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Mr. Stock Smarty Pants tackles pro-sports photography

By Paul Henning January 25, 2008

Comments (1)

Dear Mr. Stock Smarty Pants:

Hey, I was watching the NFL playoff games and started wondering what the market is like for pictures from professional sporting events.  I sometimes take my camera along to Dodger games and get some pretty good shots with my telephoto lenses.  Think I could sell some of them? Also, what do photographers do to stay warm in places like New England and Green Bay? It looks awful.

Sincerely yours,
Al in Los Angeles

Dear Al:

I’m sure you’re a very nice fellow, but your chances of making it from the minors to the Big Leagues as a sports photographer are about the same as Barry Bonds’ odds of being handed a “Sportsman of the Year” award by his very close personal friend Bud Selig. There are a number of reasons for this:

1) unless you have “access” you are never going to get the sorts of shots that are in demand by the weekly sports magazines, daily newspapers, etc.  Like most people, Al, you’re probably paying an ungodly sum just for the privilege of securing a decent seat so that you can watch a bunch of overpaid and overdeveloped men play what are essentially kids’ games.   But even if you have box seats, you still don’t have the best shooting spots in the house, which are reserved for the credentialed media photographers;

2) OK, you say, if access is what I need, then I’ll call the team and get it.  HA! In the good old days, when even a six-figure income from playing football, basketball or baseball was still unheard of, you could get away with just about anything: if you called up your pals the Dodgers, told ‘em you were shooting a picture story about the relative velocity of Don Drysdale’s fastballs for Popular Mechanics and you needed field access for a few games, you’d probably get it.  Now, access to the sidelines at any professional sporting event for the purpose of taking pictures is about as closely guarded as Dick Cheney’s home phone number.  With Big Money ruling pro sports, every single player and his agent, every single league commissioner, every single team p.r. department is on a 24 x 7 quest to see how they can exploit their own image to the greatest degree possible.  That means the same sort of tight controls over photographers for access to sports stars as you have for Hollywood types or Top-40 musicians;

3) Let’s assume that you’re a really lucky guy, Al, and that you actually DO get a few spectacular shots of your beloved Dodgers from your overpriced box seat.  Or, maybe after the game you hang out around the players’ parking area and snap a few frames of Brad Penny or Juan Pierre (some might call this stalking, of course, but I’m trying to be charitable and give you the benefit of a doubt).  Now what? Where are you going to sell these precious frames? Probably nowhere.  Why? Because the leagues are pretty darn smart, that’s why.  Just as they’ve made rationed access to on-field shooting to the Chosen Few who happen to work exclusively for folks like Getty Images, Sports Illustrated or Reuters, they’ve also made sure that everyone understands that if they’re going to buy pictures of professional athletes, they’re only going to get them from these same few accredited outlets (which includes their own wholly-owned picture libraries). 

If this all sounds a bit like Tony Soprano offering to be your “exclusive” sanitation removal service, you’re absolutely right.  Again, it’s all about controlling and exploiting the images of the individual players as well as the teams.  There is so much money riding on pro sports these days that nobody in a position of power wants to take a chance on some renegade putting out pictures that in any way are unflattering or make them “look bad.”  Big-time sports work pretty much like big-time politics, in which every photo op is tightly controlled with a pre-destined conclusion already in mind and fully planned out.  But, even more importantly, bottom line is this: if anybody’s going to make a dime off of pro sports, it’s going to be the players, teams and leagues, not you.  Major league Baseball is a brand; so is the NFL and the NBA.  These brands, just like Coke Cola, Apple or Cadillac, are trademarked money machines that constantly need feeding.  So, they make exclusive deals with photo agencies or publications that are authorized to shoot their events, and then get a piece of the action from every picture that’s sold or distributed.  And, because these same picture agencies are also making dough from this arrangement, they aren’t about to bite the hands that feed them, so there’s no danger that they’re going to publish anything that Mr. Stern or Mr. Goodell wouldn’t approve of.

As for shooting in cold weather climates like New England or Green Bay, let’s first be very clear on something: those people are not normal.  Anyone who resides in those desolate climes deserves whatever they get, which in the case of yesterday’s NFC championship game in lovely Green Bay means an ambient temperature of -4 and a wind chill of -24.  Which, of course, only incites the local loonies (who make up a sizable proportion of the indigenous population, of course) to make their best effort to get on-camera, such as the three young lovelies in yellow bikinis at the Green Bay-New York game.  These people are not cute, they are not entertaining, they are just morons with a “Look-At-Me” fixation.  And, although such venues provide ample opportunities for making great pictures (last week’s SI cover shot of Brett Favre preparing to fire a pass in the snow was outstanding), I can’t think of a worse place to work.  Unlike the hooligans in the stands, if you’re actually being paid to shoot one of these star-studded events you can’t load up on “antifreeze” at a tailgate party.  You have to resort to serious survival gear like electric socks, hand warmers, polypropylene long underwear, hats that make you look like an extra from the movie “Fargo” and jackets that make you look like the Michelin Man.  Sound like fun? Not to me…I’d rather be sipping daiquiris on the top deck of Sultan Ali Baccarat’s yacht, which is exactly what I’m going to do next, Al, so I’ll sign off with this little sports-related story that sort of sums up my feelings about answering your questions.  It’s from former Utah Jazz president Frank Layden, on a former player: "I asked him, 'Son, what is it with you…is it ignorance or apathy?' He said, 'Coach, I don't know and I don't care.'”

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Mr. Stock Smarty Pants, a major league player in the global stock picture industry, answers your questions the business of stock photography every other Monday (or whenever the mood strikes him) on About The Image.  Although MSSP is constantly traveling due to his keen interest in foreign cultures (as well, of course, as his deep desire to remain one step ahead of the law), your question regarding anything about the stock photo business will be forwarded to him and, so long as Mr. Stock Smarty Pants manages to avoid incarceration, he will consider responding to you in an upcoming edition of About The Image.  E-mail your questions to: .  Oh, and MSSP categorically denies any affiliation whatsoever with the company called Stock Answers™ LLC.

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