the gear required to do tournaments in a worthwhile manner (LCD monitors, printer, ...) is really worth it at this point.
Next season, I'll see if there is any interest in having a deal with the local league for action photography at regular season games. I'm thinking of getting the teams that are interested in paying a small fee up front and then putting photos for sale to parents up through my web site at a discounted rate. The league would advertise this service at the beginning of the hockey season to every team's staff, in exchange for being able to use a limited number of photos for their web site. I will not be asking for exclusive rights.
Paul Conlin wrote:
As I stated in my initial post, if the league or sports authority is not going to enforce the exclusive part of the contract, then why have an exclusive contract and offer the "donation", which is actually a tax on the parents or purchases of our photographs, and giving it to the league. It is embedded in your price you have to charge.
Actually you really cannot make that assumption Paul. While it is true that donations back to any league is derived from purchases made by parents, it is not necessarily true that the donation is "embedded" in my pricing. First of all any payments back to a league are not automatic. Secondly if we do have an agreement that does include a donation my product pricing does not change. For me, if I'm agreeing to that donation it's because the potential profit for my company warrants it, and secondly the potential donation for the league warrants it. Yes, you read that second part correctly. I do take the potential donation back to the league into consideration. If it's just not worth it for either party and depeding on the client I usually just agree to work some games in on spec. when and if my schedule allows with no contract or expectation on either end. Then at the very least, they've met me and I've met them which usually helps lead to paying work in the future.
Graycat:
You're lucky if you really find yourself with no competition but on the other hand competition can be a good thing. I'd say that my area is larger or at least more densely populated. As far as what may or may not attract sports photographers I'm assuming $$. Realizing that no one is getting rich shooting youth sports, we all probably supplement income with either other unrelated jobs or diversifying our photo business. When you can book the kind of money you can shooting senior portraits, family portraits, weddings, etc. with a lot less effort, then shooting youth sports becomes a filler. I've already spoken to several people who work for rather large studios in my area. Each of them tried to get into the youth sports photography market and dropped it after a year. The return on their investment didn't support that line of business for them.
As far as meeting with leagues, teams, etc.. . if I want the business and there is business to be had, then that's what I have to do. If that means meeting with several different organizations then so be it. For instance, since I'm shooting my local baseball league, I also try and meet with any other teams from the surrounding area that they will be playing. And since each city, town, township governs their own team then I have to meet with several boards. As long as the potential profit is there then that's what I do. Realistically though, unless I can get a signed T&I contract or payment up front to cover the league, I won't really travel to cover their teams unless I am trying to get my foot in the door.
I really appreciate all of the thoughtful commentary and insight here. It is obvious that there are very compelling arguments on both sides of this issue.
Things are still very "relaxed" in our community, and there's really not much competition for what I'm doing (spec action photos). Parents are very happy and thankful for the professional product our company puts out and pleased that anyone is covering their kiddos. Guess I'm lucky that way compared to what some others are having to deal with. We'll be adding T&I and all league events for this spring season (+/- 500 kids). Want to make sure all of my bases are covered.
I would be very interested in seeing an example of the contract language (with or without exclusivity arrangements) that some of you have used, if anyone is interested in sharing.
This is indeed a great topic. I have a few thoughts based on several years of shooting various youth sports; some exclusively and some not. I believe, and this may be incorrect, that there are quite a number of folks here that shoot on spec. (Something that I have gone away from) For normal league play I honestly don't believe this is a huge business opportunity. One of the primary drivers for this is that a lot (maybe even a majority) of parents are simply not interested in our photos as we are. That's tough to swallow for us, because we know how great the photos are and how much time, effort and equipment went into taking the photo(s). But for a fairly sizeable population, they don't get, they don't see it, and they are quite content to have you take great photos and post them so they can relive a certain game, but they have zero intention of buying anything from you. Your huge watermark doesn't even bother them and their kids are happy to screen scrape your site and post your images on their myspace. 100% satisfaction for them. Zero revenue to help you buy that new 200mm 2.0 lens.
There are certainly exceptionss to this including tournaments, exclusive events and the rare teams/individuals that spend boatloads of money indisciminately.
I now shoot inidividual players exclusively and pre-paid. My income has been about constant, but my hourly wage (shooting, processing, posting, fulfilling) is 1000 times better. I have a specific target when I walk onto the field. I had to earn the business, I am not there to "steal" business from some other shooter. Moreover, I am quite confident that if the other shooter is trying to cover every athlete on the field, I will provide a far better service to my customer then they would. Which gets me to what I suppose is my main point. If a league, school, organization gives an individual photographer (even with multiple shooters) exclusive access to their league action photos, then the the customers (parents) are limited in who they can hire. Perfectly legal to limit the competition like this and some good points have been made about the possible necessity to do it just to attract a photographer to your games, but I think the parents who are always footing the bill anyway should have options. They may not like you, or me, or some other guy; or we may be too busy to give them what they want which may be 100% dedicated coverage; every play, every down, every at bat, etc...
I had a league that a couple years ago moved to standard credentials for all sideline access. They asked my input on who should be allowed on the field. When I said each team should receive a Photographer credential, they insisted that I was the "League Photographer". I insisted that each team should be able to have a parent or other photographer on the field if they so choose. I have no problems competing with them. If they are serious about quality action photos they will usually come to me anyway. If not, let the DWACs and MWACs shoot away. They weren't going to buy anything from me anyway.
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