This week the annual NFL Owner’s Meetings are back in West Palm Beach, at The Breakers Resort. It’s also the fourth anniversary of my last ever assignment from the league. I shot the annual coaches photo and the coaches golf tournament when the owners last met at The Breakers in 2004.
Soon after, NFL Photos was disbanded, and the archive “returned” to its owners, most of which were the photographers who shot the pictures. I say “returned” because most of us chose to send out our portion of the archive to either Getty Images or WireImage. Many of us league photographers saw this move as a short sighted and a blatant disregard for the league’s history, in exchange for a quick buck from Getty, with whom the league wanted to sign an exclusive deal with. Instead of a coherent collection of still imagery, the archive would now be fractured and spread out amongst many entities.
Ironically, 2004 was also the beginning days of the NFL Network, the league’s upstart cable channel. NFL Network’s schedule was initially loaded with programming from NFL Films, the legendary arm of the league that has won 92 Emmys over the years. But now it seems the same “suits” that swept NFL Photos into oblivion have their sights set on the legendary film company started by Ed Sabol and his son Steve (below photo). Recently the league laid off over 7% of NFL Films staff, and the feeling from insiders is the NFL Network people and others with the league think NFL Films has outlived its usefulness.
It’s like Deja Vu all over again.
When I started contributing to NFL Photos in 1997 I thought I was set. Instead, my career ended up being slightly longer than that of the average for an NFL running back.
As former NFL coach Jerry Glanville famously said in one of those NFL Films highlights, the NFL stands for “not for long.”
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