The multiple and coexisting lives of sports journalism

Rosarita Cuccoli
Università di Verona

In a journalism studies landscape obsessed with the challenges of digital disruption, sports media researcher Nicholas R. Buzzelli offers an important reminder: “competition” and “coexistence” are not mutually exclusive terms when we are to describe media platforms. His latest monograph, Normalizing the Sports Journalism Niche: Coexisting in a Modern News Landscape (2025), should be reviewed starting precisely from its subtitle, where “coexisting” is the key word. Buzzelli presents his book as focusing on “how the shifting digital-first sports journalism landscape has affected the job function, routines, and norms of those working within various subsets of sportswriting” (p. 14). A few pages later, he also immediately posits that “there is value in understanding what journalists believe can be done, from an editorial perspective, to allow multiple outlets covering the same beat to coexist harmoniously” (p. 19). The book is included in the Communication, Sport, and Society series published by Peter Lang Publishing Group, whose general editors are three prominent figures in sports journalism scholarship: Lawrence A. Wenner, Andrew C. Billings, and Marie C. Hardin.

Three central themes shape the sports journalism beat, says Buzzelli: technology, sports journalism norms and routines, and the changes to sports journalism access. The main communication concepts that operate as the guiding framework for the book include gatekeeping, niche gratification, diffusion of innovations, and journalistic boundary work. From a methodological point of view, the analysis draws from 100 qualitative interviews with sportswriters working within five subsets of written content: daily newspapers, team-run media, The Athletic, Substack newsletters, and SB Nation blogging. Specifically, the 100 individual interviews involved: 30 journalists working for daily newspapers, 17 from team-run media, 21 from The Athletic, 11 from Substack, 17 from SB Nation, and 4 miscellaneous interviews with journalists whose positions did not fit one of those four areas (p. 15). Of the 100 individuals surveyed, 15 percent were female. Notably, the name, job title and news outlet affiliation of the interviewees are listed in Appendix A (pp. 171-176).

Indeed, journalists who transition from newspapers to team-run media generally continue to see themselves as legitimate journalists even after departing independent outlets.

Chapter 1 (pp. 25-47) explores a significant development within contemporary sports journalism: the rise of the in-house sports team reporter and the challenges that team-run media present to traditional sports news outlets. Sports journalism at team-employed media and sports journalism from conventional news organizations both revolve around the same fundamental journalistic activities of writing and reporting. Indeed, journalists who transition from newspapers to team-run media generally continue to see themselves as legitimate journalists even after departing independent outlets. The main challenge in the job transition is rather learning what stories and topics are permissible to run and which ones are forbidden. To bypass this issue, some team-employed sportswriters negotiate editorial boundaries during the initial hiring process. Conversely, other team-employed media members do not aim at replicating an external journalist’s job function and consider their editorial output, especially on the team’s official website, “as a vehicle that can extend the brand’s reach to those who would have otherwise never turned to traditional news sources” (p. 41).

The Athletic’s impact on sports media standards is described in Chapter 2 (pp. 49-82). The analysis focuses on the implementation of a paywall in major news websites. Based on Buzzelli’s study, “The Athletic’s most noticeable contribution to sports media, in a sentiment echoed by almost all interviewees, has been its push for paywall normalization” (p. 76). Previous research by Buzzelli et al.[1], cited in the book, had revealed that “newspapers covering the same teams as The Athletic typically stick with their forte (daily coverage) instead of directly competing with it on human-interest and issue-based reporting” (p. 76), highlighting the theme of coexistence between legacy and new media.

The Substack online platform, examined in Chapter 3 (pp. 83-115), enables independent writers to publish and monetize their content, helping them escape the instability of the media industry. In this regard, the platform functions similarly to a business incubator. “Substack effectively combines the news realm occupied by the blogosphere of the early-to-mid-2000s with the ability, if a writer chooses, to implement a subscription paywall” (p. 83). According to Justin Ferguson, The Athletic’s former Auburn University football writer who later “jumped on” the Substack approach (p. 91), “the true beauty of Substack lies in its ability to function as the ‘antithesis’ of modern corporate media since the model is not rooted in exponential growth and profit margins” (p. 92). In June 2020, Ferguson was laid off by The Athletic due to COVID-19-related job cuts, which prompted him to consider Substack as a viable alternative.

SB Nation, examined in Chapter 4 (pp. 117-146), is a fan-centric sports blogging network, owned by Vox Media. It is therefore managed at the individual level, by fans of one specific team, but structured within the corporate domain. Buzzelli describes SB Nation as a “virtual sports bar” that replicates the hometown sports pub of the pre-Internet era (p. 117). Much like The Athletic, SB Nation serves the niche of “displaced sports fans”. For example, not all New York Jets fans reside in or near New York City, Northern New Jersey, or parts of Connecticut. “The ability for both local and displaced Jet fans to assemble in a virtual space further illustrates the importance of sports media as a socializing agent that bridges the gap between the casual observer and the diehard supporter”, says Buzzelli (p. 127).

Chapter 5 (pp. 147-170), the concluding chapter, revisits the book’s central idea: addressing niche audiences enables coexistence within digital sports journalism as fans now turn to multiple media for specific purposes. Interestingly, the author reveals that due to the different viewpoints that emerged from each group of interviewees, the research actually “evolved from a book focused on outlet competition to one that examines how the niche can lead to editorial coexistence among modern sports journalistic outlets” (p. 147). Interviews indicated that, instead of perceiving themselves in competition with other sportswriters, most interviewees considered their work as “a supplementary component to mainstream outlets” (p. 164). At the very end of the book, Buzzelli cautions that addressing niche audiences is not a permanent fix, though. “There may be room at the table for sports media outlets that produce a slightly different form of content; nonetheless, carving a niche does not permit a sportswriter to disregard innovation by believing that he or she will always have an audience.” (p. 165).

The book is structured by interview results rather than by timeline or in-depth theory explanations. It is therefore best suited for readers who possess prior knowledge of sports journalism theory and practice. Buzzelli’s latest book provides valuable insights into the evolving nature of sports journalism as viewed by people from different subsets of sportswriting.

Copyright © Rosarita Cuccoli 2025

[1] Buzzelli, Nicholas R., Patrick Gentile, Sean R. Sadri, and Andrew C. Billings. 2020. “‘Cutting Editors Faster Than We’re Cutting Reporters’: Influences of The Athletic on Sports Journalism Quality and Standards.” Communication & Sport 10 (3): 417–37.