You’ll Miss Sports Journalism When It’s Gone
The new sports-media reality is troubling—and paradoxical. Sports fans are awash in more “content” than ever before. The sports-talk-podcast industry is booming; many professional athletes host their own shows. Netflix cranks out one gauzy, player-approved documentary series after another, and every armchair quarterback or would-be pundit has an opinion to share on social media. Yet despite all of this entertainment, all of these shows, and all of these hot takes, true sports-accountability journalism is disappearing.
Last month, after operating for years as a shell of its former self, mass layoffs that cast doubt on the magazine’s continued existence. And the problems go far deeper than ’s well-documented issues. In 2023, dissolved its sports desk, and the announced that it would no longer run day-to-day games coverage. More recently, the several of its remaining sports reporters, and similar cutbacks have gutted sports coverage at smaller-market papers. Even ESPN, one of the last lions remaining, is not what it used to to give the NFL an equity stake in its holdings, a decision that would raise serious questions about ESPN’s ability to cover America’s most popular sports league with journalistic impartiality.
