When the final buzzer of the NBA season sounded last Monday, Nathaniel Butler zeroed in as bedlam broke out on the parquet floor at TD Garden.
As the flurries of green and white confetti fell, the veteran NBA photographer immediately followed Jayson Tatum, the All-Star forward who played a pivotal role in the Boston Celtics securing a record-setting 18th championship. Butler took yet another iconic photo—one of many in his 40-year career documenting historic NBA moments—with this one capturing a special embrace between Tatum and his son, Deuce.
“There’s a little luck involved,” Butler said in a phone interview. “I’m just happy to have taken a photo that I think has a lot of legs and that’s memorable.”
The Tatum and Deuce photo joins other well known sports photos from Steve Fenn capturing Team USA’s ‘Miracle on Ice’ moment during the Winter Olympics in 1980 to Neil Leifer’s iconic shot of Muhammad Ali’s reaction to knocking out Sonny Liston in the heavyweight title rematch in 1965.
Like other classics, Getty Images will reap the financial benefits of Butler’s Game 5 photo through its longstanding partnership with the NBA. While the league owns the copyright to the photo, the public media company will monetize the high-demand photo through editorial and commercial sales. Getty does business with more than 20,000 media outlets worldwide—including Penske Media Corporation, the parent company of Sportico—that may use the photo for game reports, documentaries and photo essays.
After all, Tatum’s embrace with his son transcends pro basketball, adding another layer of sales potential.
“A photo like that of the clinching moment and the celebration [afterward] cuts across media,” Carmin Romanelli, Getty Images’ vice president of global sports sales, said in a video interview. “It’s not just sports media interested in that photo.”
The biggest revenue stream for Getty (NYSE: GETY) is through commercial sales, since it offers different price points than editorial offerings. Through its partnership with the NBA, which started in 2001, the stock photo company has the exclusive commercial rights. But the stronger revenue potential comes with more hurdles for the interested parties and organizations. Anyone clamoring to utilize the memorable Game 5 photo must have the intellectual property rights to Tatum individually or through the current group licensing agreement overseen by the NBA’s players union.
The group licensing route is more applicable for a trading card company like Panini America, for example, which is the exclusive trading card partner for the NBA. However, Getty Images also does business with Panini rival and Topps owner Fanatics, which pays to license images for its products.
The group licensing deals also could span into other product categories like posters but any rights agreement would likely require more players from different teams to be included (not just Tatum).
If a sponsor or partner wants to use the Game 5 photo, ultimately, it must obtain the rights to Tatum and other NBA assets. Once approved, the iconic photo can later be used in various ways from licensed products like T-shirts to TV programming and social media campaigns. The increased usage of Getty images on digital platforms and social media channels–creating a new level of volume and exposure over the last two decades–has been one of the largest shifts in Getty’s business model, which once saw the majority of its licensed products ending up in print like newspapers and magazines.
Getty ultimately leans on its expertise, global distribution and industry relationships to generate revenue from its photos. Romanelli maintains that the visual asset giant doesn’t change its monetization approach for individual photos but understands that demand ramps up for certain images.
Getty, which renewed its contract with the league back in 2021, is the official agency of record for the NBA as well as the WNBA, G League and NBA 2K League. Getty and the NBA share commercial revenues through its current contract agreement, though Getty declined to specify revenue share and the deal’s overall business structure.
Both Getty and the NBA reel in revenue after existing sponsors and brands navigate the hairy ball of red tape that includes copyright laws, sport property and individual NIL rights. Generally, the NBA and other major sports leagues will not permit anyone to license an image that features its marks commercially unless already a partner.
“Colleges have made name, image and license famous now, but in sports licensing we’ve known about that for many, many years,” said Romanelli, who was Butler’s former boss when he worked as the head of NBA Photos. “We’ve always had NIL rights that we’ve dealt with at the professional level.”
The clearance of NIL rights is crucial for the Game 5 photo as well. The commercial potential is more complex than others since it features Tatum’s son Deuce, whose intellectual property rights must also be cleared by his parents, according to Romanelli. Butler doesn’t receive extra compensation for his photos, with his reward usually coming in the form of more prime assignments.
This leaves the commercial returns for Butler’s latest classic photo in the hands of his employer and its distribution partner as they will capitalize financially on the historic image. “It’s like any of your favorite artworks,” Romanelli said. “Depending on if you like Van Gogh, Dali or Rembrandt, those artworks are in demand and it’s the same thing with an instant classic like this one.”