I’m Gigi M. Knudtson, and for more than a decade I’ve worked at the intersection of visual documentation, risk management, and regulated environments. In my experience, sports facilities are among the most complex locations for aerial imaging: they combine private property rights, public safety concerns, intellectual property, and aviation law in one place. This guide reflects what I’ve learned from real projects, compliance reviews, and disputes that arose when these boundaries were misunderstood.
Facilities adopt drone imaging for several overlapping purposes:
Although equipment changes quickly, the operational standards remain stable:
I’ve often seen cases where the technology was flawless but the flight plan failed because the operator overlooked temporary flight restrictions during major sporting events.
The FAA controls the airspace. Its rules determine who may fly, how high, how close to people, and under what safety conditions. They do not decide who owns the images or whether filming a stadium is a privacy violation—that is left to state law.
States regulate how images can be captured and used, especially when individuals can be identified. The differences matter in practice, so I summarize common rules below.
If you remember only one thing: document permission as carefully as you document the facility itself. Most legal conflicts I’ve reviewed started with a verbal “yes” that was never written down.By Gigi M. Knudtson, Founder
Prices vary, but typical components include:
In commercial practice, total project costs commonly range from several hundred to several thousand dollars depending on complexity and legal preparation.
Beyond legality, facilities increasingly adopt internal policies on:
I’ve often advised organizations to treat aerial footage as sensitive infrastructure data, not merely as photography.