Sports journalism is a form of
writing
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically Epigraphy, inscribed, Printing press, mechanically transferred, or Word processor, digitally represented Symbols (semiot ...
that reports on matters pertaining to
sport
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
ing topics and
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, ind ...
s. Sports journalism started in the early 1800s when it was targeted to the social
elite
In political and sociological theory, the elite (french: élite, from la, eligere, to select or to sort out) are a small group of powerful people who hold a disproportionate amount of wealth, privilege, political power, or skill in a group. ...
and transitioned into an integral part of the news business with
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sport ...
s having dedicated sports sections.
The increased popularity of sports amongst the middle and lower class led to the more coverage of sports content in publications. The appetite for sports resulted in sports-only media such as ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice ...
'' and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
. There are many different forms of sports journalism, ranging from play-by-play and game recaps to analysis and investigative journalism on important developments in the sport. Technology and the internet age has massively changed the sports journalism space as it is struggling with the same problems that the broader category of print journalism is struggling with, mainly not being able to cover costs due to falling
subscription
The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service. The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and ...
s. New forms of internet
blogging
A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
and
tweeting in the current millennium have pushed the boundaries of sports journalism.
Early history
Modern sports journalism finds its roots as content started to appear in newspapers in the early 1800s.
At the start, the sports sporadically covered were horse racing and boxing. The focus of the coverage would be less on the event itself and more on the greater social context. Horse races between the North and South and boxing bouts between US and England garnered much interest from the social elite. In the early nineteenth century, popular British sportswriter
Pierce Egan
Pierce Egan (1772–1849) was a British journalist, sportswriter, and writer on popular culture. His popular book '' Life in London'', published in 1821, was adapted into the stage play '' Tom and Jerry, or Life in London'' later that year, whic ...
coined the term "the Sweet Science" as an epithet for
prizefighting — or more fully "the Sweet Science of Bruising" as a description of England's bare-knuckle fight scene. During the 1820s and 1830s, the primary demographic target for newspapers was the social elite as newspaper was too expensive for the common man.
Approaching the 20th century, several important changes occurred that lead to the increased saturation of sports journalism in the
mainstream. The first was the advent of the
penny press
Penny press newspapers were cheap, tabloid-style newspapers mass-produced in the United States from the 1830s onwards. Mass production of inexpensive newspapers became possible following the shift from hand-crafted to steam-powered printing. F ...
which allowed for cheaper and more tabloid style of newspaper production. Newspapers also began using advertising to pay for their production costs instead of relying on circulation.
20th century
The 1920s has been called the "Golden Age of American Sports".
Baseball became the national pastime, college football became popular, and radio and newspaper coverage increased.
The ''New York Herald'' was the first newspapers to publishing consistent sports coverage.
The ''New York World'' in 1883 was the first newspaper to have a full times sports department. The following period from 1880 to 1920 saw a massive increase in sports coverage in publications. A study showed that in 1880 only 0.4 percent of space in the newspaper was dedicated to sports. By the 1920s, that proportion had risen to 20 percent.
During this time, newspapers focused mainly on play by play coverage and game recaps of the sport events. Local publications started hiring beat reporters who were tasked with following all developments pertaining to the team. This included traveling with the team and interviewing the players. Teams also started constructing dedicated sections called
press box
The press box is a special section of a sports stadium or arena that is set up for the media to report about a given event. It is typically located in the section of the stadium holding the luxury box and can be either enclosed or open to the e ...
in the stadiums for the press to sit and record notes on the game.
As technology introduced new developments like the radio, television and the internet, the focus of sports coverage shifted from the play by play to statistical analysis of the game and background pieces on the players. This was also coupled with a massive increase in sports amongst the general public. The increased popularity of football, basketball and hockey meant more content to publish and more interested readers to publish to.
This led to the creation of journals like ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice ...
'', first published in 1954, was one of the first publications to solely focus on sports. ''Sports Illustrated'' was the brainchild of Henry Lucre who felt that the established publishers at the time were not taking advantage of the public's massive appetite for sports.
With weekly issues, ''Sports Illustrated'' was able to produce more classic journalistic pieces as the writers had more time to research and conduct longer interview sit downs with players and coaches.
Digital age
Since the start of the new millennium, circulation and advertising numbers of print newspapers having been falling rapidly. This has led to widespread cost cutting and layoffs across the industry. There are 29 percent fewer journalist in the workforce now when compared to the number of journalist in 1980. These developments have significantly affected sports journalism as established publications like ''Sports Illustrated'' and ESPN have had to cut content, increase prices and reduce the number of publications which leads to more people unsubscribing from the content.
The fall in print sports journalism can be tied to the rise of internet and digital sports journalism. Digital sports journalism serves as both a complement and a competitor of newspaper sports journalism. Digital sports journalism began in the mid 1990s with ESPN creating the first website in 1995. At first digital sports journalism covered broad topics in scope, but as time went on and the internet became more widespread, bloggers and location and team specific websites started taking over the market.
A majority of these smaller websites did not charge a subscription fee as it was funded on advertising. This lower cost to the consumer as well as increased access to variety of very specific content led to the shift away from print and towards digital. However, the growth seen in the digital space which has increased advertising revenue has not balanced out the losses from print journalism. The importance of click count has gone up as these sites are being funded by online advertisers. This has led to many shorter journalistic pieces offering controversial opinions in order to generate the most clicks.
Sportswriters regularly face more deadline pressure than 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. Twitter and other social media platforms became sports information providers. Twitter became a platform for sports in 2009 during the NBA playoffs. By the end of April, tweeting by television sports analysts, announcers, and journalists was the new trend in sports.
Socio-political significance
Sports stories occasionally transcend the games themselves and take on socio-political significance:
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color lin ...
breaking the
color barrier
Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...
in baseball is an example of this. Modern controversies regarding the hyper-compensation of top athletes, the use of
anabolic steroids
Anabolic steroids, also known more properly as anabolic–androgenic steroids (AAS), are steroidal androgens that include natural androgens like testosterone as well as synthetic androgens that are structurally related and have similar effects t ...
and other, banned
performance-enhancing drugs
Performance-enhancing substances, also known as performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), are substances that are used to improve any form of activity performance in humans. A well-known example of cheating in sports involves doping in sport, where ban ...
, and the cost to local and national governments to build sports venues and related infrastructure, especially for
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a multi ...
, also demonstrates how sports can intrude on to the news pages.
Recently, the issue of
Colin Kaepernick
Colin Rand Kaepernick ( ; born November 3, 1987) is an American civil rights activist and football quarterback who is a free agent. He played six seasons for the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League (NFL). In 2016, he knelt d ...
's protest of injustice shown to people of color by the police by kneeling during the performance of the
national anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europe ...
before his football games has created diverse and varied coverage. His actions have taken his discussion from the sports field and into the national scope as major political pundits and even the Presidents commenting on the ethics of his actions.
Kaepernick cites that his position as a quarterback in the
National Football League
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...
gives him a unique opportunity to carry out his message.
Kaepernick's actions have inspired a wave of athletes using their position to take on social issues ranging from abortion to college athletes getting monetary compensation. Sports journalism plays a significant role in how these views are conveyed to the public. The author creates a story from the raw quotes provided by the athlete and this is published to thousands of viewers. Inherent in the publication will be the biases of the author and this will be passed on to the reader (cite). As sports moves more and more into the political discussion space, sports journalist will have increasingly more power over the public sentiment of the hottest issues at the moment.
Future of sports journalism
There has been a major shift within sports in the last decade as more sports teams are switching to using
analytics
Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...
. A large reason for this shift is due to many articles being published about the increased benefit of using analytics to make strategic decisions in a game.
As there is data collected about every instance in every sport, sports data analysis has increased. Sports publications are now hiring people with extensive background in
statistics and
mathematics in order to publish articles detailing the analysis these teams are conducting. New metrics have been created to study the quality of player performance. The metrics have also been used to compile rankings of players and teams. Blog sites like
FiveThirtyEight
''FiveThirtyEight'', sometimes rendered as ''538'', is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in th ...
began to sprout as full-time sport analytic sites that took available data and constructed analytic heavy articles pertaining to sports. ESPN has implemented a segment in their shows called ‘Sports Science’ where stars of every sport come in to test how advanced analytics affect field performance.
There has been much pushback by many over the use of analytics in sports. Many established coaches are quick to bash analytics as narrow and ignorant of the big picture.
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
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
,
athletics and
rugby – were first organized and codified into something resembling what we would recognize today.
Andrew Warwick has suggested that
The Boat Race
The Boat Race is an annual set of rowing races between the Cambridge University Boat Club and the Oxford University Boat Club, traditionally rowed between open-weight eights on the River Thames in London, England. There are separate men' ...
provided the first mass spectator event for journalistic coverage. The Race, an annual
rowing
Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically at ...
event between the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
and
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...
, has been held annually from 1856.
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...
, possibly because of its esteemed place in society, has regularly attracted the most elegant of writers. The ''
Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...
'', in the first half of the 20th century, employed
Neville Cardus
Sir John Frederick Neville Cardus, CBE (2 April 188828 February 1975) was an English writer and critic. From an impoverished home background, and mainly self-educated, he became ''The Manchester Guardian''s cricket correspondent in 1919 and it ...
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
Leslie Thomas John Arlott, OBE (25 February 1914 – 14 December 1991) was an English journalist, author and cricket commentator for the BBC's '' Test Match Special''. He was also a poet and wine connoisseur. With his poetic phraseology, he be ...
, who became a worldwide favorite because of his radio commentaries on the
BBC, 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
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'' even had Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle at the
White City Stadium
White City Stadium was a stadium located in White City, London, England. Built for the 1908 Summer Olympics, it hosted the finish of the first modern marathon and other sports like swimming, speedway, boxing, show jumping, athletics, stock car ...
to cover the finish of the
Marathon
The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair di ...
.
Such was the drama of that race, in which
Dorando Pietri
Dorando Pietri (; often wrongly spelt Petri; 16 October 1885 – 7 February 1942) was an Italian long-distance runner. He finished first in the marathon at the 1908 Summer Olympics in London but was subsequently disqualified.
Biography
Earl ...
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
Alexandra of Denmark (Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia; 1 December 1844 – 20 November 1925) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from 22 January 1901 to 6 May 1910 as the wife of Kin ...
. And the public imagination was so well caught by the event that annual races in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the capital city, state capital and List of municipalities in Massachusetts, most populous city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financ ...
, Massachusetts, and London, and at future Olympics, were henceforward staged over exactly the same, 26-mile, 385-yard distance used for the
1908 Olympic Marathon
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
, and the official length of the event worldwide to this day.
The London race, called the
Polytechnic Marathon
The Polytechnic Marathon, often called the Poly, was a marathon held annually between 1909 and 1996, over various courses in or near London. It was the first marathon to be run regularly over the distance of 26 miles, 385 yards which is now the g ...
and originally staged over the 1908 Olympic route from outside the royal residence at
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a royal residence at Windsor in the English county of Berkshire. It is strongly associated with the English and succeeding British royal family, and embodies almost a millennium of architectural history.
The original c ...
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
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
.
The rise of the radio made sports journalism more focused on the live coverage of the sporting events. The first sports reporter in Great Britain, and one of the first sports reporters in the World, was an English writer
Edgar Wallace
Richard Horatio Edgar Wallace (1 April 1875 – 10 February 1932) was a British writer.
Born into poverty as an illegitimate London child, Wallace left school at the age of 12. He joined the army at age 21 and was a war correspondent during th ...
, who made a report on
The Derby on June 6, 1923 for the
British Broadcasting Company
The British Broadcasting Company Ltd. (BBC) was a short-lived British commercial broadcasting company formed on 18 October 1922 by British and American electrical companies doing business in the United Kingdom. Licensed by the British General ...
.
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
The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consist ...
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 Gazzetta'').
Sports stars in the press box
After the Second World War, the sports sections of British national daily and Sunday newspapers continued to expand, to the point where many papers now have separate standalone sports sections; some Sunday tabloids even have sections, additional to the sports pages, devoted solely to the previous day's football reports. In some respects, this has replaced the earlier practice of many regional newspapers which - until overtaken by the pace of modern electronic media - would produce special results editions rushed out on Saturday evenings.
Some newspapers, such as ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, wh ...
'', with 1924 Olympic 100 meters champion
Harold Abrahams, or the London ''Evening News'' using former England cricket captain Sir
Leonard Hutton, began to adopt the policy of hiring former sports stars to pen columns, which were often ghost written. Some such ghosted columns, however, did little to further the reputation of sports journalism, which is increasingly becoming the subject of academic scrutiny of its standards.
Many "ghosted" columns were often run by independent sports agencies, based in Fleet Street or in the provinces, who had signed up the sports star to a contract and then syndicated their material among various titles. These agencies included Pardons, or the
Cricket Reporting Agency The Cricket Reporting Agency (CRA) was founded by Charles Pardon and George Kelly King in 1880. Throughout its 85-year existence, the CRA provided the Press Association (PA) with cricket and football reports and scores for use by newspapers. In its ...
, which routinely provided the editors of the
Wisden
''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "bible of cricket" was first used in the 1930s by Alec Waugh in a ...
cricket almanac, and Hayters.
Sportswriting in Britain has attracted some of the finest journalistic talents. The ''Daily Mirrors Peter Wilson,
Hugh McIlvanney
Hugh McIlvanney (2 February 1934 – 24 January 2019) was a Scottish sports journalist who had long stints with the British Sunday newspapers '' The Observer'' (30 years until 1993) and then 23 years with '' The Sunday Times'' (1993–2016). A ...
, first at ''The Observer'' and lately at the ''Sunday Times'',
Ian Wooldridge of the ''Daily Mail'' and soccer writer
Brian Glanville, best known at the ''Sunday Times'', and columnist Patrick Collins, of the ''Mail on Sunday'', five times the winner of the Sports Writer of the Year Award.
Many became household names in the late 20th century through their trenchant reporting of events, spurring popularity: the
Massacre at the Munich Olympics in 1972;
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, ...
's fight career, including his 1974 title bout against
George Foreman
George Edward Foreman (born January 10, 1949) is an American former professional boxer, entrepreneur, minister and author. In boxing, he was nicknamed "Big George" and competed between 1967 and 1997. He is a two-time world heavyweight champ ...
; the
Heysel Stadium disaster
The Heysel Stadium disaster ( it, Strage dell'Heysel ; german: link=no, Katastrophe von Heysel ; french: Drame du Heysel ; nl, Heizeldrama ) was a crowd disaster that occurred on 29 May 1985 when mostly Juventus fans escaping from a breach by ...
; and the career highs and lows of the likes of
Tiger Woods
Eldrick Tont "Tiger" Woods (born December 30, 1975) is an American professional golfer. He is tied for first in PGA Tour wins, ranks second in men's major championships, and holds numerous golf records.
*
*
* Woods is widely regarded as ...
,
George Best
George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skilful dribbler, Best is regarded as one of the greatest pla ...
,
David Beckham
David Robert Joseph Beckham (; born 2 May 1975) is an English former professional footballer, the current president and co-owner of Inter Miami CF and co-owner of Salford City. Known for his range of passing, crossing ability and bending f ...
,
Lester Piggott
Lester Keith Piggott (5 November 1935 – 29 May 2022) was an English professional jockey and trainer. With 4,493 career flat racing wins in Britain, including a record nine Epsom Derby victories, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest ...
and other high-profile stars.
McIlvanney and Wooldridge, who died in March 2007, 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
Mark Hume McCormack (November 6, 1930 – May 16, 2003) was an American lawyer, sports agent and writer. He was the founder and chairman of International Management Group, now IMG, an international management organization serving sports ...
, to manage his affairs. 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 in the staging of events such as the Olympic Games and football World Cups, has also attracted the attention of 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, followed in the tradition established a decade earlier by
Andrew Jennings
Andrew Jennings (3 September 1943 – 8 January 2022) was a British investigative reporter. He was best known for his work investigating and writing about corruption in the IOC and FIFA.
Early life
Jennings was born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland ...
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
The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 ( arp, Niico'ooowu' 2002; Gosiute dialect, Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; nv, Sooléí 2002; Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: ''Soó ...
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
Steven Downes (born 22 November 1961 in Waterloo, London, England) is a British sports journalist, television producer and a contributing writer for the ''Sunday Herald
The ''Sunday Herald'' was a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published betwe ...
unravelled 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
Clifford Geoffrey Temple (29 January 1947 – 8 January 1994) was a leading British athletics journalist, author, commentator and coach. For many years he was the athletics correspondent of ''The Sunday Times''. He committed suicide after being ...
.
But the writing of such exposes - referred to as "spitting in the soup" by
Paul Kimmage
Paul Kimmage (born 7 May 1962 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish sports journalist and former amateur and professional road bicycle racer, who was road race champion of Ireland in 1981, and competed in the 1984 Olympic Games. He wrote for '' The ...
, the former Tour de France professional cyclist, now an award-winning writer 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: in 2007, England's
FA opted to switch its multimillion-pound contract for UK coverage rights of the
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competit ...
and England international matches from the BBC to rival broadcasters ITV. One of the reasons cited was that the BBC had been too critical of the performances of th
England football team
Sports books
Increasingly, sports journalists have turned to
long-form writing, producing popular books on a range of sporting topics, including biographies, history and investigations.
Dan Topolski
Daniel "Dan" Topolski (4 June 1945 – 21 February 2015) was a British author, rower, rowing coach and commentator on BBC television. He studied at the University of Oxford where he represented the Blue boat twice, in 1967 and 1968. In 1977, he w ...
was the first recipient of the
William Hill Sports Book of the Year
The William Hill Sports Book of the Year is an annual British sports literary award sponsored by bookmaker William Hill. The award is dedicated to rewarding excellence in sports writing. It was first awarded in 1989, and was devised by Graham ...
award in 1989, which has continued to reward authors for their excellence in sports literature.
Organizations
Most countries have their own national
association of sports journalists. Many sports also have their own clubs and associations for specified journalists. These organizations attempt to maintain the standard of press provision at sports venues, to oversee fair accreditation procedures and to celebrate high standards of sports journalism.
The International Sports Press Association, AIPS, was founded in 1924 during the Olympic Games in Paris, at the headquarters of the Sporting Club de France, by Frantz Reichel, the press chief of the Paris Games, and the Belgian Victor Boin. AIPS operates through a system of continental sub-associations and national associations, and liaises closely with some of the world's biggest sports federations, including the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swis ...
, football's world governing body FIFA, and the
IAAF
World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...
, the international track and field body. The first statutes of AIPS mentioned these objectives:
* to enhance the cooperation between its member associations in defending sport and the professional interest of their members.
* to strengthen the friendship, solidarity and common interests between sports journalists of all countries.
* to assure the best possible working conditions for the members.
For horse racing the Horserace Writers and Photographers’ Association was founded in 1927, was revived in 1967, and represents the interests of racing journalists in every branch of the media.
In Britain, the Sports Journalists' Association was founded in 1948. It stages two awards events, an annual Sports Awards ceremony which recognizes outstanding performances by British sportsmen and women during the previous year, and the British Sports Journalism Awards, the industry's "Oscars", sponsored by UK Sport and presented each March. Founded as the Sports Writers' Association, following a merger with the Professional Sports Photographers' Association in 2002, the organization changed its title to the more inclusive SJA. Its president is the veteran broadcaster and columnist
Sir Michael Parkinson. The SJA represents the British sports media on the
British Olympic Association
The British Olympic Association (BOA) is the National Olympic Committee for the United Kingdom. It is responsible for organising and overseeing the participation of athletes from the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team, at both ...
's press advisory committee and acts as a consultant to organizers of major events who need guidance on media requirements as well as seeking to represent its members' interests in a range of activities. In March 2008,
Martin Samuel
Martin Samuel (born 25 July 1964) is an English sports columnist for ''News UK'' and a sports columnist for '' GQ Magazine'' since 2012. He has previously worked for ''The Daily Mail'', ''The Times'', ''News of the World'', '' Jewish Chronicle ...
, then the chief football correspondent of ''The Times'', was named British Sportswriter of the Year, the first time any journalist had won the award three years in succession. At the same awards,
Jeff Stelling
Robert Jeffrey Stelling (born 18 March 1955) is an English television presenter. He currently presents ''Gillette Soccer Saturday'' for Sky Sports and hosted coverage of the Champions League between 2011 and 2015.
He also presented the Channe ...
, of Sky Sports, was named Sports Broadcaster of the Year for the third time, a prize determined by a ballot of SJA members. Stelling won the vote again the following year, when the ''Sunday Timess Paul Kimmage won the interviewer of the year prize for a fifth time.
In the United States, the Indianapolis-based
National Sports Journalism Center monitors trends and strategy within the sports media industry. The center is also home to the Associated Press Sports Editors.
In more recent years, sports journalism has turned its attention to online news and press release media and provided services to Associated Press and other major news syndication services.
Fanzines and blogs
Through the 1970s and 1980s, a rise in "citizen journalism" in Europe was witnessed in the rapid growth in popularity of soccer "fanzines" - cheaply printed magazines written by fans for fans that bypassed often stilted official club match programs and traditional media. Many continue today and thrive.
Some authors, such as
Jim Munro, have been adopted by their clubs. Once an editor of the
West Ham United
West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium ...
fanzine ''Fortune's Always Dreaming'', Munro was hired by the club to write for its matchday magazine and is now sports editor of ''
The Sun'' Online. Other titles, such as the irreverent monthly soccer magazine ''When Saturday Comes'', have effectively gone mainstream.
The advent of the Internet has seen much of this fan-generated energy directed into sports blogs. Ranging from team-centric blogs to those that cover the sports media itself,
Bleacher Report
Bleacher Report (often abbreviated as B/R) is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London.
Bleacher Report was acquired by Turner Broadcasting System in Au ...
,
Deadspin.com
''Deadspin'' is a sports blog founded by Will Leitch in 2005 and based in Chicago. Previously owned by Gawker Media and Univision Communications, it is currently owned by G/O Media.
''Deadspin'' posted daily previews, recaps, and commentaries of ...
, ProFootballTalk.com, BaseballEssential.com, Tireball Sports, AOL Fanhouse
Masshole Sports the blogs in the
Yardbarker Network, and others have garnered massive followings.
There are now platforms that act as 'Blog hosts', which allow both amateur and professional sports writers to host their content without the need for a custom website.
These include
Medium, and Muckrack, which are free platforms to use, which in turn do not pay the contributors. This can lead to a lack of quality as there is no editorial element, however their reach is large.
There are also editorially managed sites that do pay their contributors in a similar fashion to traditional publishers. I.e. a price per word or per article. Examples of these ar
Athlon Sportsan
The Sporting Blog
Other sports blogs such a
Fansidedand SB Nation suggest a combination of traffic and results based incentives with regards to recompense for contributions.
More recently, investment vehicles lik
Rocket Sports Internethave emerged that provide capital for sports journalists and news creators to run their own businesses and leverage the increasing number of ways that creators can more easily generate revenue streams outside of the conventional organisational structures. Early successes includ
BenchWarmersEmpire of the Kopan
caughtoffside
Smartphones
The rise of smartphones have recently taken off and altered the way sports media has been presented. Smartphones have had a big influence on how the public perceives sports entertainment and content. Sports media is often accessible on various applications on the smartphone. These apps include ESPN, Bleacher Report, Global Sports Media, House of Highlights, and YouTube. The rise of mobile streaming has led to approximately 65% of sports followers streaming sports on a mobile device. Smartphones also allow for 24 hour access to sports news via social media apps such as Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. They are a very fast and convenient way to access sports news on the go no matter where you are. The applications on smartphones that contain information about sports news and events are generally free. Fans ability to access sports on their smartphones allows them to personally engage (i.e. fantasy sports) and/or absorb sports information. Smartphones have truly increased the spread of sports news, typically in the form of videos, highlights, scores, and articles. Applications on smartphones, especially Twitter and ESPN, tend to be the platforms where sports breaking news first emerge. Overall, smartphones provide readily available sports news that can be accessed during the course of a sports fan's everyday life.
Female reporting
Women have not always been in the sports reporting field. Women such as
Jane Chastain Jane Chastain (born March 12, 1943) was the first woman sportscaster on the local and national level in the United States and is a current conservative political writer and commentator.
Early life
Jane Steppe was born in Knoxville, Tenn. to Lina ...
and
Leslie Visser are considered pioneers in women's sportscasting. Chastain was the first woman to work for a large network (CBS) and the first woman to do play-by-play in the '60s.
Leslie Visser was a sportswriter for ''
The Boston Globe
''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...
'' before she joined CBS in 1984 as a part-time reporter. She is the only sportscaster in history, male or female, to have worked on the Final Four, NBA Finals, World Series, Monday Night Football, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, and the US Open broadcasts. She has been voted the No. 1 Female Sportscaster of all time.
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether or not female reporters should be allowed in the locker rooms after games. If they are denied access, this gives male reporters a competitive advantage in the field, as they can interview players in the locker room after games. If locker room access is denied to all reporters - male and female - because of this controversy, male journalists would likely resent female reporters for having their access taken away.
It wasn't until 1978 that female sports journalists were allowed to enter locker rooms for interviews. Sports Illustrated reporter, Melissa Ludtke, sued the New York Yankees for not allowing her to interview players in the locker room during the 1977 World Series. A federal judge ruled that this ban was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause in the 14th Amendment.
Some female reporters include
Adeline Daley (whom some consider the "Jackie Robinson of female sportswriters"
),
Anita Martini,
Mary Garber
Mary Ellen Garber (April 16, 1916 – September 21, 2008) was an American Sports journalism, sportswriter, who was a pioneer among Women in journalism and media professions, women sportswriters. She received over 40 writing awards and numerous ho ...
,
Lesley Visser
Lesley Candace Visser (born September 11, 1953) is an American sportscaster, television and radio personality, and sportswriter. Visser is the first female NFL analyst on TV, and the only sportscaster in history who has worked on Final Four, NB ...
,
Marjorie Herrera Lewis, and
Sally Jenkins.
See also
*
Baseball Writers' Association of America
The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908, and is known for ...
(US)
*
Broadcasting of sports events
The broadcasting of sports events (also known as a sportscast) is the live coverage of sports as a television program, on radio, and other broadcasting media. It usually involves one or more sports commentators describing events as they hap ...
*
Cricket Writers' Club
*
Football Writers Association of America
The Football Writers Association of America (FWAA) is an organization of college football media members in the United States founded in 1941. It is composed of approximately 1,200 professional sports writers from both print and Internet media ou ...
(US; college)
*
Football Writers' Association
The Football Writers' Association (FWA) is an association of football journalists and correspondents writing for English newspapers and agencies. It presents the Footballer of the Year Award, the oldest and most distinguished award given in the d ...
(England)
*
Ice Hockey Journalists UK
*
Journalism
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (pro ...
*
List of American journalism awards#Sports journalism
*
List of sports journalism awards
This list of sports journalism awards is an index to articles that describe notable awards for sports journalism, including both broadcast and print media. It also includes books about sports.
List
See also
* Lists of awards
* List of journ ...
*
List of Sports Writers
*
National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association
The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA) is an association of baseball writers, broadcasters, and publicists in the United States. It was founded in 1962.
The NCBWA compiles a preseason ranking of the top 35 teams in the nat ...
(US)
*
National Sports Journalism Center (US)
*
National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association
The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is an organization of sports media members in the United States, and constitutes the American chapter of the International Sports P ...
(US)
*
Pro Basketball Writers Association (US)
*
Pro Football Writers Association (US)
*
Professional Hockey Writers' Association
The Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) is a North American professional association for ice hockey journalists writing for newspapers, magazines and websites. The PHWA was founded in 1967 and has approximately 180 voting members. The ...
(US)
*
Scottish Football Writers' Association
*
Sports commentator
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio wa ...
*
United States Basketball Writers Association
The United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) was founded in 1956 by National Collegiate Athletic Association director Walter Byers to serve the interests of journalists who cover college basketball.
Scholarships
The USBWA annually awar ...
(US; college)
References
Further reading
* Steen, R., ''Sports Journalism: A Multimedia Primer'', Routledge, 2007,
* Wilstein, Steve, ''
AP Sports Writing Handbook
Steve Wilstein (born September 1, 1948 in New York) is an American sportswriter, author and photographer.
Wilstein reported Mark McGwire’s use of the testosterone booster androstenedione during the home run race in 1998, the first news story to ...
'', McGraw-Hill, 2001, ,
External links
Course Module Overview on Sports Journalismat the
Open School of Journalism
*
List of Sports magazines
The Sports Reviews
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