Who does it well?

Tell me who you think the exemplars are in sports journalism

A short one this week. It comes from question from my former student and excellent Substacker

Scott Appleman

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Scott asked me:

Who is out there doing it right? Kind of a reverse of The Athletic column about the founder disrupting and dipping. Innovators, great storytellers, social media, whatever. I'm curious who you'd highlight as exemplary in the current landscape.

It’s a great question, one that I’m going to give some thought to. It’s a tricky one too. I’ve got so many friends in this business who do such great work, that it’s easy just to list them off.

I think it’s worth pointing out at the jump two major outlets. For all we can critique them, ESPN does the thing they do well. They are the default for sports news and scores in a way that no other media outlet is in any other subject area. If you’re looking for who won last night’s game, ESPN is still pretty unbeatable. And for all we can critique their founder and their early rhetoric, The Athletic is pretty great at deeper coverage of individual teams. If I get the scores from ESPN, I get analysis of the Bills, FC Barcelona, and the Maple Leafs¹ at The Athletic.

I want to hear your answer to Scott’s question. Who do you think does sports journalism well? Who are your exemplars? Leave the answers in the comments and I’ll add them to a later post.

1. I’ll write about my Leafs fandom at some point, which peaked in high school and the early 2000s and has waned to “I’ll watch them collapse in the playoffs” every year.