Freelance Sports Photographers Needed

[SportMatrix Admin]

SportMatrix Enterprises (SMX) is the proprietor of a new business opportunity for sports photography enthusiasts.

SMX has created a virtual marketplace located at sportmatrix.com (http://www.sportmatrix.com/) where photographers may publish and sell their digital photo images of youth, amateur, and high school athletics.

When a customer-member of SMX purchases any product that features a digital image supplied by a photographer, the individual photographer who published that image on the SMX website earns a royalty equal to approximately 75% of the net revenue derived from the sale. Royalty checks are mailed to photographers on the last day of each month.

Interested photographers should visit sportmatrix.com (http://www.sportmatrix.com) and click “Photographers Opportunity” on the top menu bar to register for FREE as a SMX photographer-member and get started.

[cory1848]

And why would we want to do this? What are you offering that we can't already get on our own with a simple zenfolio or smugmug account?

[SportMatrix Admin]

Thanks for submitting this question. It is great feedback like this that is very helpful in shaping how we tell our story and differentiate our new website and products from the others you mentioned.

Our website is not intended to be a competitor type of site to Zenfolio, Smugmug or any other photo sharing or photographer oriented website. Certainly the presentation of your photos on your website hosted on Zenfolio is outstanding.

What SportMatrix offers is something special for the Sports Photographer in the form of distinctly sport-specific end products for purchase by our customers.

Yes, we offer glossy photo prints but its our unique products like 3-D Wall Graphics (which are essentially custom Fat Heads), Lifesize Standups, SportScapes, Giant Posters, and Image Balls that make us unique.

This is not to say that photo prints, playing cards, mouse pads, mugs, aprons, puzzles, etc are not good products, but these are not sport specific products that could be most uniquely appealing to an athlete.

What high school football player wouldn't want to have his own 7-feet tall 3-D Wall Graphic hanging in his room from one of your action photos?

What high school baseball player wouldn't want a wall in his bedroom to be turned into that great image you captured of his walk-off home run celebration with all his teammates at home plate in the form of a SportScape?

Photographers who work with SportMatrix can take/post photographs that are geared towards the type of unique products we offer. For instance images of full team sidelines, scoring celebrations, or a stadium all lit up at night for purchase as a SportScape or Giant Poster, or images of individual athletes in action whether in the heat of competition or posed for purchase by the athlete as a 3-D Wall Graphic or Lifesize Standup etc.

SportMatrix is Free for you to use. So in your case SportMatrix might not replace your Zenfolio website but would instead supplement your business by offering another venue to post your photos and generate sales of different kinds of sport specific products to your customers. You could post your photos on both sites and give your customers more product options to choose from.

Thanks again

[Palladium]

Step One: If you making customers register just to view the photo galleries IMHO that's a sure way to turn away customers (regardless if resigtration is Free or not).

Do you have any sample galleries setup already?

Also IMHO you not giving enough info on your photographer info (sign up page) - maybe have a different website that actually explains your business model or an e-mail request that send out the real facts - not some generic double talk.

[Mark]

Step One: If you making customers register just to view the photo galleries IMHO that's a sure way to turn away customers (regardless if resigtration is Free or not).

Well, they are in beta I believe

[waynedsargent]

a listing of the products you offer and cost on them would be a good start. and i second the customer sign in just to browse.

[cory1848]

My issue is this...

"Grant of Proprietary Rights
We hereby grant you proprietary rights to post your images on our website and, in return, you shall protect our proprietary rights by agreeing not to post or publish the same exact images on any “competitor” website. For the purposes of this Agreement a competitor website is defined as “any third party or other website that offers or displays youth sports-related, amateur sports-related, or high school sports-related images for the purposes of selling such content and images to the public.” In order to protect our mutal proprietary rights, we will place a “SportMatrix.Com” copyright watermark logo across any images you post on our website in order to obstruct the unauthorized duplication of your images by users of our website. "

According to your post above, you dont intend to be a competitor of zenfolio or smugmug, etc... however your terms and conditions on you site says differently.

You want me to sell exclusively through your site and you will brand my photos with your name. I understand you may have different products to sell, however that is not enough for me to give up those rights under your conditions.

For me to consider this further, I would need more. Such as, gaining access to events. So we dont have to go through the hassle of tracking down an AD or a coach and also clearing it with the schools or leagues. Provide that and I think you will have something over your competition...

[Palladium]

My issue is this...



According to your post above, you dont intend to be a competitor of zenfolio or smugmug, etc... however your terms and conditions on you site says differently.

You want me to sell exclusively through your site and you will brand my photos with your name. I understand you may have different products to sell, however that is not enough for me to give up those rights under your conditions.

For me to consider this further, I would need more. Such as, gaining access to events. So we dont have to go through the hassle of tracking down an AD or a coach and also clearing it with the schools or leagues. Provide that and I think you will have something over your competition...

Good Work Detective - Nice pickup :)

[SportMatrix Admin]

Again thanks for you input.

We removed the restrictive clause you alluded to from our photographer-member agreement which frees you up to post your photos on our site and any other.

This clause was inserted with a competitor in mind being an exclusively sports photo website like a SportMatrix, not a smugmug, or a zenfolio. However, upon consideration we feel its makes sense to remove any restrictions on multiple website posting altogether.

[SportMatrix Admin]

Note: Products are now viewable via the "Custom Products Catalog" (http://www.sportmatrix.com/Products.php) menu option. We will be adding new products and growing our products catalog all the time.

[DDCSD]

How about custom names like DDC.sportmatrix.com to give out to people so they don't need to type in so much to get to the photos they may be interested in?

[SportMatrix Admin]

We do have custom Webgallery names for every photographer-member. For instance in your case it would be sportmatrix.com/ddcsd.php

Also in the customer administration area we have an add favorite photographers where our customer-members could store you in their favorites.

GO REDWINGS!!!!

[DDCSD]

We do have custom Webgallery names for every photographer-member. For instance in your case it would be sportmatrix.com/ddcsd.php

Also in the customer administration area we have an add favorite photographers where our customer-members could store you in their favorites.

GO REDWINGS!!!!

Nice, didn't notice that, but didn't have a chance to look around a while lot. Looks very interesting, definitely a unique product selection.