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NFL Requires Photographers to Wear Vests with Sponsor Logos

The National Football League has passed a new rule that requires photographers at the games to sport red vests that have the Canon and Reebok logos on them.

The news has editors and photography directors hopping mad, writes News Photographer magazine, a publication of the National Press Photographers Association.

“The NFL is an organization that strictly controls the presence of any non-sponsor logos (remember quarterback Jim McMahon and his [banned] Adidas headband?). Therefore the inclusion of sponsors’ logos on the photographers’ vests can only be seen as a deliberate decision to give the companies added exposure. But the vast expanse of the NFL stadiums, and the army of workers staffing the games, provide an endless supply of opportunities to promote the NFL’s sponsors without having to resort to forcing working journalists to unwillingly – and unethically – serve as advertising tools,” said NPPA president Tony Overman.

Larry Roberts, assistant managing editor for photography for The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, calls the move “a blatant attempt to make our professional sports photographers into another arm of the NFL media monster.”

“...I am fully against my staffers being used as billboards for companies which we may or may not support. The Post-Gazette, as a paper, uses Nikon equipment. I am sure Canon will love seeing their name behind a Nikon…. Or, will we now be prohibited from covering NFL events if we do not use Canon cameras?”

Canon Inc. is an official NFL sponsor, and Reebok is owned by Adidas AG, and is an NFL league licensee that makes clothing and merchandise with NFL logos on them. An article in the Wall Street Journal says that neither entity, however, paid specifically to have their logos on the vests.

And, while it’s an “alarming” development, according to Alex Marvez, president of the Pro Football Writers Association and a South Florida Sun-Sentinel reporter, reporters are learning that they must pick their battles when it comes to press access to and coverage of major sporting events.