Youth sports photography "idea" ?

I had an idea on a way to pitch youth sport photography. I'd be really interested to hear your thoughts. Here's my proposition:


Hire Dark Light Imaging to be your personal sports photographer.
We'll arrive at the sporting event and capture only those moments that involve your YOUR child.
No more sifting through hundreds of photos of other kids.
We have the capability and equipment to capture those great athletic moments that regular point and shoot cameras can't.
An online gallery will be available for you to view, share and purchase the pictures taken.
Each paid session comes with one 8x10's and two 5x7's at NO charge.

Price: $100 game/hour.
Each session will last the length of the game or approximately 1 hour. If a game takes a little longer than an hour there is no extra charge.
Team up with another parent and save $25 each. (Child must be on the same team and playing in the same game)

Great Idea, I'm sure some people would love this idea as well, but you won't make any money doing that. It's just not enough money to drive there, take pics, drive back home, edit the pics, put them online, hope they order more pics, which most people dont order too many pics nowadays, especially since you offer an 8x10 and 2 5x7s, I don't see many print orders coming from it. I don't see many repeat customers with this methodology either. You'd have to get 30 kids per month to generate ~3k. (these are all assumptions solely based on the 100$ price point, which is a budget price for photography, which means the clients you are looking for wont want to spend much more then what they already pay for your service)

I'm not knocking your idea, I think it's great. (something similar to how I think). But I suggest coming up with a better pricing, products and offering scheme to make this a more wanted niche market.

If you are trying to do this as a part-time 'gig' to make a lil extra cash for going out to eat or whatever. Then go with it!

just my thoughts.

-jon

I do something similar. I will shoot your kid for $125 and give you 30-40 images on a cd. It doesn't happen a lot but last fall while at a 7th grade football game an 8th graders parent hired me to do the same for his kid in the following game. Total time was less than 5 hours, I forget exactly how much but it was less than 5. made the CD and hand delivered them on Friday when I went to cover the HS game.
I don't do it alot but, everytime but once when I have been approached by a parent about shooting their kid I gave them the price, the CD idea and they found it to be a good value.
In 4 years of doing HS sports I can honestly say I think I have only had three, maybe four times where anyone ordered more than $100 from one game. In each of those orders a poster size print was part of the order.

I don't think your idea of including an 8x10 and a couple of 5x7's will fly. That makes the prints pretty expensive. I know your counting on additional online sales but, your relying on parents who most likely are pretty busy to sit down, go thru the gallery and then place an order. Personally, I wouldn't waste my time covering an event and then posting online for just one possible customer.

There are about 1000 different ways to skin this, 99% will be a financial bust. There is no way you can cover the CODB and make a profit shooing kids sports. It seems that everyone wants to try it but the work putout soon outpaces the profit potential.

I have seen lots of business plans, napkin scratched and well printed. Most involve you doing a major capitol outlay for gear and hoping that you make some sales.

Sorry but your idea is far from unique, but look at it this way in order to buy the camera computer gear and software needed you would have to haved several hundred hours prebooked just to meet CODB, sorry but unless you are in a very rich area with no other photographers I don't see it.

I have to agree with Les. You'll have more work involved than what it's worth espcially now with the cost of gas and doing a lot of driving. Not sure what games you'll be at that is finished in one hour, but for baseball, you're talking a good hour and an half for little league and longer for the bigger leagues and high school. Also, some leagues may require you to give them a percentage of your income or a donation to do this. The $100 per game sounds good but you're not making much once you consider all the factors involved.

Thanks for the input. Thought I had something there....guess there's always the Lotto!

This is a great thread! Its what I have been looking for on here for awhile but havent found anything relating to this...I am in a similar situation where I want to start shooting youth sports...

Indyjeff - Does your $125 rate include PP? or do you just burn a disk right there, bad shots and all included?

Les - I understand what your saying with the gear, but what if you already have it and this is NOT a fulltime gig? Is it worth it then? I am looking to do this mainly to be able to buy more gear/better gear. Also, I have access t about 50 schools within a 30 minute drive all around me, so travel isnt a big deal for me.

My trouble is trying to find out a way to contact these schools and how to approach them with this idea. Any tips with this? Email addys are published on almost every school site, but phone numbers and names are hard to come by. Looking into the younger leagues as well and trying to find a team mom or Team coach online is hard around here...

Hey Cory,
I am a little jaded, so forgive me if I am not fired up about the business possibilities. These schools are really alot of work, with a pretty low actual yield of income. The professional photographer has very little respect in this area and many families want free images. The spend thousands for their kids to play sports, band etc.

They see photographers as just one more person with their hands out for cash. Some will gush over your capability with a camera until you actually want to get paid a reasonable wage. There are several legal issues, to be contended with, not the least of which is contracts with the school (how big is their cut) insurance issues that cover gear, your health should you get beaned and insurance that covers the players should you accidently hurt one of them while in play.

These are many of the issues that folks ignore, don't know about or risk anyway. Liability is a requirement when working with many schools.

If you were looking at a play with your camera, get blindsided and the player blows out a knee how are you going to keep from losing your house?

LBaldwin wrote in post #4774130
Hey Cory,
I am a little jaded, so forgive me if I am not fired up about the business possibilities. These schools are really alot of work, with a pretty low actual yield of income. The professional photographer has very little respect in this area and many families want free images. The spend thousands for their kids to play sports, band etc.

They see photographers as just one more person with their hands out for cash. Some will gush over your capability with a camera until you actually want to get paid a reasonable wage. There are several legal issues, to be contended with, not the least of which is contracts with the school (how big is their cut) insurance issues that cover gear, your health should you get beaned and insurance that covers the players should you accidently hurt one of them while in play.

These are many of the issues that folks ignore, don't know about or risk anyway. Liability is a requirement when working with many schools.

If you were looking at a play with your camera, get blindsided and the player blows out a knee how are you going to keep from losing your house?

Thanks for the insight, good or bad, its good to hear personal experiences about this. I was actually hoping to start with the younger crowd like 7-15 age group, then work my way up. I wouldnt be anymore in the way as another parent might be so not sure if the liability thing wouldnt be an issue. I will cross that path when it comes. Taking baby steps right now...My biggest hurdle is making contact with schools and getting permission to shoot and sell...once I have accomplished that, then I will worry about the business side of things. Its a learning process that I would like to try out, and if I fail, try something else. WIlling to give it a shot to find out.

The hardest part is getting that first school. When I started, I approached the Booster Club of a new high school in my town. I offered them a portion of the proceeds. They accepted. Someone at that school then reccomended me to another HS in a different town which was looking for a photographer to take action shots. They don't have a booster club, but individual parent clubs for the differnt sports. So far they have used me for Football & Basketball. As more of the parents find out about me, They have commited to Baseball and Softball with more coaches making inquires. I don't give anything back to that school and sales far exxceed the school which I support. They even honored me at their annual football banquet for all I have done. I'm still selling shots from the football season. Next year I'm shooting the T&I shots for them. I have even had a coach tell a Univ. coach about me and it looks like I will be covering a major cheerleading competition for them.
It will be 120 teams. I have had newspaper editors call me. So, once you get past the hard part of getting into that first school, your reputation and business will grow.
Just remember to price your work at what the current market is for your area. Don't under cut others, you will lose respect and people will question your quality. You should also not expect to make enough from HS sports alone to be able to live on, however the extra income is nice.
Best of luck.

Mike R wrote in post #4776904
The hardest part is getting that first school. When I started, I approached the Booster Club of a new high school in my town. I offered them a portion of the proceeds. They accepted. Someone at that school then reccomended me to another HS in a different town which was looking for a photographer to take action shots. They don't have a booster club, but individual parent clubs for the differnt sports. So far they have used me for Football & Basketball. As more of the parents find out about me, They have commited to Baseball and Softball with more coaches making inquires. I don't give anything back to that school and sales far exxceed the school which I support. They even honored me at their annual football banquet for all I have done. I'm still selling shots from the football season. Next year I'm shooting the T&I shots for them. I have even had a coach tell a Univ. coach about me and it looks like I will be covering a major cheerleading competition for them.
It will be 120 teams. I have had newspaper editors call me. So, once you get past the hard part of getting into that first school, your reputation and business will grow.
Just remember to price your work at what the current market is for your area. Don't under cut others, you will lose respect and people will question your quality. You should also not expect to make enough from HS sports alone to be able to live on, however the extra income is nice.
Best of luck.

Thanks for that insight, I apologize to the OP for hijacking the thread, I am hoping the OP will benefit from this as well.
Did that first school of yours require a portfolio? How do you get that portfolio if your not shooting for a school yet?
In my area, I have been trying to find out if other photogs are doing this as well and so far, I have not been able to find any so I am not sure what the "going rate" is. Right now, I am really in the beginning planning stages for this, so this information is a tremendous help.

Hijack away!...I'm all ears/eyes.

cory1848 wrote in post #4777052
Thanks for that insight, I apologize to the OP for hijacking the thread, I am hoping the OP will benefit from this as well.
Did that first school of yours require a portfolio? How do you get that portfolio if your not shooting for a school yet?
In my area, I have been trying to find out if other photogs are doing this as well and so far, I have not been able to find any so I am not sure what the "going rate" is. Right now, I am really in the beginning planning stages for this, so this information is a tremendous help.

I had a professional looking proposal BUT not a formal portfolio.. I had showed them shots I took the previous year which I took at a track meet that my son was competing in. Fortunetly I took a variety of shots of other team members.
Track & Field (indoor and outdoor) is an easy sport to photograph without having to get permission to get close. It's easy to get near the track unlike trying to get to the sidelines of a football game without permission.
Continue to spend the remainder of this school year getting ready. Attend games, and photograph them (just be sure to have gear that can handle the job) after a few games,parents will notice you and may approach you. You can even approach a coach before a game and ask if you can photograph it. Tell him you would like to try to get the team coverage in the local paper.

Start with JV because they usually don't have anyone covering the games and may have someone covering the Varsity games. Your goal is to build up a reputation and repalce that person if there is one. That is how I got the T&I work for next year. They simply liked my work better than the photograher they were using. When they wanted to switch to me, they found out that she lied when she told them that a particulal person authorized her as the exclusive photographer. The person said he never spoke to her. She got away with it for years!

Great info! That definately helps a lot.. Gives me a good starting point. Did you ever have any issues with parents asking you what you were doing? Or questions like, Why are you shooting my kid? Just nervous in this day and age of pedophiles, parents must be pretty cautious. And also nervous with the schools kicking me out if they find I am there as a business trying to make money before I am able to show them anything with a more professional proposal...

cory1848 wrote in post #4777268
Great info! That definately helps a lot.. Gives me a good starting point. Did you ever have any issues with parents asking you what you were doing? Or questions like, Why are you shooting my kid? Just nervous in this day and age of pedophiles, parents must be pretty cautious. And also nervous with the schools kicking me out if they find I am there as a business trying to make money before I am able to show them anything with a more professional proposal...

I would get permission from someone from the school before going there and start shooting. You can contact the AD.

I have only shot 2-3 soccer games but the coach is friend of mine so I just tell the parents that fact before shooting. Having my wife along also helped.