For sports fans, this is a golden age of content. ESPN reported that several talk show programs set new viewership records last month. Athletes create podcasts and documentaries to give viewers a behind-the-scenes look. According to Deloitte research, nearly half of Gen Z sports fans use social media to grow their community while watching live events.
But despite all this new content, traditional sports journalism is slowly disappearing. The New York Times disbanded its sports desk. The Los Angeles Times has fired several sports reporters and suspended daily reporting. Sports Illustrated also announced mass layoffs, raising questions about its future.
Keith O'Brien, a sports journalist and author of the upcoming book “Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose and Baseball's Last Glory Days,” lamented the loss of in-depth sports coverage in an article for The Atlantic. He called the current state of sports media “troubling and paradoxical,” saying, “Despite all this entertainment, all this programming, all these stories, real sports accountability journalism is missing. “It's coming,” he wrote.
“Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal spoke with O'Brien about what viewers are missing without in-depth sports coverage. Below is an edited transcript of their conversation.
Kai Ryssdal: There's a contradiction between the hundreds of billions of dollars that go into sports around the world (I think it's closer to $5 trillion or $1 trillion) and the austerity that's hitting sports journalism, right? We see it all the time. And I mentioned that as a continuation of the question about ESPN and the NFL. ESPN is one of the major sports journalism organizations these days, and we don't even know how long it's been around, but it's been around 40 years. They are currently considering having the NFL buy their stock. What does it mean?
Keith O'Brien: Well, let's be clear. The NFL and ESPN already have a partnership. ESPN pays a lot of money to cover and broadcast NFL games. So these two entities are already partners in almost every way and shape. But yeah, what I'm saying is that one of our last remaining lions is reportedly in talks to give the leagues it covers a stake, an actual stake in the business. That raises many journalistic questions. You don't have to be a journalist to know that there are many problems inherent in it.
Ryssdal: That's actually a line in your piece, or a baseball writer, I think, but I remember a line in your piece where the baseball writer you were talking to said teams already have that kind of control. Let me do it. It's created by an imbalance of power, right? The dollar value of these teams and players, and especially the lack of investment on the part of media companies and newspapers, right? Now the team has all the control and the media has nothing.
O'Brien: Well, it's true. And, you know, it's completely different than it used to be. In the 1960s, 70s, and even into his 1980s, reporters had up-close-and-personal access to the athletes they covered. They were in the locker room and clubhouse every day. One longtime beat writer I spoke to once said, [catch balls during batting practice] It happened when he was covering the Boston Red Sox. That's how passionate he was about the team.
Ryssdal: That in itself is a bit problematic, right? Just from the perspective of journalistic ethics.
O'Brien: I agree. And that created a problem. In other words, the coziness between sportswriters and athletes sometimes shielded us, the general public, from the real story. But it also led to breaking news. Having reporters there also led to feature stories and investigations. And if you don't have reporters in the room, in the clubhouse, or on the field, you're going to miss something.
Ryssdal: So in five or 10 years, at the rate things are going, maybe even less. How long do you think it will be before meaningful sports journalism disappears, given the layoffs at the LA Times and the lack of reporting there, and the New York Times and The Athletic, and all the things we talked about at the beginning? ? ?
O'Brien: Well, personally, as a journalist, I hope that doesn't happen. But I'm concerned that the trend lines we're seeing now still predict a very bleak future for in-depth sports journalism. There was a lot of talk at Northwestern University in Chicago. And it was about the suspension of a highly popular football coach over vague details about hazing. And what was ultimately unearthed there was not discovered by professional journalists. It was discovered by student journalists working at the Daily Northwestern. And if it weren't for student journalists reporting from a room on campus, we might never have learned the details of Northwestern's damning scandal.
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