Writing in the Washington Post today, Ben Strauss examines the uncertain future of sports journalism.
But with budgets depleted, corporate consolidation among newspaper chains accelerating and the structure of sports’ return up in the air, it remains to be seen how — and also by whom. “There are more important things going on in the world, but I think we’re f—–, honestly,” said Chicago Tribune sports columnist Paul Sullivan, who is about to start a three-week furlough. “Whether sports come back or not.”
Strauss lays out many of the familiar concerns facing sports journalism — the economic woes facing the news industry, limited access to players from teams who can publish their own content digitally, whether reporters will be allowed to travel and enter locker rooms post-pandemic, whether there’s a place for sports journalism in the world we find ourselves in.
When you look at the whole board, the concerns over sports journalism’s future are really twofold — economic concerns and philosophical ones.
The philosophical concerns are about sports journalism’s place in the media world. What do we provide our readers, and how do we do it? These are the questions of access, of whether reporters can go into locker rooms, dealing with the competition of team websites. These are interesting and important questions to ponder — but long-term, to me, they’re not vital. The profession will adapt to the media environment. Old routines will either die out or shift. New routines will emerge and new media formats will be normalized.
The economic concerns are more important and, long-term, troubling. The economic concerns underpin everything. They’re the elephant in the room. The talk of locker-room access and battling team websites and all that are pointless without a viable economic model for digital journalism. What made The Athletic so interesting wasn’t the type of stories its writers wrote but instead the economic model of being primarily subscription-driven.
The COVID-19 pandemic is the biggest test this model has faced. News organizations have been struggling for nearly two decades and haven’t really recovered from the 2008 recession. The economic impacts of the pandemic are the challenge going forward. Are people going to have as much discretionary income to spend on news sources, particularly sports ones, as the economy falters? Are they willing to do so when there are no sports to read about?
And does any of that matter if your corporate hedge-fund owner decides to sell your newsroom off for parts?
The philosophical concerns about the future of sports journalism have been around since long before I was in the industry, and they are important issues to discuss. But the future of sports journalism truly hinges on the economic future of digital media.
(H/T to Michael Sharp.)