Coaches Teach and Others Profit
I have been out of basketball since 2016. I would cross paths with coaches at various events throughout the year, representing my clients. I would see them at Final Four, July Live Period…the NBA Draft Combine but I was outside of the game.
In the past four months, I have listened and learned more about basketball than in all of my years in it. Connecting with hundreds of coaches on all levels with one thing in mind- sharing and growing the game we loved. It hadn’t been since my days at Five-Star that I had experienced anything like this.
The majority of coaches are hurting right now. There is no camp revenue, some are furloughed, some have been fired or laid off, it’s tough times everywhere and even those in education are facing it.
With no games being played, appearances to be made -how can coaches earn outside of their school salary? What can they do with their talent? Their method of teaching?
There are rarely new ideas on the court but more often ideas that have evolved since the hey-day of basketball innovation in the 1950’s and '60s. Coaches have borrowed and tweaked most of the techniques that their teams utilize.
But how a coach packages and delivers his/her teachings separates a coach from the masses, in some cases, it’s pure magic.
What I have found most surprising in the past four months is how Sports Instruction has lagged behind the other content industries in its delivery and most importantly — in its compensation.
I want to say it was 1987 when we came out with the Five-Star Basketball Drills…the drill book. Tom Bast of Masters Press championed the project and we signed for I want to say an 8% royalty and an advance on the book sales. The book was a great success and we had a built-in market with the basketball camp attendees. We could package the book into the cost of camp. We would do a series of books with Masters Press.
As an author, we gave up ownership of our proprietary content and received an author’s percentage. The publisher would incur the expenses of producing the books, promoting the books, and getting it in book stores (remember those days).
Oh by the way -The publisher makes significantly more than the author. Later on, when Tom Bast left Masters, he introduced us to Holly Kondras and Wish Publishing where we would co-publish a number of titles.
We would now receive 25% of our book sales revenue. We would work on a Girls Drill book series, a My Favorite Moves Series with WNBA players, and a Five-Star Coaches Playbook.
By then, the war against print had been launched and it led to a complete upheaval with publishing houses. The days of advances were long gone and the solution to most print projects became self-publishing. Amazon had changed the game and business.
It wasn’t too long ago when the music industry saw this type of upheaval. The record companies made all of the money and the stars got small percentages. Prince revolted against the system and other artists would follow suit.
In sports journalism, it was a handful of companies that controlled the narrative of sports and profited off of it. The athletes were pawns in this system. This led to a revolution of athlete-led journalism…Players Tribune…Uninterrupted
The question at hand is why hasn’t this happened with Sports Instructional content?
Still today, Coaches are dealing with antiquated delivery methods, small author percentages, and at the expense of forking over ownership of their content. In some cases, the small print on the agreement is actually an exclusivity clause preventing them from monetizing their work anywhere else.
The coach then needs to hope that the Sports Production company is going to put them on the catalog cover or do a targeted email to push their product. The coach has no control over the process. Additionally, the coach is often an afterthought of the production company, which is collecting coaches and materials to saturate the market. And…how does the coach know how much he makes…he has to trust the Production company is being above board in their annual royalty statement.
In an era of digital files, iPhones, and video editing apps — the day has come that the talent keeps ownership of their content, receives their fair share of compensation, and most importantly — has control over the process.
We have learned in this pandemic, that Sports are not bullet-proof and with coaches forced to the sidelines, they need to find new ways to make a living.
The time is now for coaches to control their content and be paid accordingly.
