Sports memorabilia goes digital
What to get the fan who has everything? How about a video from their favourite athlete
If you’re at a loss for a Mother’s Day gift befitting these quarantined times, allow Doug Gilmour to offer a humble suggestion.
The beloved Maple Leafs captain of the early 1990s has lately been inundated with bookings for a Cameo — one of the custom selfie videos he has been shooting in quantity in his Toronto basement. The Cameo service, which allows fans to pay a roster of about 30,000 celebrities to deliver made-to-order video messages, has been exploding in popularity in the midst of the coronavirus crisis. Business is up 400 per cent since mid-March, according to a company spokesperson. And while the company began in 2017 and quickly earned a reputation as a last-ditch income stream for hard-up C-list celebrities desperate to make a buck, lately it’s been expanding its talent pool to include bigger names, among them Maple Leafs legends like Gilmour and Wendel Clark. The company allows talent to set its price and takes a 25-per-cent cut of their earnings. Gilmour charges $93 (U.S.). Clark’s fee, in a Gilmouresque ode to his also-retired Toronto sweater number, is $117.
“I’ve got six to do today,” Gilmour said in a phone interview this week. “Whether it’s happy Mother’s Day or happy birthday or just a message to cheer somebody up, it’s been fun. And it’s keeping me busy.”
The Cameo is being sold as a digital cross between a Hallmark card and a personalized autograph, although it’s very much its own thing. Sean Avery, the bad-boy NHL alumnus who added his name to the list of former athletes on the service about three weeks ago, said “Cameo is way more personal” than anything that happens at a typical sportsmemorabilia signing. During his days as a member of the Detroit Red Wings, Avery remembers getting paid about $100 or so to sit in a suburban mall and sign hockey pucks and photos for a lineup of admirers.
“(The fan) would be in front of you for, like, 20 seconds,” Avery said. “Now this is a platform where you can make a video and somebody’s going to have it for the rest of their life.”
Arthur Leopold, the company’s Montreal-bred chief operating officer, compared the product to a modern version of the Montreal Canadiens sweater that once hung proudly in his childhood bedroom, autographed as it was by longtime team captain Saku Koivu.
“Now nobody cares about what’s hanging in your bedroom. They care about what’s hanging on your Instagram wall or your Facebook wall,” Leopold said.
Indeed, Cameos aren’t framed and hung in man caves. The company estimates that 85 per cent of them are shared on social media or via private message, which acts as free advertising for both the talent and the platform.
“What’s happening is talent is essentially getting paid by their fans to make them more famous,” Leopold said.
Prices vary among the list of providers, which includes actors, athletes, comedians and reality-TV buffoons. Caitlyn Jenner, the platform’s most expensive contractor, charges $2,500 per video. Kevin O’Leary, the TV-business personality, demands $1,200.
Toronto sports fans have cheaper options. Vince Carter, who Leopold describes as one of the most popular basketball players on the platform, will presumably tell you he’s sorry about how things ended in Toronto for $300. Roger Clemens, who won two Cy Young Awards as a Blue Jay, will robotically read your chosen message for $250 (the app provides talent with a teleprompter of sorts to expedite the manufacturing process).
Former Blue Jays second baseman Ryan Goins might be coerced into re-explaining precisely how he missed that post-season pop-up against the Royals in 2015 for $75. Matt Bonner, the famously thrifty former Raptor, still clearly understands the value of a dollar and is only charging $44. Hayley Wickenheiser, the Hockey Hall of Famer and coronavirus-era hero, is doing brisk business at $35.
Even not-so-famous Toronto athletes have carved out their niche. Kasimir Kaskisuo has played precisely one game in goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs, spending the bulk of his pro career with the AHL Marlies. But in the month he’s been aboard Cameo, he said he has received something in the range of 20 jobs, each for his modest fee of $12.
“I’ve been surprised how many requests I’ve gotten — I didn’t know if there was really a demand for me,” Kaskisuo said. “But I guess Toronto is a hockey-crazy market.”
Leopold said that while the app has been popular among basketball and football players, it’s been a trickier sell in hockey and baseball.
“Some people just want to be more private,” Leopold said. “Often times you’ll see actors or athletes with very little social media presence. But that’s completely changed over the last few years. If you’re not on social media, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities.”
The hierarchy of pricing is fascinating stuff. Ex-Leafs forward Nazem Kadri charges $200 — the same rate as Donovan Bailey, the one-time fastest man in the world, and Doug Flutie, the CFL great. That’s a lot more expensive than CFL bust Ricky Williams ($74), or Ferguson Jenkins, the first Canadian inducted to baseball’s Hall of Fame ($60). But it’s a lot less than Dennis Rodman, the maverick basketball Hall of Famer, who is listed at $375, or Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight boxing champ, who is asking $500. Considering the ballpark length of a message is 30 seconds to a minute, these can be pricey clips.
“We see the sweet spot around $100 or $150,” said Leopold. “Keep in mind the average Cameo takes 30 seconds to make. So if you’re a max-salary NBA player and you’re making $25 million a year, your earnings per minute, if there’s 2,000 hours in the work year, your earnings per minute are about $208 per minute. So if you can do two Cameos at, say, $125, you’re making more money doing Cameos than you are on the court.”
The platform isn’t without its risks. A couple of years back Brett Favre, the Hall of Fame quarterback, was among a list of celebrities tricked into recording a message peppered with obscure antisemitic references. Favre denounced the hate group that orchestrated the scam. But he has continued to partner with Cameo, where he charges $400 per message.
Not everyone is in it for the money. Jozy Altidore, the Toronto FC star, said he joined Cameo last month with a cause in mind. During the COVID-19 crisis Altidore said every dollar of his $100 Cameo fee will be funnelled to Frontline Foods, a group that provides healthcare workers with healthy meals.
In an interview this week, Altidore said he had eight Cameo requests to fulfil that day, describing the service as a “pretty busy little side gig,” but an important one.
“Anything we can do to comfort one another, I think, is huge,” said Altidore, whose fiancée, tennis player Sloane Stephens, is also listed on the service for $150.
Avery said the outrageousness of some price tags was among the factors that initially kept him from joining Cameo when he was first approached last year.
“I think a lot of people on (Cameo) are unreasonable ... Mike Tyson charging $500 is insanely unreasonable considering he can barely spit out a product,” Avery said. “Originally I didn’t feel comfortable getting paid to wish somebody happy birthday.”
But Avery said he changed his view when he realized he could transform his Cameos into mini performance pieces that stretch into the three-minute range.
Given his reputation for outspokenness, Avery has attracted customers eager to use his sharp tongue as a weapon for hire. Avery said even his birthday greetings tend to morph into good-natured roasts of the recipient.
“They vary in levels of roasting,” Avery said. “I’ve had girls book Cameos for me yelling at their boyfriends because they think they’re cheating on them … I always throw a disclaimer in saying there’s always two sides to the story. And right now I’m being told to tell one side of the story.”
If the target of a tonguelashing wishes to hire Avery to tell the other side, or to end the search for a Mother’s Day gift, he’s available on demand for $65.