‘Pajama Paparazzi’: High School Football Sidelines Clogged With Creators
Duncanville vs. DeSoto is the kind of high school football game that attracts a crowd.
The two Texas powerhouses—separated by less than 10 miles of Dallas suburb—routinely produce dozens of high-level Division I prospects, making their matchup a marquee event on the state’s fall sports calendar. But in recent years, the sidelines have become almost as jam-packed as the stands.
High-profile games like Duncanville-DeSoto used to draw “probably 10 to 15 members of local and regional media,” says 247Sports national recruiting analyst Mike Roach, who has been covering high school football in the South for a decade. Now, that crew can find themselves along the hash marks with “upwards of 70 or 80 other photographers and videographers.”
Front Office Sports spoke with high school administrators, coaches, and local journalists from around the country who described a similar phenomenon: Sidelines and baselines are increasingly populated with a new class of “private content creators,” often hired by players or their parents via casual, modest-sum agreements.
Social media has made sports-content creation into an accessible job—or at least a decent side hustle. Meanwhile, the proliferation of NIL opportunities throughout the high school ranks has left young athletes and their families with an insatiable appetite for personalized photos and videos. (As one AD in Ohio puts it: “Everyone has a media company now.”)
For schools and state athletic associations, this crush of creators presents a new balancing act and operational headache—accommodating the demand for more coverage while also maintaining safe, orderly playing environments. There is no universal playbook just yet.
