Non-league pricing advice

J

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Good evening,

I'm new to the forum so apologies if this has been raised before, but...

I am relatively new to sports photography, and am learning and challenging myself constantly. This season i was kindly allowed pitch side access to a couple of games in the 8th tier of football league (Isthmian league). As i am learning i offered my services for free and offered access to all photos without fee. They were really pleased with the photos i took using them on their website and social media, with a couple supplied to the local paper.

They have said they would love me to 'be involved' next season with some match photos and some squad profile photos with a team photo. The tricky bit is that this will take more of my time and i feel i should request some sort of payment and/or enforce ownership of my photos? Should i suggest a fee :-

- per game or;
- for the season (with min number of games) or;
- per photo used or;
- one off package price for team photos

And how much is the going rate (i do not want to turn them against me by pricing myself out)

Any advice and possible pricing would be greatly received

cheers
J
 
I can only offer advice on how I personally price my work.. and guess same goes for other photographers :) What someone will do for free, someone else charges £5000 for... and mostly their both happy with their fees (although guessing the one who charge more spends more time worrying about money ;-) ).

They way I look at clubs - who obviously want to have great photos for their own use, and in the lower leagues/smaller sports.. at times also provide images for match reports for local papers. I've know some local/regional papers requiring the club to provide a match reports and images.. otherwise, no story in the paper! So it is in the interest of the club to have decent images...

Maybe, if your time allows, offer to cover the whole season for them - and then offer a per season package (with an understanding that you might only be able to cover 80%/90% of the games).
For pricing - one package with images only for their own use (website/leaflets/advertising/etc) - and then a package that would also allow them to provide an image or two for your local paper.

Not knowing the club, etc - I would want to hazard a guess what would the price you should offer your services for.. but look at how many games there are in the season, how many you could make, and what YOU would be happy with as a compensation for it.
Guessing that on the Isthmian League we are not talking of big budgets for the teams.. but if you can get yourself in there to work with the club, get your images out on to their website, local paper.. it'll be a step forward in your career. And you never know where it might lead .. sometimes being associated with a club can bring up other opportunities as well.

The reason why I would personally offer the 'per season' package - is that then you know what you'll be getting paid, and the club doesn't have to count the pictures they use and worry about the costs.

Whether you charge £100, £1000, £10000... really the only person who can say it's the 'right' price.. is yourself. Just think of the amount of time you think you might be spending on this during the season.. and price it accordingly.

So best is maybe to start a dialogue with the club and see what they are willing/able to pay - and take it from there.

Sorry I didn't come with a reply saying that you should charge £XXXX for the season :)
 
@GooGaBu ,

Thank you for your insight and advice, much appreciated!

I can see your point regarding season package and will start talking to the club. Obviously i would be at a lower end of the price bracket as i'm still learning and limited by the equipment i have (which helps me try and get the right moment instead of spray & pray i suppose)

Thanks again
 
The usual going rate (esp at that level) is usually £0. See what you can achieve, but don't hold your breath! A credit line and "club photographer" in the programme is the usual 'payment :) Just don't agree to submit to the press for nowt.
 
Good luck getting money from a club at level 8 - some EFL clubs don't even have decent per match photography budgets.

Personally I think it depends on where you want to get to. If you want to sell photos and just make money, then you're more likely to have success pitching the odd few photos to local press / Non-League Paper (for a bigger games) etc. If you want to progress as a sports photographer and see yourself working in higher divisions in future, treat it as a learning experience. Package up the "corporate" stuff as a chargeable service - that being squad photo, player / staff head shots, maybe some ground and a single game of action shots for them to use in marketing materials. Then shoot the matches you can make / fancy doing for the experience and maybe show the club the gallery with an agreement they only use x amount of photos or pay a small fee for say 6 photos if it's a match they want photos from.

Hope that helps.
 
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