Welcome to POTN,
Well, you are far from the first person to have this idea.... do a search here for "youth sports" and you will find tons of discussions on the subject.
Essentially you are talking about starting a small business...
Most new businesses are not profitable for one or more years, depending upon a lot of factors that can be out of your control. Figure, though, that at least for a while you won't be drawing a paycheck, you will be feeding money into the business. If you have resources for that, great.
FIrst things you need to do is find out what's necessary to set up a business in your area and do a realistic feasibility study, which really is just getting to know the market and competition as best you can. You might need a business license. You should get to know the organizers at all the events and ask them if they have a photographer under contract already. I'd be surprised if they didn't already have one lined up, frankly. Often the people working sports leagues do what is called "T&I" or Team and Individual sessions. These are the bread and butter of the business. It's almost a "sure sale". The action shots at the events are "gravy" but many pros only attend occasional games, because there are few sales during the regular season. The most sales come at the end of the season, particularly at playoffs and championship games.
Even if there is a photographer under contract, there still might be some opportunities. Talk with the photographer. They might work with you and help you along. This is often the best arrangement, when first starting out.
You need persmission to shoot from the organizer, because you are not just a photographer, but a commercial vendor wanting access to their participants and the families. You need to set up a display table at the event, show your work and distribute business cards, at least. You should try to get exclusivity, most sports leagues cannot support more than one photographer.
At bigger, season finals type events, you might want to offer prints on site, which means additional people since you will be doing the shooting. You'll need an online vendor, and there are several that are geared up especially for sporting events, hosting your image galleries and making prints for you. It's generally not practical or cost effective to try to do everything through your own website or to try to do all your own printing. It's near impossible to stock all the papers and sizes and printable products that the online vendor will be able to provide. I offer over 100 different sizes and finishes and printable products through the online vendor I use.
Also, increasingly parents and family are shooting their own stuff, as DSLRs are getting cheaper and easier to use. I rarely go to an event now that there aren't more cameras on the sidelines than participants on the field. This wasn't the case a few years ago. My sales have gone down in direct relationship to this, as well as been suffering due to the economy. Events are less well attended in the current economy, too.
So the parents, in a very real sense, are going to be your biggest competition. If not now, then in a year or two. There are still opportunities, but they are beginning to dwindle, and you have to be very proactive about getting "ahead of the competition". You can set yourself apart from them with pro level equipment, plus the skills to use it well to get shots the parents are unlikely to get. You need cooperation from the organizers to get access to areas that are not open to the parents.
Organizers also often have websites and marketing materials. You can cooperate with them, perhaps providing some images for their use, in exchange for links online and notations in their printed materials referring to you.
Keep in mind that the participants and their families are the organizer's "customers". The organzers can be very concerned about any vendors they give access to the events, that they will take good care of their customers. When kids are involved, the organizer needs to be even more cautious.
I hope this helps. Not trying to discourage you... just trying to be realistic and help you go into this with your eyes wide open. A lot of photographers forget that shooting professionally is about 10% about taking photos, 90% about business... to include sales & marketing, bookkeeping, negotiating, legalities such as business licenses, contracts, taxes, insurance, etc., etc.
Most successful photographers wear multiple hats... They might specialize in a particular type of photography, but find several revenue streams to generate from it. For example, shooting youth sports you might sell prints to the families, but also might be able to make some stock photos for additional income (need signed model releases to get the highest value from stock) or might provide some photos to local newspapers as a freelancer. Explore all the opportunities to market your work!
