June was a period of change in the sports media industry. "What is going on in sports journalism?" Bleacher Report's Sara Civian asked on Twitter in reaction to another bout of layoffs from ESPN. There were many reactions like that from those around the sports media world when The Athletic, ESPN, and TSN radio had layoffs that month. This affected sports journalism in three forms of media: digital print, television, and radio. While layoffs are an expected occurrence in any job market, June could be considered a sort of Armageddon in sports journalism.
One reporter among the layoffs, who wished to remain anonymous, said they don't have a reason for why they were let go, but have an idea for why these layoffs happened. "As long as I've been in the industry it's just always been an uphill battle to monetize it," the reporter said. "Now you're hearing that people aren't sitting down to watch two hour games anymore, and if they're not going to sit down to watch two hour games, then why are they going to sit down and read about it?"
Viewership of sports broadcasts has been declining for some time due to cord-cutting. In 2018, there were 90.3 million pay TV households which has been steadily declining to where it's now projected to drop to 54.3 million households in 2026. Non-pay TV households, who have canceled their TV package or use online streaming services, have been increasing since 2018.
Note: pay TV households are those with a subscription to traditional pay tv services; excludes IPTV and pure-play online video services (e.g., Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, Sling TV, etc.); Non-pay TV households are those that have cancelled their subscription or have never had traditional pay TV services Source: eMarketer
This trend has been hurting the regional sports network system. Diamond Sports Group, which owns 19 regional sports networks under the Bally Sports banner, declared bankruptcy back in March. In a court case between Major League Baseball and Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns Diamond Sports, attorneys for Diamond argued they should pay less for the broadcasting rights since their value has gone down from a loss of subscribers who are cutting the cord.
The Athletic has always operated at a loss and continued to lose revenue even more since being acquired by the New York Times last year. The company lost $6.8 million last February and in the second quarter of 2022 it lost $12.6 million. In the most recent quarter of 2023, it lost $7.8 million according to the Times public filings. Michael Giardina, professor of sports media at Florida State University, believes the downfall of The Athletic comes from its "anti-consumer" business model. "They effectively bought up a lot of local print journalists, which put stress on local papers and they scaled back their coverage of local teams," Giardina said. "When the Athletic became the primary player in a market, and captured a high number of consumers, they scaled back their coverage. The Athletic needs to be thought of not as a journalistic endeavor, but a business model aimed at exploiting a market." Some former employees of The Athletic had choice words for the company in reaction to its layoffs. Marc Dumont, who was laid off from The Athletic in 2020, had a series of Tweets criticizing the company and what he's learned from working in the industry.
The same day of The Athletic's layoffs, Bell Media in Canada shutdown the AM station TSN 1260, which was abruptly taken off-air in the middle of The Nielson Show, at 9am mountain time.
"It was surprising and it was frustrating," Dustin Nielson said. "It came out of nowhere, but having seen other stations in the country go through it over the last couple of years we kind of thought that it would eventually happen."
In 2021, Bell shutdown local TSN stations in Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Hamilton. In this round of layoffs, six radio stations are ceasing operations and 1300 positions were let go.
This isn't an issue affecting Canada alone. In the United States, local radio is also a declining medium. ESPN's first round of layoffs this year laid off many in the audio field, including senior director of digital audio programming Pete Gianesini, program director at 98.7 ESPN New York Ryan Hurley, and program director at 710 ESPN Los Angeles Amanda Brown. 1250 AM The Fan in Milwaukee was another notable station shutdown in August 2022. According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. the media industry laid off over 17,000 employees in the United States alone. The highest year-to-date mark on record, passing job cuts in 2020.
"I think radio in general has been on the decline for quite some time," Nielson said. "The emergence of streaming, and video, and audio, and podcasts, it's a battle and a hill that I don't think AM sports talk can really climb and compete with at this point."
On June 30, ESPN had a second wave of layoffs as part of Disney's wider plan to cut 7000 employees. This included notable on-air talents Jeff Van Gundy and Max Kellerman, as well as reporters like Joon Lee. This caught the attention of NFL player Stefon Diggs.
There have been aftermaths to these layoffs. The shift in The Athletic's sports coverage has also caused casualties in The New York Times sports department. On July 10, The New York Times announced it would disband its sports department and rely on coverage from The Athletic. "We are baffled and infuriated by the Times proposal to dissolve our storied and award-winning Sports department," The New York Times Guild said in a statement. "This announcement is a profound betrayal of our colleagues and of Times values."
It is an uncertain time to get into the sports journalism world when big companies are having all of these layoffs. Ryan Nanni, who worked at Vox Media for nearly nine years, said in the past he would get emails from journalism students asking for any advice to get into the industry. "I think this is by far the hardest time to have that conversation and sort of say here are some paths you can take," Nanni said. Not all hope is lost however. Jay Morrison, beat reporter for the Cincinnati Bengals who was laid off by The Athletic, found a new job at Pro Football Network a month later, covering the same team he'd been reporting on for five years.
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AuthorI'm Alex Wilenski, graduate journalism student at Hofstra University. Former lead producer of the New York Islanders Radio Network. My features aired over ESPN Radio NY 98.7FM and 1050AM as well as my live intermission sports updates. Most of my experience is working in radio, but I have some TV experience in my classes learning how to create TV packages as a video journalist. I've loved sports my whole life. Jets, Mets, and Islanders fan. Played football for 13 years, baseball for 8, and became decent at roller hockey throughout college. ArchivesCategories |