Why the Biggest NCAA Basketball Game of the Year Was Barely Photographed

In October, the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) warned photographers against rights-grabbing credentialing agreements after The Gazelle Group, a major firm known for its sports coverage, offered credentials for sporting events in exchange for irrevocable, free use of photos taken by credentialed photographers. This pay-to-play arrangement understandably irritated photographers and wire services, and the fallout has persisted.

As Awful Announcing reports, The Gazelle Group’s credential agreement controversy reared its ugly head in a very public way recently and has been affecting coverage of games all season.

On February 21, the Duke Blue Devils beat the Michigan Wolverines 68-63 in one of the best and most exciting college basketball matchups of the season. At the time, Duke was ranked third nationally, while Michigan was the top seed. College basketball games rarely get more interesting than that, especially in February, nearly a month before March Madness tips off.

It was a great game between two college basketball blue bloods. It was ESPN’s highest-rated regular season NCAA men’s basketball game in seven years, per Awful Announcing. But it was barely photographed by major wire services at all. Stories about the game almost invariably lack photos altogether.

This bizarre turn of events is because the game, played at a neutral site, was managed by none other than The Gazelle Group. The Gazelle Group has a smattering of college basketball events under its umbrella this year, but none bigger than the “Duel in the District” matchup between Duke and Michigan at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C.

Major wire services like Getty Images, Imagn (part of Reuters and the U.S.’ largest sports-image wire service), and the Associated Press send photographers all over the world to cover major sporting events, and make no mistake, a Duke versus Michigan basketball game qualifies as a big event.

“Pretty weird to me — doesn’t look like any of the major photo services, at least the ones I’m familiar with, have images from Saturday’s Michigan-Duke game. Nothing as far as I can tell from Getty, Imagn, AP, any of them,” said Jon Lewis, owner of Sports Media Watch, on X, formerly Twitter.

Although The Gazelle Group slightly dulled the sharp edge of its new credentials agreement, going from irrevocable, free use of all photos that credentialed photographers at its events to “just” three, it has done little to quell the frustrations of Getty, AP, Imagn, and others. They were all extremely irritated by The Gazelle Group’s original credentials agreement and have effectively boycotted the group’s events.

As reporter Alejandro Zúñiga shared in response to Lewis’ post on X, no major wire service photographers were at the Michigan-Duke game. Both teams had staff there, along with TNT Sports/Bleacher Report, Capital One Arena social media staff, and a few other smaller groups. The Gazelle Group had one person there.

NPPA’s General Counsel, Mickey H. Osterreicher, Esq., who discussed The Gazelle Group’s credentials agreement with PetaPixel in October, commented on the matter again today. His statement is presented in full below:

This is not simply a business dispute. It raises serious First Amendment and press freedom concerns. When access to a newsworthy sporting event is conditioned on signing a non-negotiable agreement that coerces photographers to grant no-cost promotional usage rights, the choice becomes clear: surrender certain legal protections or forfeit the ability to cover the event.

Gazelle has suggested that its terms do not involve a transfer of copyright. But that misses the larger point. If a third-party promoter can use editorial images for marketing and social media promotion without permission or compensation, the practical value of copyright is significantly diminished. Even more concerning, photographs taken for editorial news coverage are generally published without model or property releases. If those same images are later used for marketing or promotional purposes, that commercial use can trigger right-of-publicity and related legal claims, potentially exposing photographers and news organizations to liability.

As a result of these concerns, the major photo services did not even apply for credentials under the current language. They made a deliberate decision not to pursue access rather than agree to terms they view as legally and ethically problematic. To date, there has been no meaningful change in Gazelle’s position and no revised credential language that resolves the core issue. That lack of movement is not surprising; these provisions typically change only when there is sustained scrutiny and a tangible operational impact.

In terms of impact, the absence of the major services does not necessarily mean a game goes uncovered. It means coverage is displaced and, in some cases, degraded. One workaround observed at Tennessee vs. South Carolina in November was that local outlets appeared to rely on handout images from a school photographer credentialed through the team rather than through Gazelle. That may keep a story alive, but it shifts editorial independence by replacing independent third-party documentation with imagery controlled by a participant in the event.

Those workarounds can also inadvertently reinforce the very behavior the press community is challenging. If Gazelle can obtain and publish the same handout photos for its own marketing purposes, it reduces the incentive to negotiate fair licensing terms with independent journalists and agencies. In effect, the credentialing language pushes the market toward controlled distribution and away from independent reporting.

NPPA has challenged similar rights-grabbing credential provisions in the concert and sports industries before, and those terms were ultimately revised after public scrutiny. Credentialing should facilitate independent coverage, not extract intellectual property concessions or impose conditions that chill newsgathering. Even when an agreement states that photographers “retain copyright,” requiring uncompensated promotional use as a condition of entry dilutes those rights and creates additional legal risk when editorial images are repurposed for advertising or marketing.

If renewed attention to this issue encourages meaningful dialogue, that would be welcome. NPPA remains willing to engage constructively on credentialing language that respects operational needs while preserving the rights and independence of the working press.

Rick Giles, President of The Gazelle Group, talked about the situation with Awful Announcing, blaming the group’s controversial credential agreement on copyright issues it ran into when trying to use photos captured by photographers at its events. Apparently, The Gazelle Group employees “inadvertently used” photos they didn’t have rights to, and were being hit with copyright claims in response.

“We are being asked to pay for photos either through legal action or licensing for photos of our own event,” Giles told Awful Announcing. “We don’t want to charge for credentialing or make money off of people’s photos. We just don’t want to invest resources over issues stemming from inadvertent usage.”

It sounds like The Gazelle Group believes it should be able to use photos that people capture at the events it manages in exchange for allowing people to photograph its games, which are newsworthy events, by the way. Giles doesn’t appear to believe The Gazelle Group should have to pay to use photos of its own events.

“It’s 2026, and the media climate is much different,” Giles continued. “These wire services need to catch up to the times.”

The wire services and photographers at large completely disagree.

Image credits: Header photo created using an asset licensed via Depositphotos.com.