WE ARE WRESTLING-SPECIFIC MEDIA |
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"Down a large rabbit-hole" with RomaPics and the LHSAA |
September 20th, 2021| Written by: Staff writer |
If the LHSAA or RomaPics employed any wrestlers, or someone who remotely knows anything about wrestlers, this piece need not have been written.
Usually, though, the word
connotes something nefarious.
Thirteen states colluded in 1861 to start the Civil War.
Leopold and Loeb colluded to kidnap and murder Bobby Franks in
1924. Hitler colluded with
Stalin to attack Poland in 1939.
Warren Beatty colluded with Columbia Pictures to film “Ishtar” in
1987. |
Nowadays
collusion generally refers to price fixing, or other illegal practices designed
for the purposes of financial gain.
That rather fits re this tale.
(I have only told
this tale to my daughter Camille, my mother, my sister and an assortment of poor
souls who made the mistake of asking me about it or happened to be around when I
was bored. I never thought to set
it to words, though, until Camille told me her boyfriend, who knows only as much
about wrestling as Camille has deigned to learn, minus what she cared to tell
him, wanted to know about it.
Luckily for him, and any others who care to read further, lunch breaks, nap
breaks or, really, any kind of breaks imaginable are available as desired…or
needed.)
On
Friday, February 8th, 2019, the Louisiana Wrestling News (LWN)
entered the CenturyLink Center in Bossier City, Louisiana, to photograph the
2019 Louisiana High Scholl Athletic Association (LHSAA) State Wrestling
Championships. They were armed with
five loaded Canons and ready to shoot.
I returned to River Ridge two days later with well over 20,000
photographs to sort, choose, edit and name.
Due to the intuitive abilities of the four photographers I hired, the
intense training to which I subjected them at Red Lobster the night before, and
the cardinal rule of wrestling photography – “when in doubt, press the damn
button” – I published over 7,600 of them on the state championships website I
completed about three months later.
A
year later, on February 14th, 2020, I walked into the CenturyLink
Center as the only representative of the LWN.
I entered through the General Admissions gate after buying a ticket to
the first day’s session. It was the
first time I had bought a ticket to the event since 2012.
I sat in the stands for about an hour.
Then I checked out of my hotel and drove back to River Ridge.
I watched the rest of the tournament on TrackWrestling.
Yet the trip still cost me about $6,000.
Two nights in a hotel, food and gasoline accounted for some.
But I felt obligated to pay the four photographers I had in 2019,
something to reflect my gratitude as they had each rearranged their work
schedules three weeks earlier to be available to photograph the event.
And yes, I pay them well. I
like to tell them that for the rest of their lives they may only be paid as
little as their employers can get them to accept.
I like to pay them what their work is worth to me, and what I think it is
worth to the wrestlers and their families.
On January 23rd, 2020, the media credentials
application was still not available on the LHSAA website, so I emailed the list
of people I wanted to receive them: Emily Hamman (this would be her fifth state
tournament), Anna Tedesco (her third), Anthony Benedetto (his third), Jonathan Belaire (his second) and Camille Tyra (her first, but she had previously covered
a Jazz Town Duals and Ken Cole Memorial for me – and, well, it was more
“daddy-daughter” time for me).
On February 4th, 2020, Kate Adams, the LHSAA
director of Communications and Media Relations, told me over the phone that I
would get three press passes, and not six.
It was disappointing, but it did allow for one camera on each of the
three finals mats. Earlier in 2020,
Kelly Wells, the Executive Director of the Shreveport-Bossier Sports Commission,
told me the LHSAA was taking firmer control over what transpired at the 2020
state championships. He said even
Jim Ravannack, the man who basically ran every state tournament for the last 25
or more years, would not be afforded the clout he had wielded so well in the
past.
Three days later, on February 7th, after
applying for press passes on January 23rd and arranging my photography crew, I
received the below email from Ms. Adams:
The email was cc’d to Ryan Romaguerra, the owner of
RomaPics, the “official” photographer of LHSAA state championship events.
Oddly, I thought, it was also cc’d to Mark Boyer, an attorney used by the
LHSAA.
I did not ask if my photographers were able to reschedule
their work obligations or not. They
are young adults and as such had probably already spent most of the money they
expected from the job. I made sure
they got at least half of what I would normally would have paid them.
“Let the LWN Photograph the State Championships”
Anyone who knows me attentively is cognizant that modesty
is not a virtue of which I am deficient.
I believed some people waited for my photographs to be published before
determining if they wanted to buy any from RomaPics.
And I do think my photos were better.
However, I had no idea how many others felt the same way.
Shortly after receiving what I call Ms. Adams’ “Denied
Email” I created a Facebook page entitled “Let the LWN Photograph the
State Championships.” I wanted to
see if others felt as maligned as I did.
I viewed the page as my bringing a blackboard to a
classroom. It was the parents who
brought the chalk.
I was stunned by the response.
Within a week I had more “Likes” than RomaPics had on their Facebook
page, which was created several years before.
After two weeks I had enough comments to allow me to create a t-shirt.
I deleted almost all of my replies, and still had enough for three
columns of comments on the front and back sides.
I was dumbfounded. I was
surprised, appreciative and came as close as I ever have to deeming myself “not
worthy.” Honestly, I admit I felt
proud.
I do not know what made me prouder: the appreciation
expressed by the parents, their obvious disappointment re my not being allowed
to photograph the 2020 state tournament, or the wholly vitriolic nature of their
statements about RomaPics and/or the LHSAA.
I must admit I really enjoyed those.
I did not know until a year later
that on February 7th, 2020, another wrestling parent made his
thoughts known to Eddie Bonine in an email.
Bonine forwarded a copy to Adam MacDowell, Kate Adams, Kelly Wells (it
was a Bossier City father who wrote the email) and, naturally, Ryan Romaguerra.
Mike Miller, the father of Parkway wrestler Peyton Miller, took both RomaPics and the LHSAA “to task.” I asked him for, and he granted me, permission to publish his email. It is well worth reading.
Mr. Miller received a response on the same day.
This is a copy of the only response he received:
“All the best” my eye, Kate Adams.
Looking
back at 2019 I probably should have expected something like the events of 2020
would happen. The LWN
was granted five press credentials that year.
Saturday morning, while I was setting things up at the press table, I
received a call from Emily, the photographer I hired in 2016.
She said the LHSAA personnel at the front entrance to the arena floor
would not allow the other LWN photographers onto the floor.
At that time Tiara Gibson was the LHSAA Director of Communications, and
she and Kate Adams, perhaps in training, were at the table.
Tiara told me we could only have two photographers on the floor on
Saturday. I surmised, incorrectly I
would later learn, she simply forgot to tell me that.
I am fine spending money on wrestling, but losing money on it is
altogether different. Did Ms.
Gibson expect me to pay my photographers (albeit I would have) to not take
photographs? Granted, I do not
expect that was a concern of hers.
Jim Ravannack was naturally my first choice to address the matter, as he has
always been very supportive of the LWN, and I have no doubt he would have
remedied the problem. Yet Kelly
Wells stepped-in first and Ms. Gibson was instructed to let the photographers
onto the floor.
I
learned later that RomaPics threw a bit of a hissy fit about it.
Kelly Wells proved to be correct about his warning re what the LHSAA would allow at the 2020 state championships. The 2019 Saturday morning fiasco should have been my first clue that something was “rotten in the state of Denmark.”
Lost
revenue was the problem. Apparently
after the 2018 state championships, of which I published over 7,800 photographs,
RomaPics did not see the revenue stream they expected from the event.
My article was published about three-and-a-half months after the
tournament, after RomaPics took down their 2018 wrestling photo gallery.
Something was just not working out for the LHSAA’s “official”
photographer.
That explains the odd phone call I received in early 2019
from Ryan Romaguerra, the owner of RomaPics.
He asked me if there was a way we could “work together.”
I did not know what he meant by that, and he did not offer any ideas of
how we could do that. I did not
think I was working against RomaPics.
Mr. Romaguerra could not seem to process why I did not charge a fee to
download my photographs. It is as
if his brain saw “2 + quantum physics = coelacanth.”
He could not understand that I was a
wrestler. He most probably did not
know that a large percentage of wrestling coaches spend far more of their own
money during the season than they are paid, if they are paid, by the schools at
which they coach. It is what we do,
and it is hard to explain that to non-wrestlers.
For them, it remains how Winston Churchill described the Soviet Union in
1939: “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery in an enigma.”
Approximately a year later, on February 3rd,
2020, Mr. Romaguerra called me again, on the same day that Ms. Adams sent him an
email with my contact information.
Unlike in 2019, this time he had some options of how the LWN and RomaPics
could “work together.” In a
nutshell each one included my giving RomaPics the photos I took so they could
sell them to fans. He would make
sure the LWN was credited for taking the photographs.
I did not comprehend how that benefitted me at all.
He also proposed I help pay the fee RomaPics paid the LHSAA to be the
“official” photographer at the event, and then give him my photographs for them
to sell while giving the LWN credit for taking them.
I really failed to understand how that would benefit me.
He then suggested I give him the photos from all of the previous state
tournaments, to hold in some archive, in the event someone wanted to purchase
any from RomaPics, with the LWN receiving credit, of course.
Now I was wondering what people in Metairie might be smoking and where I
might get some! Past state
tournaments are already archived on the LWN website.
All of the photos I have ever published are still available.
Mr. Romaguerra’s best offer, however, was that if I “worked
with” RomaPics in any of his scenarios, the LWN website, via a logo,
would be linked on the LHSAA’s website’s “Corporate Partners” page.
That, said Mr. Romaguerra, would significantly increase the traffic on my
website. I think the coelacanths
might have shown up again. How
would a website that is not designed to turn a profit, and which is already
“powerful” enough to adversely affect RomaPics’ revenues, need any more traffic
than it already has? His “offers”
might have been considered evidence that he had gone, as Lewis Carroll might
have put it, “down a large rabbit-hole.” How
many people, if they happen to want to know something about Louisiana high
school wrestling, rather than use Google, go to the LHSAA website’s “Corporate
Partners” page to try to find out about it?
And do they go there before or after searching on Alta Vista?
February 3rd, 2020, was a Monday.
I told Mr. Romaguerra I would ponder his suggestions and call him later
in the week. Instead, though, I
emailed him on February 4th, as my mind was made up and it was too
late in the evening to call. Seeing
no benefits for the LWN or Louisiana wrestling fans in his proposals, I
politely turned them down. I cc’d
the email to Ms. Adams and spoke to her on the phone on Wednesday, February 5th,
asking how many media credentials I would receive.
She said she would call me back later in the day.
She did not. It then was
abundantly clear that I would not receive media credentials.
It was also clear that it was due to the woes of RomaPics because people
simply liked my photographs better than theirs.
Two days later Ms. Adams sent the “Denied Email.”
Unbeknownst to me until a day or two after January 10th, 2021,
I did not know that the LHSAA kept a dossier on the LWN.
At that time, it was 52 pages long.
They had done so since at least June 27th, 2018, which is the
date I mailed a letter to LHSAA Executive Director Eddie Bonine asking if, at
the 2019 state championships, the LWN photographers could venture inside
the barricades protecting the mat areas.
I did not ask that we be allowed on the mats, but just on the edges on
either side of the scorers’ tables, so long as we did not get in their way.
While I did not know such a dossier existed, RomaPics must
have. On July 11th,
2018, one of their photographers learned about my letter from Tiara Gibson, and
he emailed that information to Ryan Romaguerra, who then forwarded it to Adam
MacDowell.
In the letter of June 27th to Bonine I included
photographs of a 2018 finals match taken by my photographers and by RomaPics.
In the same July 11th email the RomaPics photographer
complained that I did not use any of his “better” photographs of the match.
He felt his photos told a fine “story” of the match.
(I have serious doubts he would know what a wrestling “story” is.)
He was correct about two things.
He did take some fine photographs, but I chose the crappiest photos I
could find. I did so to emphasize
that people who might otherwise choose to buy photographs from RomaPics first
have to look through the thousands of unedited and only mildly sorted
photographs RomaPics offers to sell.
Yes, I published over 7,800 photographs in 2018 and over 7,600 in 2019.
I picked and worked on every one of those photos.
However, I threw out over 12,000 photographs with which I came home in
each of those years. I doubt if
RomaPics throws out any.
The photographer also complained of having only two
photographers for the match indicated, whereas the LWN had five.
It was a Division III finals match.
Is he suggesting that RomaPics only had two photographers at the event
and that they only took photos of Division III finals matches, when the Division
I and Division II finals matches were being contested at the same time?
Did he also think that the five LWN photographers were also only
concentrating on the Division III finals match?
Did he think at all prior to writing the email?
July 11th, 2018, RomaPics interoffice email
The photos I publish are sorted by division, weight class,
tournament rounds. They also
include the name of the winner and the loser of each match, and are numbered by
how many of them I publish of a specific match.
RomaPics does not appear to discard any of the photographs they take at
the state championships. Yet they
cry when fans choose a much simpler, and, mathematically, infinitely less
expensive, alternative re obtaining photographs of their children on the mats.
As soon as my article is published fans will know if I have pictures of a
particular match. If I do not,
well, RomaPics is the only other option they have, and they can certainly search
through the dregs to find decent ones.
In that now even more damning email, the photographer
mention he knew of a “media meeting” the LHSAA was holding on July 26th
to “deal with some media issues of access and what not.”
He suggested he and Ryan Romaguerra meet with the LHSAA on July 25th.
He wrote that Adam MacDowell would check to see if Eddie Bonine would be
available for the meeting. I rarely
get a response to my emails to the LHSAA, and I was not invited to either of
those meetings. Go figure.
Sternberg,
Naccari and White is a New Orleans law firm at which a St. Martin’s class of
1981 classmate of mine practices law.
I contacted her about another issue, and then asked her if she thought
the LHSAA could do what they did to the LWN re the 2020 state
championships.
I
asked her because of an utterly ridiculous exhibit of nonsense, which would make
Lewis Carroll “mimsy in the borogoves” proud, called the “LHSAA 2020-21 Media
Policies and Procedures.” In the
“Photography” section of it, on page three, was written (and apparently was
approved by someone) the following:
“The LHSAA prohibits the sale of photographs from LHSAA
state tournament events, and will not credential any photographers whose photos
will be used for any purpose other than legitimate media coverage.
Photography is
only to be used by legitimate news gathering agencies.
RomaPics is responsible for distributing
and selling photos at LHSAA state tournament events.”
LHSAA Media Policies and Procedures: 2020-21
The flawed logic of this section might suggest nonsensical
genius, or at least Swift-like satire, until the source of it (someone at the
LHSAA is a likely candidate) is remembered.
Let us examine the section sentence by sentence, shall we?
1)
“The LHSAA prohibits
the sale of photographs from LHSAA state tournament events, and will not
credential any photographers whose photos will be used for any purpose other
than legitimate media coverage.”
This sentence poses two problems:
A)
The sale of the
photographs from the event is allowed.
RomaPics gets to sell them,
B)
RomaPics does not use
their photos for “legitimate media coverage.”
They take photographs to make money.
Yet the first sentence says they cannot do that.
Hence, the second sentence says they should not even be credentialed.
2)
“Photography is only
to be used by legitimate news gathering agencies.”
OK, I am still baffled about what a “news gathering
agency” might be. In another
section of the document, they use terms like “bona fide media, “reputable new
organizations” and “legitimate media outlet.”
They even have a criteria test to determine what does not constitute
whatever term they choose to use for something like the LWN.
According to Dr. Michael Giusti, the
chair of Loyola University’s Department of Journalism, the LWN passes
that test easily. RomaPics does not
meet even one of the five criteria cited.
3)
“RomaPics is
responsible for distributing and selling photos at LHSAA state tournament
events.”
Does not that sentence totally refute the first
sentence? I bet Mr. Spock
would say as much.
|
My friend brought the issue to one of her firm’s partners,
Mr. Scott Sternberg, as he is an expert on First Amendment rights.
Working pro bono, Mr. Sternberg sent a letter to Eddie Bonine of November
10th, 2020, stating, among other things, the LHSAA “are
discriminating against my client [the LWN] because his photographs would
affect one of [their] vendors.” The
letter went on to say, “On behalf of our client, we would like assurances from
you that you will provide press credentials to Louisiana Wrestling News
regardless of your financial arrangement with RomaPics,” followed by, “If you do
not provide this assurance, we will be forced to initiate legal action.”
Three days later, on November 13th, 2020, Mr.
Sternberg received a letter from Mr. Mark Boyer, of Boyer, Hebert, Caruso &
Angelle, a law firm retained by the LHSAA.
The letter stated that I “will be provided with media credentials in the
same form and fashion as other members of the media who will be in attendance”
at the state championships. It took
three days for the LHSAA to capitulate.
France put up a better fight against Germany in 1940.
They had an army, though.
The LHSAA did not even have an argument.
Based on that decisive victory I decided I should “push the
envelope” find out how many media credentials the LWN would receive
before I made plans to hire photographers.
On January 11th, 2021, I emailed Mr. Vince Cacioppo, the new
LHSAA Director of Communications, asking, although it was earlier than such
information was usually released, how many I could expect.
I explained that my Shreveport photographers had expressed an interest in
photographing the event in Baton Rouge, but that I did not want them to make any
arrangements until I knew if they would be allowed to do so.
Mr. Cacioppo replied on the following day the I would receive two press
credentials. It made little sense
for just one person to travel from Shreveport to Baton Rouge for the event, so
the second one went to my daughter. She
happened to be in town from Atlanta, and her birthday was on the horizon.
Plus, as my only child, she has a monopoly on Muller nepotism.
Incredibly,
attached to that email was the 52-page PDF dossier mentioned earlier.
I did not ask for a copy of it.
How could I? I did not know
it existed. It was a “goldmine” of
information, though, with interoffice LHSAA and RomaPics emails, as well as
emails from one to the other. And
it provided clear evidence of scheming, plotting and conniving for financial
gain – dare I say “collusion?” - between the LHSAA and RomaPics.
It gave me the reasons needed to contact a lawyer to determine if my
rights were violated in 2020.
On
a personal note, the dossier solved a nagging problem for me.
For eight years I struggled to define how best to describe the
Louisiana Wrestling News. Dr.
Giusti referred to it as “a bona fide news outlet covering a niche community of
student athletes…” That is a very
appropriate definition, but it was too long to use on a t-shirt.
Here I must thank Kate Adams’ lack of understanding of what
the LWN is. I have always
felt that the name is self-explanatory, and that I was not at my creative best
when choosing the domain name “lawrestlingnews.com.”
Two years earlier when I asked about media credentials, Tiara Gibson
emailed me the following: “Please educate me about Louisiana Wrestling News as a
publication.” Why did not either of
them look at the website? There is
an “About the LWN” link on the front page.
And why did not a communications director italicize Louisiana
Wrestling News?
Ms. Adams asked the question on January 24th,
2020, and Adam MacDowell replied:
January 24th, 2020 LHSAA interoffice email
“These people are
wrestling specific media….”
Adam MacDowell had solved the problem of how I should really describe
what I do. Sure, he did not
use the hyphen the phrase requires, but I can add hyphens with the best
of them. When I first read
it, I felt rather “dirty.” It
was written as if the LWN were Al-Qaeda, or KGB… or Georgia’s
Marjorie Taylor Greene. |
The quote also gave me the idea for the 2021 state championships LWN t-shirts. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, only Camille knew of the sarcasm it displayed. Well, come to think of it, one more person might have, but I doubt he paid the shirts much heed.
If only “Wrestling-specific Media” would fit on an automobile license plate. Maybe on an AMC Pacer.
Nothing
I do will cause the LHSAA to change their mind.
I want six cameras to get more match photographs and to have cameras on
each side of the finals’ mats. I do
not think the LHSAA will grant me more than the two they gave me last year.
They do not care that a lot of wrestling families cannot afford to buy
photographs from RomaPics (who, according to the LHSAA, are not allowed to sell
photographs, twice, until they are).
As I mentioned previously, I do not have a problem with
RomaPics being the “Official” photographers of LHSAA state championship events.
(I am not happy with how my daughter said she was treated, but I can keep
that “on hold” until something similar happens.)
I also am not the reason why RomaPics lost expected revenue from the 2018
and 2019 state tournaments.
RomaPics loses money on the state wrestling championships
for several reasons:
1)
Their prices are too
high,
2)
They do not organize
their photos in a manner that makes it easy for potential customers to find the
photos they want,
3)
Their photos are
obscured by an obnoxious photo-protection watermark,
4)
They do not edit their
photos prior to putting them on their website – some of them are horrible,
5)
They do not know how
to photograph wrestling.
I do not have to prove any of those reasons.
RomaPics proves it just fine.
A significant portion of their “customer base” (I use quotes
because that is a group of fantasy people, like benevolent dictators,
Russian amateur athletes or Underpants Gnomes), enough to merit their
complaining to the LHSAA, opts to wait three months or more to get
photographs from a bunch of amateur photographers, of which only one has
wrestling experience. The reasons listed above, mind you, do not attempt
to cover the additional costs RomaPics incurs to feed and house their
personnel. I have done the
math and believe the nature of the state wrestling tournament does not
allow a profit to be made by selling photographs.
Heck, I probably paid more than they did when I had four
photographers, and you do not hear me bitching about it.
(I mean re the costs, of course.) |
Why should I even consider an opportunity to “work with
them?” I will offer the following
suggestions in case they forgot what was outlined four sentences ago:
1)
Lower the prices for
general photos or customer requested individual match photos,
2)
Make the photos easier
for people to find,
3)
Use a less obnoxious
watermark,
4)
Edit out the bad
photos. Everybody takes them at one
time or another,
5)
Learn something about
the sport of wrestling or hire someone who does to train your photographers.
Hell, it’s free, so I will offer another option:
6)
PUNT.
Let someone else have the LHSAA wrestling concession if it does not
generate enough money.
RomaPics is the source of the problem.
The LHSAA, however, is the force that stands behind the source.
As for the LWN, it is the loess stepped on by the force due to the
source. (“Loess” rhymes with
“source” and “force.”)
I have run out of ideas of how to convince the LHSAA that
perhaps a non-profit oriented public service is not such a bad thing.
Letters to the LHSAA, letters to every state representative and state
senator, and letters to the press have all failed.
I had little other choice but to threaten a lawsuit, and that still only
merited two media credentials in 2021.
Only wrestlers understand wrestlers.
That includes family members and friends of wrestlers who see what
wrestlers submit themselves to every day at practices and at matches.
If the reader is among that group, I need not elucidate further.
If not, further elucidation is futile.
I fear something wondrous and unexpected is needed to allow
the number of credentials I would like at the 2022 state championships.
Something like USA 4-USSR 3 in the 1980 Winter Olympics, the Titanic
sinking the iceberg or:
Every Who down in Whoville, the tall and the small, Was singing! Without any presents at all! |
What will it take to make the LHSAA’s heart grow three
sizes, and then have them cut the roast beef?
If they were wrestlers…
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