NCAA, AP Enter Into Photo Partnership Deal
INDIANAPOLIS, IN (February 10, 2009) – The Associated Press and the National Collegiate Athletic Association today announced a three-year deal that makes AP the worldwide distributor of NCAA championship photography. The deal creates the "largest collection anywhere" of collegiate sports photographs, AP says.
Under the agreement, AP will be the exclusive licensing agent of NCAA photographs and the retail sales of archival photographs for all NCAA championships.
Rich Clarkson & Associates of Denver, which has served as the NCAA's official photographers since 1994 covering all 88 annual NCAA championships, will continue to provide the NCAA with photography services for the next three years as part of the deal.
"Basically this was our idea," Clarkson told News Photographer magazine. "What the NCAA wanted was a wider 'marketing footprint' than we could provide, particularly overseas, and the AP is really reaching out overseas these days. We took a couple of NCAA managers to New York and we met with AP, and it was my recommendation that they go with AP Images."
Clarkson said that there was stiff competition for the deal.
"Getty wanted this in the worst way," he said, "and they really made a run at it. But in the long run we thought AP was a better fit, and that's what we recommended. AP and NCAA are both non-profits, and AP is 183 years old and they're not going anywhere."
AP's CEO Tom Curley and Clarkson were recently at Kansas University in Lawrence at a meeting of Kansas newspaper leaders, Clarkson said. During the gathering Curley told him that in spite of the economic state of affairs for American newspapers "everyone wants news," and that there is currently "more demand for AP's services than ever before."
Curley also told Clarkson that right now two-thirds of AP's revenue is coming from non-members and from overseas.
"That's exactly the kind of 'marketing footprint' that the NCAA was looking for with their photographic collection," Clarkson said, matching their hopes to reach a much wider editorial audience as well as a broad consumer audience.
Under the new deal, consumers will be able to buy photographs online at NCAA.com and on the APImages.com Web site, AP says.
NPPA's president in 1975, Clarkson has covered the NCAA Men's Final Four basketball championship since 1952. He is a longtime Sports Illustrated photographer and the former director of photography for National Geographic magazine. His company, Rich Clarkson & Associates, also produced a book on the NCAA's 100th Anniversary.
AP says the new deal with the NCAA will also allow NCAA to include their photographs in the AP Images archives, where they will be available for editorial and commercial use, and in turn NCAA has access to AP's archives of images of NCAA photographs. AP Images is a commercial division of The Associated Press.
"This partnership brings together the great strengths of AP in photography and photo licensing with the phenomenal sports photography of the NCAA," AP senior vice president Tom Brettingen said in an AP statement. He's also the chief revenue officer for AP. "We are very excited to be representing the photography of the 88 NCAA men's and women's championship events."
"In partnership with Rich Clarkson & Associates, the NCAA has compiled an archive of photos representing the greatest moments in NCAA Championship history," NCAA director of broadcasting Greg Weitekamp said.
"Combine the history of the NCAA photo archives with the depth of photos compiled by AP Images over the last 100 years, and the NCAA and the AP Images partnership will create the single greatest collection of collegiate sports photos."
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