St. Louis, MO – July 28, 2022 – Believe it or not, some of the people with the most compelling stories to tell, don’t actually own them.

Too often, it isn’t until a professional athlete or celebrity dies that their family realizes how little of the loved one’s story they own or control. That isn’t right.

Everyone is entitled to own their own story and everyone deserves to have their story shared on screen in an amazing way. That core belief is behind everything we do. Everyone matters and deserves to have their story told.

With this post we want to zero in on the professional athlete.

I count myself blessed with getting to work with and getting to know some wonderful professional athletes – from rookies just drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals to All Stars and to legendary Major League Baseball Hall of Famers.

Each of them have unique stories about their journey to the game and in the game. They have stories they hope to pass down to their own families. And like few others, they have the potential to derive financial income from their story if they invest in it.

Having worked 18 seasons in Major League Baseball, I filter most of what I know about athletes through the lens of a baseball player. While no doubt there are some elements of their situation that may be unique to an MLB player or Alumni, professional athletes in other leagues face similar circumstances regardless of the collectively bargained agreements that govern their relationships with their league.

When a player retires from the game, they have their memories and memorabilia they amassed over the years. If they achieved success on the playing field, they probably have a marketable name. Sports agents can help the athlete arrange to be paid for a public appearance or attend an autograph show. The athlete can sell autograph items, but they have to be careful if they sell a photograph as it must to be licensed by MLB.

MLB players have conveyed their NIL rights (name image and likeness) and rights of publicity to the league as part of their collective bargaining agreements. A player can’t sell an image of themselves in uniform without the league licensing the item. That is why you see authentication stickers on everything.

If the athletes want to produce their own documentary film about their life, they would need to pay MLB for the rights to footage of them playing the game. They don’t own that footage of themselves playing the game, MLB does.

But they do own their own story. And likely their own family photographs. The modern player likely has tens of thousands of cell phone photos of their time in the game.

The truth of the matter is that those behind-the-scenes photos and stories could be worth a good amount of money if packaged into a consumable story.

I mean who wouldn’t want to hear Yadier Molina’s behind the scenes story? Sign me up for paying to see that story if he has it professionally produced for the screen.

I’d buy and read his memoir too. His brother’s book was beautifully done.

A book is probably the format of a story that most athletes are familiar with seeing. But they don’t know how to go about writing a book. Needless to say, there are sports writers that would jump at the chance to write a book about a popular player.

When I was with the Cardinals, several of the beat writers who covered the team made money selling books. Good for them. They had the access and initiative.

The challenge with those books is the writer owns the copyright and gets most – if not all – the profits (along with the publisher) if it is successful. Many are not. Few get wealthy writing.

While an athlete could write their own book, the smartest hire out. They do what Andre Agassi did and hire a ghost writer like J.R. Moehringer.

When you hire a ghost writer it is often a work-for-hire, meaning you still hold onto the copyright and you get the bi-line like Agassi did when J.R. ghost-wrote his New York Times best seller.

You hire the ghost writer to do the heavy lifting of writing a book that is well-written. More often than not, a better written book will perform better than a poorly written one.

That “ghost writer” role is the role STORYSMART plays for our clients – but we do it in the space of film or video production. You are hiring STORYSMART to have your story brought to the screen in a polished, professional and memorable way while retaining all your intellectual property rights as though you did it yourself.

We believe good storytelling is as important as a good story. How you tell the story matters. I’m sure the little mermaid had a great tale (or is that tail), but in the hands of a skilled storyteller it has the potential to go well beyond the other fish in your pool.

That little mermaid could try to tell her own story, but let’s be honest Walt Disney was able to take it a whole other level right?

All that is to convey the point that we believe a professional athlete should invest in telling their story, but be smart about how they do it so they see the full benefit of ownership.

Here are some quick, practical, best practice tips for a professional athlete to invest in their story.

• Invest in organizing your memories. Assemble all your memorabilia – from photos to news clips. Organize them and inventory them.

• Digitize your photos and other memorabilia. Place all your digital assets in well-marked folders so everything is easy to find.
  • If you have the resources to have them meta-data tagged, all the better. If not, practices such as using a clearly identifiable file name or adding details to a photo caption are huge in this digital era. Include the following:
    • Who/what/where/when/how/why.
    • When and where was the photo taken? Who is in it? Include any other details.
    • ex. World Series 2011, Busch Stadium. Game 6. David Freese. You get the idea.

• Have someone do a thorough on-camera interview with you capturing your memories.
  • You might find it helpful to share your images with the interviewer in advance of the interview so they can use some of those as memory prompts for you (ex. tell me what was going on in this picture)
  • Make sure you invest in good videography. It should be cinema quality – 4K – ideally at least two camera shoot. It should be well lit, high-resolution with great audio. You may consider renting a studio and shooting it in front of a green screen so you can alter the background. This may increase the value of the usage rights down the road as the person paying a license for the footage will be able to alter the look based on their project.

• Engage an agency to help you broker usage rights deals with media outlets that would like the footage. It is best to work with a broker that knows the market and has relationships. Expect to pay them a reasonable commission (ex. 25%) or fee for their brokerage work.

• Don’t neglect the metaverse opportunities. You may be able to create a limited-edition series of NFT (non-fungible tokens) with your unique story. You will need to engage a professional to make sure you do everything the right way – filing copyrights, registering on the block-chain etc.

• Produce a documentary film and sell it to a streaming service. Assuming you produce a high-quality story, there may be a strong market for the story. It must be well done, meeting key minimum quality standards.

About STORYSMART

You have a story to tell, but don't have the time or resources to do it yourself. Telling your story well with video can be hard. And let’s be brutally honest. No app will turn you into a great filmmaker. Few are capable of producing a do it yourself (DIY) video we actually want to watch, much less remember.

You need the right skills and equipment, not to mention time, money and talent to do your story justice on screen with video.

That is why STORYSMART developed our premium video storytelling as a service. We are here to help clients tell their story in the amazing way they deserve with a proprietary done-for-you service unlike any other.

STORYSMART provides a nationwide premium video storytelling service that empowers individuals, families, celebrities, small businesses and other organizations to have their stories told professionally while still retaining their intellectual property rights.

STORYSMART provides clients an experienced television reporter or journalist filmmaker to help them tell their story following our proprietary high-integrity brand journalism system. Our transparently priced premium services for businesses and families ensures that each client gets an authentic, high-quality story they own the intellectual property rights on forever.