I think it’s about time to talk about athlete and content creators collaborating and how it can either strengthen or ruin a relationship

I’ve had plenty of great relationships with professional and collegiate athletes during my time in the sports industry but I’ve also had some that have gone sour

Some, I must admit, became sour by me not living up to the expectations that I or the athlete had set for myself

Others have gone sour because they unfortunately only valued my work if it was free or heavily discounted.

This brings me to my biggest issue that I’ve personally had when it comes to relationships with athletes which is that both sides need to respect each other’s craft.

And I’m not talking about respecting each other as people. Most people I know don’t have a hard time respecting each other.

What I’m talking about is respecting the service, the work, and ultimately the craft.

“I’ll tag you and help give you exposure” is a great example of not respecting the content creator’s craft. I’ve heard it plenty of times from plenty of different athletes.

Exposure isn’t a form of compensation and it never will be.

With that being said, I don’t think doing free work is a bad thing at all. Honestly I wouldn’t be where I am today without doing free work in the beginning.

What I am saying is that it should be on your terms, not the athlete’s.

Gotta take a break from this thread for a bit but I wanna hear some of your thoughts!

Before going into more depth about all this, I want to explain that most of the bad experiences I’ve had have been with professional athletes and not collegiate ones.

Almost all the collegiate athletes I’ve ever worked with and developed relationships with have been awesome.