Questioning the New York (Times) Athletic Club

The New York Times dropped the axe on its legendary sports department in early July. Sports reporting we read in the Times henceforth will originate with The Athletic, a younger (and perhaps more agile) sportswriting website purchased by the NYT Corp. 

You'll find a good assessment of the move here.

 As a Times subscriber, I have automatic access to any sports reporting it produces. I won't call it "free access," however, because my ever-increasing monthly rate for a three-day Times subscription surely will include a tithe to cover the Athletic. 

But ditching the Times' sports desk and dispersing its fine sports journalists and photographers to other NYT jobs? That's a loss. Here's why:

• Conflict of interest: The Athletic allows its staff to report on sports gambling, while some are paid contractors of the sportsbook companies. Is there a Pete Rose-style conflict here? I'd expect so. The Times allowed no double-dipping within its sports staff. The sportsbook industry is already in bed with many sports leagues and teams, and I abhor normalization of gambling (not gaming, sportsbook, fantasy leagues, or its other phony euphemisms).
  
• Selective coverage: Going through the Athletic sign-in process, it insisted I choose teams and leagues to follow. NASCAR, the biggest U.S. motorsport, wasn't among the options. Nor were any other U.S.-based auto racing series. I selected one NFL team and college football, begrudgingly. The Athletic misfired from the start. 
• Lopsided coverage: when I first logged in, just one of about 28 home-page Athletic articles covered a female athlete: Wimbledon champion Marketa Vondrousova. The article ran well "below the fold," as newspaper diehards once called it. You had to hunt for it. That's not a good omen; it signals the Athletic's writers are less focused on women's sports. 

In my corporate PR life, I had infrequent but respectful dealings with the NYT's sports desk. My former employer, once flush with cash, sponsored a NASCAR team, the Olympics, the U.S. Ski Team, Special Olympics, and other sports entities. 

And, I get it: the NYT's flip to the Athletic's content is a blatant marketing move. The NYT's prior sports coverage, while solid, had little brand recognition. They want their sports content to have brand equity on par with The Daily podcast and Wordle (which it also acquired).  

Sports journalism is at a crossroads. Locally, if a town has a minor league affiliate of a pro baseball, basketball, or hockey team, it might not have a regular beat reporter (as with some Gannett-owned papers). The Los Angeles Times last week said it's jettisoning late-night finals and box scores. Disney is looking at reshuffling ESPN, which would inevitably result in more job cuts.

I'm anything but a table-jumping rabid sports fan. But I enjoy great sports writing such as Mike Vaccaro at the New York Post. And it's troubling to watch the NYT outsource its coverage of sports to an affiliate that, while offering semi-comprehensive coverage, has a cloudy reporting model. And a less-refined sense of ethics.