Looking for ideas on shooting sports...

[ramiro]

In talking to a friend of mine, he mentioned that he is doing school sports and an idea came to mind. Here is what I was thinking, and hopefully some of you have ideas on how to do it if possible.

What I would like to do is to shoot HS sports like football, basketball, tennis, baseball, ect. I want to upload the images to a site, and have kids or parents go to the site and buy either prints, dog tags, buttons, trading cards, things like that. But I want to do it in a way that I don't have to touch the order, the place the order, the order goes straight to a lab, get's processed, and sent directly to them. Basically all I want to do is shoot, process, and upload. Can this be done? Is there a service out there that can do this? Please don't say Pictage, even though I have never used them, I have heard enough horror stories to stay away from them. Any other ideas or recommendations are welcome. Thanx.

[toverman]

Yes, although I'm not immediately familiar with any of them. There are companies that market specifically to photographers covering the sports market and offer the Wall Stars posters, buttons, trading cards, prints, etc.

There are a few photo companies around here that do similar things as you are planning. Your biggest job will be to market yourself and give people a reason to order anything. Unless you have a big presence at the events, offer quality images and become known, your chances aren't so great. I can tell you that one company in particular that I'm familiar with does horrible work and uploads every shot, even the blurry, ill-composed, underexposed ones. But it's still kicking along because they cover just about everything ... somebody must be buying something from them.

Good luck!

Added: That company gets some exposure from working with one of the small weekly newspapers, too.

[DeannaD]

Not sure on the extra options stuff, but a friend of mine does this on SmugMug.

[ramiro]

Thanx guys. SmugMug is one of the solutions I was looking at, and have emailed them, basically the same question I posted here, but I have not received a response yet.

As to how to market, well, part of what triggered this idea is the fact that no one is doing this, though there are about 3-4 other studios in a 15 mile radius from where I am; a friend of mine is on the school board and although not related to sports, he has already offered to allow me to do a presentation at the school to promote the other photography (senior photography) that I will be doing. So in a sense I have the way to get in, but since my focus will be senior photography, I don't want to deal with a high maintenance business model, but something that can be easily expanded. My idea is that if I can manage covering a couple of games a week and upload, then get people to buy, I could technically hire an aspiring photographer from the nearby college to cover another school, and go from there. Again, thanx for the ideas, but I am still open to more input since I am just starting to investigate this idea.

[Matt_G]

Zenfolio through Mpix would be my sugesstion.

However the printing and order filling part will be the easiest. What you are describing is done a lot already at most major schools. Have you even contacted schools or districts to see if they have contracts ?

[darrenwilson]

SmugMug is what we are doing. Very happy with them.

Check it out: http://guthriejags.smugmug.com/

[Matt_G]

SmugMug is what we are doing. Very happy with them.

Check it out: http://guthriejags.smugmug.com/

Looks great... I wouldnt ever post a gallery without some form of watermark!

Also sent one of your images to myself with your email feature.... sent an image 300x450 without watermark. I would think that would hurt sales?

[MT Stringer]

Smugmug can do what you are asking for. A lot of folks have been doing what you are thinking about for years now. I read a lot of them say they get alot of lookers but not many buyers. I have also experienced that too.
Good luck.
Mike

www.mtstringer.smugmug.com

[Davidtxs]

Exposure manager does it also I use them and love it easy upload they handle all cc processing, printing and shipping, they will blind ship to so it looks like it came from you> They also have vouchers you can pre print and sell to to customer you collect the money and they go online and use the voucher.
http://www.exposuremanager.com/

Originally Posted by ramiro

In talking to a friend of mine, he mentioned that he is doing school sports and an idea came to mind. Here is what I was thinking, and hopefully some of you have ideas on how to do it if possible.

What I would like to do is to shoot HS sports like football, basketball, tennis, baseball, ect. I want to upload the images to a site, and have kids or parents go to the site and buy either prints, dog tags, buttons, trading cards, things like that. But I want to do it in a way that I don't have to touch the order, the place the order, the order goes straight to a lab, get's processed, and sent directly to them. Basically all I want to do is shoot, process, and upload. Can this be done? Is there a service out there that can do this? Please don't say Pictage, even though I have never used them, I have heard enough horror stories to stay away from them. Any other ideas or recommendations are welcome. Thanx.