College Sports Coverage Pricing

Anyone mind sharing how they price their coverage for college sports? Right now I am doing mainly freelance work for a few MEAC teams but the coverage is hit or miss due to low budgets. I'm really looking for a way to have more consistent work even if it requires me to sacrifice more time for the same pay (if that makes sense).

I'd rather be shooting and adding to my portfolio than sitting back waiting for them to "need" my services. It seems as of late they are moving more towards "senior days" and playoff games only.

Sadly there are no decent resources such as magazines or media platforms that support local college sports other than their own in house publications.

Sadly, most college's use their students to shoot the majority of their sports unless it's a really important game where they need someone that will be dependable. Most schools are getting away with paying minimum wage or nothing for students to shoot.

All volunteers here, the video guys get paid, photography only under very special circumstances, for example a national final.

I am photographing my daughters college equestrian team. I am trying to help promote equestrian as it is considered an emerging sport by NCAA. NCAA is threatening to drop equestrian if they already haven't. I am also trying to help promote equestrian at her school as a bunch of the students there don't even realize there is an equestrian team at the school. Hoping some of the pictures get posted on their website and news letter. I don't get to all the shows but if I'm not at a show one of the team members does the photography. I enjoy doing it. Sorry no pay here. If they get it for free now they will probably never pay. Another parent did it before me but their daughter graduated.

There's no real money to be made in shooting this way. They get students to shoot or pay very little for someone to shoot it, especially if it's not a top 25 big-time program.

as others above have said, most colleges are getting their photos for free. if they arent a top 25 school in Division I then odds are they dont have the budget to pay for more than a couple games photographed and those photos will also be recycled a TON to avoid having to pay for pro quality actions shots on a regular basis. at the school i work at one of my classmates, a sports illustrated/NY Times sports photog, covers maybe 2 games a season and only soccer and basketball normally. the rest of the sports and seasons for all sports are shot for free by a red shirt (aka injured) athlete or a student assistant because the money just isnt there to justify new stills to be captured at every game. video is a whole different story and cant be cheated because most schools including the one i work at does a live webcast of all home games and because of that everyone gets paid for every game

Yep. The only real way to make money shooting directly for schools is to get lucky at either a major school that has a large AD that makes big revenue, and/or a school with good financial support, and/or at a school with an athletic department that puts emphasis on digital and social media. Even then, they likely already have a freelance "guy", or rarer yet, have a full-time salaried photographer (my school is one of those rare places). Student interns aren't uncommon either, both paid (usually stipends) and unpaid. You have to get lucky, know the right people, or land one of those holy grail salaried jobs to make money shooting for a school.