essay on sports journalism

July 12, 2024

The Art of Sports Journalism: Telling Stories Beyond the Scores

Last updated on December 26, 2023

Introduction

Sports journalism is more than just reporting scores and stats; it’s about capturing the essence of the game, the emotions of athletes, and the impact of sports on society. In this blog article, we’ll delve into the fascinating world of sports journalism and explore how it goes far beyond the final score, providing a deeper understanding of the stories, the people, and the culture behind the games we love.

The Power of Sports Journalism

Sports journalism plays a crucial role in shaping our perception of athletes, teams, and the sporting world. It’s not just about informing; it’s about inspiring, connecting, and humanizing the sports experience.

Beyond the Headlines: Humanizing Athletes

Sports journalists have the unique ability to humanize athletes, allowing fans to see the people behind the sports heroes. Through in-depth interviews, profiles, and features, they unveil the personal stories, struggles, and triumphs that make athletes relatable and inspiring figures.

Capturing the Cultural Significance

Sports are a reflection of culture, and journalists have the task of interpreting this connection. They tell stories about how sports impact society, from addressing social issues to showcasing the diversity of cultures worldwide.

The Art of Storytelling

Great sports journalism is more than just facts; it’s the art of storytelling. It’s about creating narratives that engage readers and viewers, pulling them into the drama, excitement, and emotion of the sports world.

The Thrill of Live Reporting

Live reporting adds an element of unpredictability to sports journalism. It’s the thrill of capturing the moment as it happens, whether it’s a last-minute goal or a game-changing play. Live reporting keeps fans connected to the action in real time.

The Evolution of Sports Media

Sports journalism is evolving with technology. From live-tweeting games to immersive virtual reality experiences, the way fans consume sports news is changing. Journalists must adapt to new platforms and mediums.

Investigative

Investigative sports journalism uncovers the truth behind the scenes. It delves into issues like doping scandals, corruption, and athlete mistreatment, holding those in power accountable.

A Global Perspective

Sports journalism is not limited by borders. It covers events from the Olympics to the World Cup, bringing people from around the world together through their love of sports.

Female Sports Journalists Breaking Barriers

Female sports journalists are making their mark in a traditionally male-dominated field. They bring a unique perspective and cover important stories in women’s sports, empowering the next generation of athletes.

The Impact of Sports on Society

Sports journalism covers more than just games; it addresses societal issues such as race, gender, and equality. It provides a platform for athletes and advocates to speak out and make a difference.

Success Stories

Explore the careers of renowned sports journalists who have left an indelible mark on the field, from Grantland Rice to Doris Burke, and learn from their experiences and insights.

it is an art that goes beyond the scores and statistics, revealing the humanity, culture, and impact of sports on society. It’s a medium for connecting fans, humanizing athletes, and addressing important societal issues. As the sports world continues to evolve, sports journalism remains a vital part of the game, enriching the sports experience for fans and athletes alike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_journalism

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Article contents

Sports journalism.

• Peter English Peter English Department of Communication, University of the Sunshine Coast
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.873
• Published online: 25 June 2018

Sports journalism is a popular area of contemporary media that has a long history of delivering results, analysis, and opinion to both broad and specialized audiences. Like other media, it has had to adapt consistently with technological developments and demands but continues to gain widespread coverage across print, broadcast, and digital platforms. Sports journalism has often been viewed as “the toy department,” a place of trivial pursuits instead of the chasing of hard news. As a result, its journalists are viewed as having low professionalism and status and are often accused of being controlled by sources. What these criticisms overlook is the value of this significant subfield in relation to the amount of sports content produced across media, the large numbers of journalists involved in producing the news, and its power in attracting readers and viewers. These elements combine to make sports journalism a rich area for academic scholarship. However, in comparison with its place in newsrooms, this topic has also been criticized in research and has not been treated as seriously as a space for scholarship. While there have been recent increases in scholarly work, sport has been described as an underresearched area of the journalistic field.

The field’s literature has streams dedicated to practical, instructional texts and scholarly analysis of contemporary and historical issues. Key areas of investigation involve content within the sports pages, which can involve as much as 30% of editorial material in a media publication, and work exploring the perceptions, routines, and practices of sports journalists. The role of the sports journalist has also been examined, with descriptions often focusing on a tendency to operate as cheerleaders with a home-team bias. However, the position of sports journalist also involves aspects of critical, watchdog-style coverage, including through investigative reporting. Much of the academic work involving sports journalism has been descriptive in scope, which leaves space for greater analysis through a theoretical lens. An important future topic of research is the increasing commercialization of sport, which has implications for journalists, publications, and audiences.

• sports journalism
• sports journalists
• cheerleading
• sports journalism content
• commercial influences
• journalism studies

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The state of sports journalism

The disappearance of the New York Times sports section is only the latest change in how news outlets are covering sports. NPR's Scott Detrow talks to Richard Deitsch, a media reporter at The Athletic .

Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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Should Sports Journalism ‘Stick To Sports’?

Are you all about the drama, heroism and entertainment value of games? Or are you also interested in “outside the lines” issues like concussions and politics that affect athletes, leagues and fans?

By Jeremy Engle

Find all our Student Opinion questions here.

Recently, the acting editor in chief of Deadspin, a popular sports website, was fired for his refusal to “stick to sports” in deciding what his staff covered. Following his dismissal, almost the entire staff resigned in protest .

What do you think? Should sports journalists stick exclusively to sports — box scores, highlights, stories of heroic achievement? Or should they also cover “outside the lines” issues like concussions, domestic violence, racism and politics? Is it possible to separate the rest of the world from sports?

Why do you read and watch sports news and commentary — whether it’s in Sports Illustrated or Bleacher Report, or in TV shows like “SportsCenter” or “Fox NFL Sunday”? Do you care only about the entertainment value of the games? Do you see sports news as an escape from other kinds of news? Or are you also interested in the broader societal issues that affect athletes, leagues and fans?

In an Opinion essay, “ I Was Fired From Deadspin for Refusing to ‘Stick to Sports’ ,” Barry Petchesky writes:

Two weeks ago, I was fired as acting editor in chief of Deadspin, where I’d worked since 2009. The entire staff resigned, following me out the door after we had refused a new company mandate to “stick to sports.” Jim Spanfeller, installed as chief executive of G/O Media by the private equity firm that bought the company seven months ago, called me into his office, pointed to some offending stories on our home page and had me escorted from the building. This is the first time that I’m speaking up about my firing, and my stance remains the same as in the countless meetings with management where I explained and insisted that sports don’t end when the players head back to the locker room. We refused to “stick to sports,” because we know that sports is everything, and everything is sports: It’s the N.B.A. kowtowing to its Chinese business interests ; it’s pro sports leagues attempting to become shadow justice systems for publicity reasons; it’s the opioid epidemic roiling N.F.L. locker rooms at least as hard as anywhere in Appalachia, even as the league refuses to relax its marijuana policy ; it’s racist fan chants chasing black players off the pitch in Italian soccer matches; it’s Washington Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki wearing a “Make America Great Again” cap at the White House. (These last two stories occurred in the past week and so were not covered on Deadspin; the “stick to sports” diktat forced the outlet to ignore the biggest sports stories in the world.) Reporting sports with integrity requires knowing that there’s no way to wall off the games from the world outside. To anyone who knows anything about sports or cares about the world outside the arena, the notion that sports should or even can be covered merely by box scores and transaction wires is absurd. From the moment Deadspin was founded in 2005, the website took for granted that what happened off the field was at least as important as the goings-on between the lines, and that there was no way to unravel the two. Deadspin’s approach was a reaction to the predominant strain of sportswriting at the time, which treated athletes as either Greek demigods unconcerned with the dealings of the world or spoiled millionaires playing children’s games.

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• DOI: 10.1177/1012690216679835
• Corpus ID: 151610262

Where’s all the ‘good’ sports journalism? Sports media research, the sociology of sport, and the question of quality sports reporting

• Gavin Weedon , B. Wilson , +1 author Shawn Lawson
• Published 1 September 2018
• International Review for the Sociology of Sport

30 Citations

Textbook journalism objectivity, education and the professionalization of sports reporting, radical sports journalism: reflections on ‘alternative’ approaches to covering sport-related social issues, “cowing to the unnecessary pressures”: examining story forms sports journalists employ for sports-related sociopolitical issues.

• Highly Influenced

“How Can They Like Doing That?” The Ambivalent Definition of Legitimate Work in Sports Journalism

There he goes: the influencer–sports journalism of fabrizio romano on twitter and its implications for professionalism, what is sports journalism how covid-19 accelerated a redefining of u.s. sports reporting, ‘deteriorating our relationship for no good reason’: collegiate beat writers’ perceptions of their pr counterparts, a whole new ball game: how sky sports news journalists are learning from the academy, opportunities and challenges for critical reporting at the olympics: journalists’ perspectives from tokyo 2020, sport media and the cultural circulation of race/ethnicity: moving from content analyses to production studies, 82 references, sports journalism, sports coverage: “toy department” or public-service journalism the relationship between reporters’ ethics and attitudes toward the profession, the discourse ethics of sports print journalism, sports journalism as moral and ethical discourse, assessing the sociology of sport: on media and representations of sportswomen, inside the sports pages: work routines, professional ideologies, and the manufacture of sports news.

• Highly Influential

Arthur Ashe, Privacy, and the Media: An Analysis of Newspaper Journalists' Coverage of Ashe's AIDS Announcement

Passing it on: the reinforcement of male hegemony in sports journalism textbooks, what is journalism, on communication and sport, related papers.

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Rethinking sports journalism.

1. Changing Boundaries of Sports Journalism

2. the contested legitimacy of sports journalism, 3. changes to build sports journalism’s professional distinctiveness, 4. broadening the discussion on trends and challenges, author contributions, conflicts of interest.

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Share and Cite

Rojas-Torrijos, J.L.; Nölleke, D. Rethinking Sports Journalism. Journal. Media 2023 , 4 , 853-860. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030053

Rojas-Torrijos JL, Nölleke D. Rethinking Sports Journalism. Journalism and Media . 2023; 4(3):853-860. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030053

Rojas-Torrijos, José Luis, and Daniel Nölleke. 2023. "Rethinking Sports Journalism" Journalism and Media 4, no. 3: 853-860. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia4030053

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Sports Writing as a Form of Creative Nonfiction

Alexandra Wyman/Getty Images

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

Sports writing is a form of journalism or creative nonfiction  in which a sporting event, individual athlete, or sports-related issue serves as the dominant subject.

A journalist who reports on sports is a sportswriter (or sports writer ).

In his foreword to  The Best American Sports Writing 2015 , series editor Glenn Stout says that a "really good" sports story "provides an experience that approaches the book experience—it takes you from one place you've never been before and by the end leaves you in another place, changed."

Examples and Observations:

• "The best sports stories are based not on interviews but on conversations —conversations with people who are sometimes reluctant, sometimes in the orneriest mood, often not the most glib or polished conversationalists." (Michael Wilbon, Introduction to The Best American Sports Writing 2012 . Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012)
• W.C. Heinz on Bummy Davis "It's a funny thing about people. People will hate a guy all his life for what he is, but the minute he dies for it they make him out a hero and they go around saying that maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all because he sure was willing to go the distance for whatever he believed or whatever he was. "That's the way it was with Bummy Davis. The night Bummy fought Fritzie Zivic in the Garden and Zivic started giving him the business and Bummy hit Zivic low maybe 30 times and kicked the referee, they wanted to hang him for it. The night those four guys came into Dudy's bar and tried the same thing, only with rods, Bummy went nuts again. He flattened the first one and then they shot him, and when everybody read about it, and how Bummy fought guns with only his left hook and died lying in the rain in front of the place, they all said he was really something and you sure had to give him credit at that. ..." (W.C. Heinz, "Brownsville Bum." True , 1951. Rpt. in What A Time It Was: The Best of W.C. Heinz on Sports . Da Capo Press, 2001)
• Gary Smith on Muhammad Ali "Around Muhammad Ali, all was decay. Mildewed tongues of insulation poked through gaps in the ceiling; flaking cankers pocked the painted walls. On the floor lay rotting scraps of carpet. "He was cloaked in black. Black street shoes, black socks, black pants, black short-sleeved shirt. He threw a punch, and in the small town's abandoned boxing gym, the rusting chain between the heavy bag and the ceiling rocked and creaked. "Slowly, at first, his feet began to dance around the bag. His left hand flicked a pair of jabs, and then a right cross and a left hook, too, recalled the ritual of butterfly and bee. The dance quickened. Black sunglasses flew from his pocket as he gathered speed, black shirttail flapped free, black heavy bag rocked and creaked. Black street shoes scuffed faster and faster across black moldering tiles: Yeah, Lawd, champ can still float, champ can still sting! He whirled, jabbed, feinted, let his feet fly into a shuffle. 'How's that for a sick man?' he shouted. ..." (Gary Smith, "Ali and His Entourage." Sports Illustrated , April 25, 1988)
• Roger Angell on the Business of Caring "I am not enough of a social geographer to know if the faith of the Red Sox fan is deeper or hardier than that of a Reds rooter (although I secretly believe that it may be, because of his longer and more bitter disappointments down the years). What I do know is that this belonging and caring is what our games are all about; this is what we come for. It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look—I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring—caring deeply and passionately, really caring — which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naïveté—the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball—seems a small price to pay for such a gift." (Roger Angell, "Agincourt and After." Five Seasons: A Baseball Companion . Fireside, 1988)
• Rick Reilly on the Pace of Play in Baseball "Things that nobody reads in America today: "The online legal mumbo jumbo before you check the little 'I Agree' box. "Kate Upton's resume. "Major League Baseball's 'Pace of Play Procedures.' "Not that baseball games don't have a pace. They do: Snails escaping a freezer. "It's clear no MLB player or umpire has ever read the procedures or else how do you explain what I witnessed Sunday, when I sat down to do something really stupid—watch an entire televised MLB game without the aid of a DVR? "Cincinnati at San Francisco was a three-hour-and-14-minute can-somebody-please-stick-two-forks-in-my-eyes snore-a-palooza. Like a Swedish movie, it might have been decent if somebody had cut 90 minutes out of it. I'd rather have watched eyebrows grow. And I should have known better. "Consider: There were 280 pitches thrown and, after 170 of them, the hitter got out of the batter's box and did ... absolutely nothing. "Mostly, hitters delayed the proceedings to kick imaginary dirt off their cleats, meditate, and un-Velcro and re-Velcro their batting gloves, despite the fact that most of the time, they hadn't even swung. ..." (Rick Reilly, "Play Ball! Really, Play Ball!" ESPN.com , July 11, 2012)
• Research and Sports Writing "Athletes will tell you that games are won or lost in practice. Sports writers will tell you the same thing about stories—the key work is doing research before a game. The reporter tries to find out all she can about the teams, the coaches, and the issues he'll be covering. Sports writer Steve Sipple comments, 'Background is the one time I don't have to worry about asking the right questions. It's the one time when I'm able to relax and have fun while I familiarize myself with an athlete or issue.'" (Kathryn T. Stofer, James R. Schaffer, and Brian A. Rosenthal, Sports Journalism: An Introduction to Reporting and Writing . Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
• A Brief History of Sports
• Using Flashback in Writing
• Tips for Writing 5 Types of Sports Stories
• English Sports Idioms
• Creative Nonfiction
• A Poetic Take on Baseball
• A Brief History of Adidas
• John McPhee: His Life and Work
• An Introduction to Literary Nonfiction
• 10 Important Baseball Idioms in English
• A Look at the Roles Characters Play in Literature
• Spartan Public Education
• Definition and Examples of Narratives in Writing
• Definition and Examples of Science Writing
• Stream of Consciousness Writing

Sports Journalism: Its Global Future in the Age of Digital Media

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• Cite this conference paper

• Olga Monteiro Da Silva 14 ,
• Ricardo G. Lugo 15 ,
• Richard Lenton 14 &
• Andrea M. Firth 14  

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13517))

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• International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

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This study considers the possible future outcomes and developments of sports journalism in the age of digital media. A group of sports journalists from different countries around the world rationalised their points of view, in relation to the economy and sustainability of their profession in the digital era, alongside the digital changes they have faced during their careers. Despite having disclosed their personal opinions, several significant and strong correlations were found in almost all aspects. The sports journalists emphasise more advantages than disadvantages of digital media in their daily lives, and, despite recognising that the sector is in crisis, they believe that it will be possible to overcome it by producing creative content and increasing online interaction with consumers. Financially, the majority agree that they will have to put aside old advertisement practices and introduce new premium versions and paid content. Despite some disagreements in thoughts, it is concluded that to survive they will undoubtedly have to adapt to the online platforms and develop features that keep pace with the advancement of the digital world.

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Olga Monteiro Da Silva, Richard Lenton & Andrea M. Firth

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Monteiro Da Silva, O., Lugo, R.G., Lenton, R., Firth, A.M. (2022). Sports Journalism: Its Global Future in the Age of Digital Media. In: Meiselwitz, G., et al. HCI International 2022 - Late Breaking Papers. Interaction in New Media, Learning and Games. HCII 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13517. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-22131-6_8

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Sports journalism

Sports journalism is a form of journalism that reports on sports topics and events . While the sports department within some newspapers has been mockingly called the toy department , because sports journalists do not concern themselves with the 'serious' topics covered by the news desk, sports coverage has grown in importance as sport has grown in wealth , power and influence.

• 1.1 The Pioneering Period 1785-1835
• 1.2 Growing acceptance
• 1.3 Continued Expansion
• 2 Sports journalists' access
• 3.1 Grantland Rice
• 3.2 Henry Chadwick
• 3.3 Leonard Koppett
• 4 Socio-political significance
• 5 Sports journalism in Europe
• 6 Specialist sports agencies
• 7 Investigative journalism and sport
• 8.2 Sports Illustrated
• 8.3 Fox Sports
• 10 References
• 11 External links

Sports journalism is an essential element of any news media organization. Sports journalism includes organizations devoted entirely to sports reporting– newspapers such as L'Equipe in France , La Gazzetta dello Sport in Italy , and the now defunct Sporting Life in Britain, American magazines such as Sports Illustrated and the Sporting News , all-sports talk radio stations, and television networks like ESPN.

History of Sports Journalism

Since the start of competition, writers have covered sports in one way or another. Sports journalism has been traced all the way back to the time of 850 B.C.E. when the great Greek Homer wrote about the first known draw in Wrestling , as Achilles raised the hands of both Ajax and Odysseus in victory. The sports of wrestling, throwing, boxing, and racing were all wrote on in early Greece .

While sports writing has existed for some time, it did not come prevalent until recently. In the middle 1800s American writers began to write exclusively as sports writers, but they were still few in number. During the time before the 1900s sports writing existed, but was still not widely accepted. It was not until 1914 that sports was written and spread in circulation, and the job of a sports editor was considered an actual job.

The Pioneering Period 1785-1835

Sports journalism during this time was obscure because of the Revolutionary War from 1775 to 1783. In 1790, Benjamin Franklin had several quotes in news publications about swimming , and the The New York Magazine had several articles written on sports.

In the early 1800s, the New York Post, Charleston Courier, and Richmond Enquirer were just some of the publications that were including sports in their papers.

While Boxing was still not accepted as a sport because of its danger, in 1823 a full length story was put into the New York Evening Post, and was marked as the first time this much emphasis was put on its inclusion. English publications such as the Sportsman's Repository and Pierce Egan's Boxiana were in circulation as well.

Growing acceptance

This period was very important in the growth of sports journalism, as the "penny papers" were looking for new, exciting stories to appeal to their readers. Sports began to grow at a quicker pace after 1850 because of the introduction of baseball , and new interest in team sports in general. With the higher interest in sports, came more stories about the topic and several publications like the New York Herald and the Spirit of the Times recorded sports events in their papers.

During the Golden Age, the importance of news increased and thus, the amount of sports covered increased as well. It was during this time that the average amount of sports coverage had its largest increase from the decade before with 10.4 columns being dedicated to it and 14.6 percent of advertising space. "It appears that when the papers doubled in number of pages, they doubled the size of the sports section. This was only reasonable, since reader-interest surveys rated certain features of the sports section higher than anything else except the most striking news story, the comics, and picture pages" (Heath 1951).

It was not until the 1870's that separate departments were set up for sports in newspapers. The first came when Joseph Pulitzer bought the New York World; he was also the first to hire a sports editor–in 1883. Many of the major cities copied Pulitzer over the next few years, and by 1892 every large newspaper had a sports editor. However, during this time sports news was condensed into two or three columns of coverage, but it would soon change.

The birth of basketball in 1891, and the introduction of the American Bowling Congress in 1895 helped build the base of sports coverage. 1890 is often considered as the turning point for sports journalism as many sports were introduced. Baseball became the "national pastime" and its stars began to impact the news world. Babe Ruth and the New York Yankees had tremendous sports coverage during the 1923 World Series and is considered one of the best covered sports events of the time.

Continued Expansion

The 1930's marked the first time newspapers hired executive sports editors to oversee all content produced by the newspaper . As the 1940s came along, sports cartoons became a big part of the sports page with Willard Mullin of the New York World-Telegram and Al Papas of The Sporting News leading the industry.

The creation of the Associated Press sports wire on April 16, 1945 helped put sports into the national scope. It was also around this time that sports became worthy of being front page news.

Perhaps the biggest effect on sports journalism occurred when the television was introduced in the 1950s. Baseball and Football saw a large increase in sports coverage in the television industry, and sportswriters were forced to adapt. Newspapers became the second hand method for receiving sports news, because television offered all the news of a newspaper with pictures.

Sports journalists' access

Sports teams are not always very accommodating to journalists . In the United States , teams tend to be more accommodating. They allow reporters into locker rooms for interviews and some extra information, and provide extensive information support, even if reporting it is unfavorable to them. Elsewhere in the world, particularly in the coverage of soccer , the journalist's role is often barely tolerated by the clubs and players.

Sports journalists, like any other reporters, must do their own reporting to find the story rather than simply relying on information given to them by the sports team, institution or coaching staff. Sports journalists must verify facts given to them by the teams and organizations they are covering. Often, coaches, players or sports organization management rescind sports journalists' access credentials in retaliation for printing accurate yet disparaging information about a team, player, coach or coaches, or organization.

Access for sports journalists is usually easier for professional and intercollegiate sports such as American football , ice hockey , basketball , baseball , and football.

Famous Pioneers

Grantland rice.

Grantland Rice was a early innovator for sports journalism and is best known for his work covering college football teams starting in 1925. Rice is also the writer known for naming the Notre Dame backfield of 1924 after the "Four Housemen of the Apocalypse." He covered exceptional athletes like Babe Ruth , Knute Rockne , and Bobby Jones , among others, helping make them into American icons. Rice has a scholarship given in his name by Vanderbilt University for a freshman intending to become a professional sports writer.

Henry Chadwick

Henry Chadwick was known as the father of baseball for his work editing The Beadle Baseball Player, the first guide for sale on baseball. He was one of the first promoters of sports journalism and helped start the National Baseball Club.

Leonard Koppett

Kopett was an established and influential sports writer who wrote for The Sporting News, New York Times , and New York Post among others. His best work was in baseball , writing stories on the game, and the inspirations that come from it. He received the Curt Gowdy media award by the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1994 and the J.G Taylor Spink Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992.

Socio-political significance

Major League Baseball once gave print journalists a special role in its games; they were named official scorers and kept statistics that were considered part of the official record of the league. Active sportswriters were removed from this role in 1980. Although their statistical judgment calls could not affect the outcome of a game, there was still the perception of a conflict of interest.

Sports stories often transcend the games themselves and take on socio-political significance; Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball is a good example. Modern controversies regarding the compensation of top athletes, the use of anabolic steroids and other, banned performance-enhancing drugs, and the cost to local and national governments to build sports venues and related infrastructure, especially for the Olympic Games , show that sports still can intrude onto the news pages.

Sportswriters face much more deadline pressure than most other reporters, because sporting events tend to occur late in the day and closer to the deadlines many organizations must observe. Yet, they are expected to use the same tools as news journalists, and to uphold the same professional and ethical standards. They must take care not to show bias for any team. Sports journalists usually must also gather and use voluminous performance statistics for teams and individual athletes in most sports.

Many of the most talented and respected print journalists have been sportswriters. (See list of American sports writers.)

Sports journalism in Europe

The tradition of sports reporting attracting some of the finest writers in journalism can be traced to the coverage of sport in Victorian England, where several modern sports—such as association football, cricket , athletics and rugby—were first organized and codified into something resembling what we would recognize today.

Cricket, somewhat like baseball in the United States , has regularly attracted the most elegant of writers due to its esteemed place in society. The Manchester Guardian , in the first half of the twentieth century, employed Neville Cardus as its cricket correspondent as well as its music critic. Cardus was later knighted for his services to journalism. One of his successors, John Arlott, who became a worldwide favorite because of his radio commentaries on the BBC, and was also known for his poetry.

The first London Olympic Games in 1908 attracted such widespread public interest that many newspapers assigned their very best-known writers to the event. The Daily Mail even had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the White City Stadium to cover the finish of the first ever 26-mile, 385-yard Marathon .

Such was the drama of that race, in which Dorando Pietri collapsed within sight of the finishing line when leading, that Conan Doyle led a public subscription campaign to see the gallant Italian, having been denied the gold medal through his disqualification, awarded a special silver cup, which was presented by Queen Alexandra. And the public imagination was so well caught by the event that annual races in Boston , Massachusetts , and London , and at future Olympics , were henceforward staged over exactly the same, 26- mile , 385-yard distance, the official length of the event worldwide to this day.

The London race, called the Polytechnic Marathon and originally staged over the 1908 Olympic route from outside the royal residence at Windsor Castle to White City, was first sponsored by the Sporting Life , which in those Edwardian times was a daily newspaper which sought to cover all sporting events, rather than just a betting paper for [horse racing]] and greyhounds that it became in the years after the Second World War .

In France , L'Auto , the predecessor of L'Equipe , had already played an equally influential part in the sporting fabric of society when it announced in 1903 that it would stage an annual bicycle race around the country. The Tour de France was born, and sports journalism's role in its foundation is still reflected today in the leading rider wearing a yellow jersey–the color of the paper on which L'Auto was published (in Italy , the Giro d'Italia established a similar tradition, with the leading rider wearing a jersey the same pink color as the sponsoring newspaper, La Gazetta ).

Specialist sports agencies

The 1950s and 1960s saw a rapid growth in sports coverage, both in print and on broadcast media. It also saw the development of specialist sports news and photographic agencies. For example, photographer Tony Duffy founded the picture agency AllSport in south London shortly after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and, through some outstanding photography (such as Duffy's iconic image of the American long jumper Bob Beamon flying through the air towards his world record at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics) and the astute marketing of its images, saw the business grow into a multi-million pound, worldwide concern that ultimately would be bought and re-named Getty Images.

McIlvanney and Wooldridge, who died in March 2007 [1] aged 75, both enjoyed careers that saw them frequently work in television. During his career, Wooldridge became so famous that, like the sports stars he reported upon, he hired the services of IMG, the agency founded by the American businessman, Mark McCormack, to manage his affairs. And Glanville wrote several books, including novels, as well as scripting the memorable official film to the 1966 World Cup staged in England.

Investigative journalism and sport

Since the 1990s, the growing importance of sport, its impact as a global business and the huge amounts of money involved from sponsorship and in the staging of the Olympic Games and football World Cups, has also attracted the attention of well-known investigative journalists. The sensitive nature of the relationships between sports journalists and the subjects of their reporting, as well as declining budgets experienced by most Fleet Street newspapers, has meant that such long-term projects have often emanated from television documentary makers.

Tom Bower, with his 2003 sports book of the year Broken Dreams , which analyzed British football (soccer) , followed in the tradition established a decade earlier by Andrew Jennings and Vyv Simson with their controversial investigation of corruption within the International Olympic Committee. Jennings and Simson's The Lords of the Rings in many ways predicted the scandals that were to emerge around the staging of the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City; Jennings would follow-up with two further books on the Olympics and one on FIFA , the world football body. Likewise, award-winning writers Duncan Mackay, of The Guardian , and Steven Downes unraveled many scandals involving doping, fixed races and bribery in international athletics in their 1996 book, Running Scared , which offered an account of the threats by a senior track official that led to the suicide of their sports journalist colleague, Cliff Temple.

But the writing of such exposes—referred to as "spitting in the soup" by Paul Kimmage, the former Tour de France professional cyclist, who now writes for the Sunday Times —often requires the view of an outsider who is not compromised by the need of day-to-day dealings with sportsmen and officials, as required by "beat" correspondents.

The stakes can be high when upsetting sport's powers: when in 2007, the English FA opted to switch its multi-million pound contract for UK coverage rights of the FA Cup and England international matches from the BBC to rival broadcasters ITV, one of the reasons cited was that the BBC had been too critical [2] of the performances of the England football team.

Some leaders in Sports Journalism

ESPN or the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network launched in 1979 as a sports channel that covered low-awareness sports. Its signature show, Sportscenter, originated to show a larger package of sports highlights than local news programming. Since its inception, ESPN has grown into one of the largest players in the sports media industry. They currently offer sports television channels of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPNClassic, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPN International, ESPN Brazil, and ESPN360.com. ESPN also covers sports with their magazine, ESPN sports radio, and their streaming website, ESPN.com.

ESPN fills their sports television stations with coverage and live broadcasting of sporting events from the NBA , NFL , MLB, college football, college basketball, PGA, PTA, PBA, Nascar, WNBA, and others.

Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated is a well-known weekly sports magazine that has been covering sports since its inception on August 16, 1954. What started out as a magazine that covered yachting and polo has grown into a news source for all kinds of sports.

The early times of Sports Illustrated were anchored by the outstanding sports journalist of Dan Jenkins, Tex Maule, and Robert Creamer. More recently the great work of writers such as Rick Reilly have helped keep Sports Illustrated as a popular source for sports news.

Fox broadcasting company entered the world of sports journalism in 1993 when in bid 1.58 billion dollars to be the NFC conference television carrier in 1993 for the NFL. Since then, Fox Sports has become a large part of the sports journalism world with its regional television networks for many parts of the United States , and with its Fox Sports World channel. Fox Sports carries the rights to the Bowl Championship Series for college football, and also broadcasts NBA, NFL, Nascar, and other major sports leagues.

• ↑ Ian Wooldridge has died, aged 75 , Sports Journalists' Association, 2007. Retrieved March 17, 2008.
• ↑ Barwick at centre of BBC row over TV deal , Sports Journalists' Association, 2007. Retrieved March 17, 2008.

References ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Andrews, P. Sports Journalism: A Practical Introduction . Sage Publications. 2005. ISBN 1412902711
• Heath, Harry E. How to Cover, Write, and Edit Sports . The Iowa State College Press 1951. OCLC 1402415
• MacCambridge, M. The Franchise: A history of Sports Illustrated Magazine . Hyperion Books. 1997. ISBN 0786862165
• Schultz, B. Sports Media: Reporting, Producing, and Planning . Focal Press. 2005. ISBN 0240807316

External links

All links retrieved February 7, 2023.

• Sports Journalists Association of Great Britain website – Largest national organization of its type in the world, site carries news on sport, journalism and sports journalism

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