How American content creator Cassy Athena built her trailblazing, global career

She’s your ‘favourite NBA players favourite photographer,’ but Cassy Athena’s impact is global. The content queen shares how she built a trailblazing career, that has the likes of Steph Curry calling her up.

Spotted on the sidelines of the biggest games in basketball and specialising in capturing the intimate moments of the most famous athletes in the world, America’s Cassy Athena is a trailblazer of content creation.

Known as ‘your favourite players favourite photographer,’ Athena is the OG creator of behind the scenes, candid and raw content and has paved the way for blending sport and lifestyle photography, despite the world not quite being ready for it when she emerged on the scene over a decade ago.

But the dream wasn’t always to capture great sporting moments behind the camera, Athena herself was a budding athlete, playing basketball and volleyball in college.

Until a health scare pressed pause on her life and completely changed her perspective.

“I was having really bad headaches and some of my classmates said, you should go down to the school doctor and just have it checked out,” Athena told Code Sports.

Cassy Athena shooting at the NBL. Picture: NBL

“Every time I turned my head, I’d black out, I was dizzy, and I usually didn’t feel like that.

“They said, it’s probably because it’s midterms, and you haven’t been sleeping but also, it could be a brain tumour, you might want to go to the hospital.

“So, it just was like one extreme to the next. I went to the hospital, they did some CAT scans, and they ended up finding I had something.”

Her worst fear rang true, a tumour was found, albeit benign, impacted the balance side of her brain and as you would expect, took its toll on the college student. Surgery followed, leaving her with a big scar at the back of her head and a long recovery process.

“I feel like going through that whole process made me realise, okay God saved my life. I’m here for a bigger purpose.

“What is that purpose versus just waking up every day, going to class and just kind of going through the motions? And that’s honestly when I kind of had that spark and photography really lit up.”

And from there, the photography hustle began.

Athena began shooting her college games and at any place that would grant her permission to access the sports and the entertainment scene in LA.

At that stage, it wasn’t for money, but for honing her craft. She didn’t come from a college background in art or photography, but she had a passion for “capturing the moments more than having a really cool photo.”

Athena created her brand off her unique lifestyle content. Picture: IG/CassyAthena

So after college as she was struggling to lock down a job, Athena heard online about the LA pro-am Drew League for basketball.

“A group of us decided to go down there and when I got there, nobody else showed up.

“I had my little camera and my first game was James Harden, DeMar DeRozan, just so many NBA players and nobody was taking photos. There were a couple of video guys, I was the only one shooting photos.”

“They’re (Drew League) like, we don’t have any budget, but you can sit front row of the games. So every weekend I would just go do that.”

Ahead of her time, the LA based creator had an eye for content beyond the court - and that was something that hadn’t been explored before in the basketball world.

She said media publications, agents and publicists were “kind of confused about what I was doing,” but players loved the newcomer on the scene’s fresh ideas, and that’s when Athena’s brand was born.

“All the media outlets said I wasn’t a real photographer, nobody cares what the players are wearing, nobody cares about what they’re doing off the court but that’s all I had access to.

“I’ve been black-listed from companies… they’ve all come back around now.

“Over time they realised that basketball fans want to see this content, basketball culture is built on the players.”

But by then she didn’t need an employer, she was working directly with the players themselves, and had more access to their personal lives than anyone had before. And it doesn’t get much more personal than being asked to shoot NBA great Steph Curry’s 30th birthday.

“Steph is probably the nicest human I’ve ever met and obviously one of the greatest legends of all time,” she said.

“I’ve got to shoot some good moments of him. Whether we’re at All Star Weekend in a helicopter and there’s a snow blizzard or shooting his 30th birthday party with his family.

“The players would say, ‘Hey, we have a private workout’ or, ‘Hey, it’s my kid’s birthday. Hey, do you want to come shoot my outfit?’ So I started slowly becoming like this lifestyle photographer.”

Sharing her unique content to the then Twitter, Facebook and a newly introduced Instagram platform all those years ago, Athena’s profile and creative community has grown to a following over 263,000.

Now, her photos have become so recognisable that she’s generated her own watermark, which basketball fans have likely seen on the likes of Curry’s and Harden’s own social media profiles. A clear interest and demand formed for her creativity and inside look at the lives of the biggest athletes around.

“I mightn’t have been paid with money (in the beginning) but I was building relationships, I was building my social media, which now has actually turned into something you can monetise.

“Without social media, I don’t know where I’d be.”

A FEMALE FIRST

Labelled a trailblazer, Athena was not only leading the way from a content perspective but from a women in sports lens also.

Her global reach inspired those with the same aspirations and her Australian impact was especially clear in December, when Athena was flown down to Melbourne to shoot the Next Stars at the NBL’s Open Air games at John Cain Arena.

The domestic basketball scene has no shortage of female creators and fans would regularly see a core girl group on the sidelines each week at the NBL.

It’s an area that Athena says is where the biggest league in the NBA still falls short.

“My first time ever in Australia and to have so many women photographers and people come up to me and say they knew my work, we all looked like a big group,” Athena said of her experience in Melbourne.

“I don’t get to see that a lot, especially in basketball games in the States, so it’s cool to just have like a group of people that are women supporting each other, I met them all and it was really fun. I love that.”

Athena with the NBL’s girl group of photographers in Melbourne. Picture: IG/CassyAthena

The courtside female surge includes Melbourne based photographer and videographer Lauri Jean, who is one of the many who has forged a career following in the footsteps of Athena.

“She’s an idol, she started it all,” Jean said of Athena.

“When I started, there wasn’t a huge basketball cross Instagram culture, there wasn’t much out there.

“But her stuff was exactly what I loved, her black and white portraits of like Russel Westbrook, she knew all the players so would get all the natural shots, the in between moments, and that was exactly what I wanted to capture.

“Because she worked in basketball and was always around she built the trust in players.

“They say you’ve got to see it to be it, seeing someone who had all the respect from the guys in the NBA made me think that I could do this.

“Seeing more women out on the court, when it’s not all dudes and you can see someone like yourself it’s cool.”

HOME GROWN CREATORS MAKING THEIR OWN WAVES

The growth of candid content on Australian shores has been enormous, especially since the pandemic era when interest in behind the scenes access and documentary style content boomed.

Sports teams used to struggle to have their own photographer, now so many of them have stocked up content teams to roll out incredible amounts of curated and inside content as they stamp their print on the ever-growing social media scene.

But it’s the creatives that are the backbone of that fast rising industry.

Sports photographer, filmmaker and content creator, Sam Tolhurst who also has worked with the Sydney Kings and Flames for the past four seasons and the NBL for the past six, says the “landscape has completely changed.”

“Her body of work is pretty incredible,” Tolhurst says of Athena.

“When I started it was very traditional media focussed in Australia and in many ways someone like Matt Adekponya led the path for the new generation of shooters coming through.

“To have Cassy out here and be part of the league (NBL) is huge for us, she’s been so inspirational to so many, so it’s really nice to have that proximity.”

For Tolhurst, whose filmmaking and creative flare has taken him international, he says the creative world is so tight that egos need to be left at the door, no matter what your profile.

“The global basketball creative community is very close knit and smaller than you’d expect, and with social media everyone is a little closer and the international borders don’t seem so far,” Tolhurst said.

“Those who aren’t of pure intent get weeded out pretty quickly, you’re only getting kept around if you’re a good person and that’s always first and foremost.

“It’s people skills, anyone coming into the locker room environment needs to be a good culture fit.”

“That’s why Cassy has been so successful, because he’s built the trust and reputation with the biggest names in the league.”

Jean, was mentored by the late filmmaker and storyteller Adam McKay who was posthumously honoured with an Order of Australia this Australia Day for his contribution to sport.

McKay was not only a visionary leader who was committed to raising the profile of women’s sport but also a creator of the Helping Hoops organisation.

“He was one of the most patient and inclusive people ever,” Jean said.

“I learned how to shoot with him, all of his creative work was backed by uplifting people.”

“He was always trying to bring the best out of people and the amount of people I meet that he’s had an equally profound impact on their life that he had on mine, is insane.

“He would’ve hated being acknowledged (with the Order of Australia) because he never wanted himself to be the story, whatever he was working on, he wanted that to be the hero.”

“But I think secretly he would’ve been like f*** yeah.”

Tolhurst, Jean and the late McKay are three examples of Australia’s visual storytellers but there are so many more in the space and Athena says she’d like to see more financial investment into these positions to maintain the growth of the content landscape.

“I would just love to see people get paid to do this so they can continue sharing these moments, these stories,” Athena said.

“A lot of the brands and companies are starting to embrace a lot of the social media aspect, the basketball culture.”

Originally published as How American content creator Cassy Athena built her trailblazing, global career