| Sign in: |
| Members log in here with your user name and password to access the your admin page and other special features. |
|
|
|
|
|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2004-07-19
NFL Photo Library: An insider's perspective
By Paul Spinelli
Photo by Paul Spinelli / NFL Photos
San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Jerry Rice makes a one-handed catch while leaving a Rams defender on the ground.
|
Editors note: SportsShooter.com member Paul Spinelli is the former NFL Director of Photographic Services in Los Angeles, where he ran NFL Photos for the past 16 years. He created and launched NFLphotos.com, built the NFL Photo Studio, was in charge of the NFL Photo Library and photo sales department, and supervised the Super Bowl and Pro Bowl photo teams since the early 1990's. After an agreement was anounced last week to house a majority of the NFL Photos library at WireImage, Spinelli felt he should set the record straight about many issues involving the NFL Photo Library, which is an archive of 3 million images shot and owned by several hundred photographers.
The comments about the NFL Photo Library that continue to surprise me are the ones regarding accusations of mismanagement of the archive and failure to respond to the advent of the digital age. Nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, NFL Photos has been on the cutting edge of sports photography since its inception back in the 60's. It was the first attempt to create an in-house photo library by any of the major sports leagues. All of the other sports leagues met with me at one point or another to discuss how to form their own versions of the photo business that Dave Boss created.
It was the first sports league to create a business for freelance/contributing photographers by utilizing imagery for internal and external club and league publications and promotions--while creating and carving out a considerable piece of the commercial stock photo business with its corporate sponsors and consumer product licensees, all of this geared toward a mutually beneficial and productive business relationship between the NFL and its partners, the photographers.
It married imagery, business partners, and creatives in such a way that it supported every aspect of the business while generating photo income in every conceivable way--including not just speculation photography, but also some pretty cushy photo assignments. Our NFL Publications are things of legend...large, beautifully designed, coffee table books featuring great photography and minimal text. Just a few of these assignments included covering the Super Bowl and Hawaii Pro Bowl from the field as well as in the air from blimps and helicopters, private meetings between millionaire NFL owners, rookie indoctrination into the NFL, and football photo shoots in exotic locations such as glaciers in Alaska, beaches in Key West, Florida, and pickup games on U.S. aircraft carriers cruising in the Atlantic Ocean. The photos were used in hundreds of NFL books, magazines, publications, ads, brochures, products, and every other use common to the stock photo business.
The NFL's Creative and Publishing Division in Los Angeles was one of the most professional, well run, buttoned down, and wonderful places I have ever worked. The energy was fantastic and so were the people. Mismanagement...anything but! We had a bullet proof photo payments system, with multiple checks and balances, photo policies that protected our wonderful imagery from damage or loss, and a photo handbook that has become the industry standard--emulated by many but matched by none.
All of this was done with the photographers' interests at the core of every decision. I know this because I personally battled the corporate mindset for 16 years, defending photographers copyrights and interests at every turn, often with disregard to the possible consequences to my career. We won every time because what we stood up for was right. The way we handled our photo business was proper, so much so that our sales revenues grew by more than 600 percent over the 16 years I was at the helm as the NFL Director of Photographic Services. Mismanagement, perish the thought. They are nothing more than unfounded and inaccurate claims made in the heat of battle. Those who truly know how we ran the photo department would echo my sentiments. If you wanted to start a stock photo business, you would do yourself a big favor by copying and activating our business model.
We held the line of photo prices in spite of discounting practices by several of our top competitor agencies as well as misguided individual photographers trying to carve out a living in the midst of a very competitive photo business. We used ASMP standards as our guide and multiple, state-of-the-art photo pricing books to prepare our rate sheets and policies. I have been a member of the ASMP since the mid 80's when Manny Rubio (former Sports Illustrated photographer) got me to see the light about this wonderful organization (ASMP). Since that time, I have had many discussions with Richard Weisgrau and other leaders in the photo business...all centered around how to find a compromise between the corporate and photo worlds.
We let business go rather than compete with lowball pricing. We held the line on prices because it was the right thing to do. I was a freelance photographer before I was hired by the NFL, so I know all too well about sore knees, backaches, the cost of equipment, and the years of practice it takes before you can call yourself a professional photographer. I always have refused to "give it away cheap"!
Since launching my freelance photo business in the late 70's as well as during my tenure at the NFL, I constantly read and subscribed to the best industry publications, including the Photo District News. We changed our NFL photo policy to stay in step with the business at every turn. For example, we changed our payment and procedural policy as a result of the Rogers-Coons decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the differences between art reference and art rendition. We made sure that our business was in line with the laws of the land, such that the U.S. Department of Justice looked at, met with me and others at the NFL, and approved of the way we were doing business while in the midst of an investigation of one of the other sports leagues. At every turn, we did the right thing.
www.nflphotos.com
|
When it was clear that the digital revolution was here to stay, I convinced the NFL to advance the funds to create NFLphotos.com, the first in-house created and controlled version of an online photo archive at the major sports leagues. It services every possible user of football photos, internally and externally. It now contains approximately 50,000 of the best NFL photos in a searchable database. It has become the core tool of the photo sales department at the NFL Photo Library--utilizing not only digital capture, but scans from the best film in the archive. I personally researched, wrote, and distributed the photo imaging specifications that NFL photographers use to shoot and submit photos to the NFL. In addition, I wrote the NFL Headshots Photo Procedures that all of the NFL's television network partners now use to generate the still images you see during the broadcast of NFL games. NFL Photos was and is a cutting edge business. Any claims to the contrary are nonsense.
At the end, a business decision was made to fold the NFL Publishing & Creative Group because the NFL felt that publishing was not its core business. The NFL basically is football entertainment on television. Resources were funneled in that direction and the publishing and creative business was closed and "outsourced". The NFL Photo Library just happened to be part of that "publishing department", housed in the same office in Los Angeles. Thus, it met the same fate--outsourcing--a practice that has affected so many in our Country.
The effort by the photographers in guiding themselves and the NFL toward a mutually agreeable settlement is a great thing. I am proud of the effort by all of the parties involved--primarily because it was focused on keeping this wonderful photo collection together while finding a compromise solution that may become a watershed for the sports photo industry in the future.
Mismanagement, anything but!
Related Links:
Paul Spinelli's member page
NFL Photos
Message board thread about the NFL Photo Archive
|
|
|
Contents copyright 2023, SportsShooter.com. Do not republish without permission.
|