THE ISSUE: The WIAA is restricting media sales of championship sporting events.
On the rare chance that a high school athlete gets to experience the thrill of playing in a state championship game, parents will typically want a picture or two of their son or daughter in the heat of competition.
However, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association has restricted local and regional papers from selling these pictures to parents and other interested parties, according to an article by the Associated Press.
Newspapers and television stations are forbidden to sell pictures and videos from championship games, but can still sell pictures from regular season competition, according to the article. The WIAA has restricted photography and video sales to two companies for these games.
Even though the games in question are state championships, news and media outlets should not be held to different standards than if it were the regular season.
Most parents would get pictures from familiar local newspaper photographers, and it is wrong to force parents to rely on only two possibilities. If a paper or news station has better shots than the companies, the parents would still be forced to choose from the companies’ limited shots.
These restrictions are a sleezy way for the WIAA to make money and aren’t beneficial for most parents, schools or athletes.
Having only two companies selling videos and photographs results in a monopoly and allows those companies to charge whatever rates they want.
Local papers don’t make a huge profit from commercially used photos, so the WIAA should not worry about losing vast sums of money from media sales.
If newspapers do make a profit, the money would most likely go toward funding the photography department to continue servicing the community.
Championship games are the most covered event in any high school sport and by preventing media markets from selling photos they own, the WIAA is hurting the communities that have come to trust those papers for local coverage and strong photography.
