Freelance Sportswriting
By James Raia

It's difficult to envision journalistic nirvana where you're in the midst of being fired.

But that's exactly what was in store for me in 1985 when I was "consolidated" as a staff writer at the Sacramento Bee.

After about 10 years as a sportswriter (an occupation I dreamed of since I was a marginal 12-year-old athlete) I had progressed through hundreds of varied assignments and years of daily deadline editing at the then 250,000-circulation daily.

It was more than any sportswriter could have desired.

Nevertheless, in 1984 I found myself abruptly deposited in the midst of brutally nasty newspaper union contract negotiations.

I was eventually dismissed in February 1985 with a dozen other staff members. I was handed a severance check and pointed, in no uncertain terms, toward to the door.

It's been more than 18 years since that glorious day.

And with the exception of a one-year hiatus as the sports columnist for the Monterey (Calif.) Herald, I've since been content and prospering as a full-time freelance sportswriter.

And although, of course, I can report only on my experience, I believe employment as a freelance journalist is a viable option for any writer, particularly considering the increase of electronic publications and the need for competent, available writers.

Fortunately, my dismissal all those years couldn't have occurred at a more appropriate time.

As an endurance sports enthusiast, I heard about a two-week cycling event in Colorado in the summer of 1985 that included some of sport's most famous athletes. It was also about that same time the Sacramento Kings transferred from Kansas City to Northern California.

In terms of the cycling event, I made a few phone calls, including contacting the now-deceased New York sports editor of Reuters, the international news service.

Since the two-week cycling event involved a large field important to Reuters' international clients, the news service's sports editor agreed to pay me a decent daily rate, plus some expenses, to file daily stories.  I was 30 years old, single, recently fired and had no employment prospects. My decision to follow cyclists through the Rockies for two weeks took about five seconds to make.

I've been covering cycling since, including attending the Tour de France six times and the World Cycling Championships four times.

Upon my return that summer from the 1985 Coors International Bicycle Classic, I also discovered Sacramento had experienced journalists covering the state government for the Associated Press and United Press International.

But neither wire service had anyone with sports knowledge or the wont to cover the Sacramento Kings, who were about to embark upon their first Northern California season.

Again, after a few phone calls, I aligned myself with UPI to provide game coverage, features and news stories about the Kings.

I continued to cover the Kings for nearly a dozen news services, newspapers, national magazines and online services - AP to USA Today, The Sporting News to the San Francisco Chronicle - until opting to leave the beat two seasons ago. It was a great, long run, but it was time to discover other challenges.

I found a niche, for sure. But to reiterate, the task of finding your own way as an independent journalist should not be sugarcoated.

While being a competent writer is paramount, at least equally relevant is developing savvy marketing, time-management and bookkeeping skills.

Of paramount importance, a sportswriter making the transition from a "traditional" job to freelancing must refocus his or her approach to the writing craft.

As a newspaper reporter, the daily task is singularly simple: you attend an event or interview an athlete, write the story and move on to the next assignment.

Freelance journalists interested in supporting themselves must think about a "bigger picture."

In short, unless you've received an assignment from a major publication that pays top rates, an article that sells once is tantamount to financial failure.

During my tenure as a freelancer, I've become skilled at marketing my articles to numerous publications, but I'm still honing those skills.

Correspondingly, as my career has developed, I now contribute to higher-paying markets and I don't have to always "hustle" to the same degree required as a novice freelancer.

Versatility is another important quality for freelancers to develop.

Although I still prefer amateur and endurance sports to mainstream sporting endeavors, I don't limit myself. I write a syndicated running column and contribute running and cycling articles to numerous publications. But I still enjoy and make a large percentage of my income covering the mainstream sports world, particularly golf.

But I've also taken assignments on such diverse sports as women's rugby, volleyball, alpine and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, mountain biking and hockey. I've covered a golf tournament in Morocco (twice), cycling in Japan, figureskating in France and long-distance running in Holland and Finland.

In short, freelancers who develop their careers as generalists with a niche in one or two sports have a far greater chance of success than freelancers who limit themselves to covering only one sport.

If your specialty is golf, for example, and there's a professional tournament in your area, the tournament can be a relative "gold mine."

As a freelancer, the first requirement is to secure a credential or a press pass. If a local publication needs a story, ask the editor write you a letter of assignment.

With the letter as your entree to the event, you can branch out. Whether it's golf, running, skiing or any other sporting event, I've always been able to secure at least one other assignment by calling the hometown newspaper of a particular entrant. I simple ask the editor or sub-editor they're interested in coverage of a local athlete.

When you've developed a niche, advancing from regional publications to larger markets is a natural progression. But it also takes perseverance.

As one example, for nearly the past 20 years, I've covered the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am on the Monterey Peninsula in California. In some instances, I've reported on the event for wire services and written a few small mini profiles. The AP pays enough per day to cover the expense of a hotel room for a week.

But after becoming an "expert" I decided it was time to expand my financial horizons. I wrote a letter and sent clips to several national golf magazines, including GOLF magazine, the national monthly and PGA Tour Partners, the national controlled circulation bi-monthly.

I also realized that accompanying ideas like golf memorabilia, travel and senior issues would likely be pertinent topics for non-golf publications, and I sent material to several of those of national publications. About a month later, I followed up with an e-mail and phones calls.

Some editors never responded, and that's perhaps the biggest frustration I've encountered as a freelancer - an inherent lack of trust or respect for freelancers.

But I eventually received a phone call from an associate editor of GOLF magazine who asked if I would be interested in writing a 1,200-word profile of LPGA golfer Pat Hurst.

With the clips from those articles, I wrote to several more golf publications, and I now have a steady flow of golf assignments from a variety of golf and non-specific sports publications.

Are there golf writers with more experience and more intimate knowledge of the sport? Absolutely. But as a freelancer, I have the desire and the availability to take assignments many staff writers don't have the time, wont or permission from their publications to consider.

Of course, freelancers must adhere to various guidelines and ethical considerations. Some publications require freelancers to sign agreements of exclusivity; other publications do not. You can't work for the online services of both The Sporting News and ESPN and you can't write a profile of an PGA Tour player for GOLF magazine and Golf Digest. But you can use the same information for a freelance game story for a regional daily and a weekly electronic newspaper since the publications are not competitors.

Years ago, I attended a weekend journalism workshop at a local library. The keynote speaker was a local university instructor, who was also an accomplished freelancer. He explained he had once sent an 800-word story on poison oak to the outdoors section editors of 100 daily newspaper. He sold the piece 33 times.

Three years later, he sent the same story to the same 100 newspapers and sold it another 20 times, including to some of the same newspapers for the second time.

The instructor's story has remained in my memory for many years. And as runner who appreciates running on trails, the poison oak subject became an all-too-familiar subject a couple of years ago when I contracted a severe case of the nasty ailment a couple of days after a 20-mile trail run in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Consequently, I decided to write an article about poison oak, poison ivy and poison sumac. I researched the article and sent a query to several editors. In addition to writing a column on the subject for several dailies, I've sold the article to the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, FootNotes (a now-defunct national quarterly magazine), Grit, Active Times (a national seniors tabloid), Looking Ahead (a non-competing regional seniors tabloid) and the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Consider another lucrative area of freelance sportswriting.

During my freelance tenure, I've attended numerous prominent sporting events - the Tour de France, 1992 Winter Olympics, various golf tournaments, boxing matches, sailing and cycling world championships and numerous triathlon and running events - all as a freelancer.

Longevity and an ever-increasing list of industry contacts are helpful. But any legitimate freelancer can do the same - and support themselves - if they're willing to play by "freelancers' rules."

At the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, I secured a credential via a contact at UPI. But I then contacted a half-dozen dailies around the country and solicited assignments on various hometown athletes and negotiated contracts.

Since my first obligation was to cover speedskating for UPI, I wrote those stories on tight deadlines. I then filed my supplemental freelance stories. I wrote perhaps a dozen alpine skiing articles for the Anchorage Daily News on Tommy Moe and other U.S. team members; I contributed a half-dozen feature and result pieces on Bonnie Blair for the Champaign (Illinois) News-Gazette; I contributed a 1,500-word feature on Eric Heiden to the Sacramento Union.

And upon my return, I contributed a rewrite of the Heiden story to the cycling publication VeloNews and to four magazines: Olympian, People, Sacramento and SilverKris, the Singapore Airlines in-flight publication.

The point: Freelancers have the flexibility to write about one subject in many different ways. Heiden provides a perfect example. The former five-time Olympic gold medalist and professional cyclist, is now a physician in Sacramento. A reporter for the local newspaper, the Sacramento Bee, would interview Heiden and write one general interest article for the publication’s readers.

But considering Heiden's diverse background and current occupation, the opportunities are plentiful and more financially fruitful for a freelancer.

And after leaving the limitations of daily newspaper journalism 18 years ago, I still prefer freelance journalism where there are no limitations.

The only requirements are perseverance, confidence, self motivation, a thick skin (to accept rejection notices) and the ability to appreciate the feeling of accomplishment when you succeed.

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