Sports journalist Nick Harris has lifted the lid on what it is really like to work with sports stars, including a glowing account of former England rugby star Mike Tindall. In a Substack blog post, Harris, who spent three decades in journalism, detailed his experiences ghostwriting columns for athletes and the financial arrangements behind them.
Ghostwriting: The Untold Story
Harris claims that there is "close to zero chance" that sports stars have written their own columns, and that these first-person pieces often carry "zero acknowledgement that a journalist has been involved" in the writing. He revealed that athletes can earn thousands of pounds, sometimes up to £20,000 per week, for speaking to a journalist for half an hour to an hour.
Mike Tindall: A Pleasure to Work With
Despite the often transactional nature of these arrangements, Harris singled out Mike Tindall as a standout collaborator. During the 2003 Rugby World Cup, Harris was tasked with finding a columnist inside the England camp for The Independent. Through a friend of a friend, he obtained Tindall's mobile number.
"I called Mike and asked him if he'd do a column or two. I cannot remember what we paid him, but it was something like £500 a piece for two or three columns, each of which would require about 20 minutes of his time on the phone," Harris wrote. "He happily agreed and was a pleasure to deal with."
Tindall's Rugby Career and Royal Connection
Tindall won 75 caps for England between 2000 and 2011 and was a key member of the squad that won the 2003 Rugby World Cup. He married Zara Tindall, the eldest granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II, on July 30, 2011, at Canongate Kirk in Edinburgh. The couple has three children: Mia Grace, 12; Lena Elizabeth, 8; and Lucas Philip, 5.
