School sports/team photos?

[Photog]

I am bidding a few of the local high schools to try and get a contract to shoot their team photos. My question is: Does anybody give the school something in return for the contract? My bid has 8x10s of the teams and coaches and a CD for programs and website or news releases. Should I have offered anything else? This is just for the school, the kids will get the normal packages to choose from.

Any help would be great.
Thanks

[ChrisD]

Some companies give a set amount or percentage for every product/package purchased by students to the school. Its like fundraising for them and would have to take that into consideration with the pricing of products. Also consider framed enlargements and for schools that use a computerised database system they may have specific image size/resolution requirements for that CD.

[Mark McCall]

Chris is correct.
This is a fund raiser for the school.

The going rate in this market is 20% of the gross sales, add-ons not included.

What we've seen is that the schools/associations care little about image quality or creativity. They want that bottom dollar to be as high as possible.

Good luck with the bidding.

[Photog]

Thanks for the advice, I will more than likely use the fund raiser idea in my bid. I figured that is how it was done, but didn't want to sound like I was offering a brib.

Thanks again.

[gatrump05]

I do 8% commission and a cd with images for promotion purposes, along with complimentary team photos for the orgainzations.