Sports Have Never Been Bigger, But Coverage Has Never Been Thinner

Welcome back. Rights fees keep setting records: $76 billion for the NBA, $7.7 billion for UFC, $3.1 billion for the WNBA. But the reporters covering those leagues keep disappearing, or reappearing inside the arena, from the Golden Knights’ in-house insider to the former ESPN executive editor now working in Monumental Basketball’s front office. Our feature this week covers the gap and the owned coverage filling it.

On a Wednesday in early February, less than a week before spring training opened, The Washington Post eliminated its sports department, part of a restructuring that cut roughly a third of the company’s staff. The move had nothing to do with fans losing interest. The media deals across sports have never been bigger. The NBA’s new national TV package, which just finished its first season, is worth $76 billion over 11 years, roughly three times the size of the last one.

The money keeps climbing while the coverage keeps shrinking, and the two came unhooked somewhere along the way. The WNBA’s media agreements, in force this season, have grown to a reported $3.1 billion in total, about $281 million a season and close to five times the league’s annual take under all of its previous deals combined. UFC sold its rights to Paramount for $7.7 billion. The LPGA is airing every round of every tournament live this season for the first time, part of a production overhaul the tour announced with insurer FM, Golf Channel, and Trackman. LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler called the commitments “a game-changer for our athletes, our fans, our partners and our Tour” in the announcement. The space the newspapers are vacating is being filled by the teams, leagues, and sponsors themselves.

The pullback has been running for a few years and it keeps speeding up. Newspaper industry employment has fallen roughly 80% since 1990, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Northwestern’s Medill Local News Initiative counts nearly 3,500 papers closed since 2005, another 136 in the past year alone, and its 2025 report puts daily circulation, which averaged between 50 and 60 million readers at the turn of the century, at just over 15 million today. The New York Times folded its sports department in 2023 and handed the coverage to The Athletic, which then cut beats of its own that summer and stopped promising a reporter for every team. Sports Illustrated was gutted in 2024, kept alive as a licensed brand under a new publisher, and trimmed again in 2025.

When the Post shut its section this year, some of its writers were hired by ESPN, The Athletic, and The Baltimore Banner. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette came within a day of closing this spring before the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism confirmed it would take custody of the paper. At the Los Angeles Times, after round after round of newsroom cuts, a single staff writer now covers the Kings, the Ducks, and all three of the region’s pro soccer clubs. And when the Minnesota Timberwolves, Western Conference finalists in back-to-back years, lost a one-point game in Phoenix last November, coach Chris Finch’s postgame press conference lasted 35 seconds because no beat writers had made the trip. The Star Tribune, the state’s largest paper, no longer sends its Timberwolves reporter on the road, which the reporter, Chris Hine, laid out himself in a public post the next day.

This is happening as new leagues keep launching. Volleyball, lacrosse, hockey, basketball, and track have all added properties in the past few years, most of them with no press corps attached. They grow their audiences directly, through their own channels and their players.

Leagues started covering themselves years ago. MLB built the model, assigning a beat reporter to every club for more than two decades and sending a daily newsletter for all 30, though a round of MLB.com layoffs in February thinned those ranks. The NFL runs a content operation with more than a hundred shooters across its markets and over 1,500 team members producing for it. Lately, franchises have been starting to catch up.

The Vegas Golden Knights pay Gary Lawless, a 30-year newspaper and TSN veteran, to cover them as the VGK Insider. Lawless doesn’t dress up what the arrangement is: “We all work for the team, and there’s no secret about that,” he said in a Q&A published on the club’s website, adding that the coverage only works if fans believe it when the team is playing badly as well as when it’s playing well. Owned coverage can double as sponsorship inventory. Team shows, insider newsletters, and embedded series carry presenting partners the way game broadcasts do, and the category barely existed when the local paper did the job. The franchises building the coverage are developing rate cards along with it.

Sponsors have pushed it furthest. BNP Paribas runs We Are Tennis as the fan-facing hub for the whole sport, and Red Bull built Red Bull Media House into a full media company, producing more than 1,250 events a year across 100-plus disciplines and operating as a profit center.

A second shift shows up in who is getting hired. In 2018 the Los Angeles Clippers brought in Lee Jenkins, Sports Illustrated’s lead NBA writer for more than a decade, and gave him a title no NBA team had used before: executive director of research and identity. The point was to take a reporter’s instinct for reading people and apply it to scouting and player evaluation. Last October, Monumental Basketball, which runs the Wizards, Mystics, and the G League’s Capital City Go-Go, hired Cristina Daglas, who had been ESPN’s executive editor, into a nearly identical role as head of research and identity.

Monumental’s president, Michael Winger, who had helped hire Jenkins in Los Angeles, said in a statement announcing the hire that her journalism background made her “uniquely qualified.” In March, the WNBA’s expansion Portland Fire named Ben Pickman, who had covered the league for The Athletic, a cap and strategy analyst in a slate of basketball-operations hires announced ahead of the team’s debut season. Some of that work is content and a lot of it is not. The reporting skills, sourcing, interviewing, working out what is going on inside an organization, are valuable enough now that teams will pay for them directly and put them on basketball decisions.

The owned operations still lack one thing: Most of what teams and leagues put out is built to sell rather than to inform, and fans can tell the difference between coverage that reports and an ad disguised as content. Nobody with all of that access has built something readers trust the way they once trusted the beat writer at the local paper. Whether that matters remains to be seen.

Our coverage gap brief walks through the current media landscape and highlights how teams, leagues, and sponsors are filling it. We’ll publish more briefs like it alongside future features.

Catherine Raney-Norman → Chief Development Officer, USA Hockey Foundation
Raney-Norman takes over fundraising for USA Hockey after running development and athlete relations for Utah’s 2034 Olympic organizing committee, where she built Podium34, a philanthropic program that raised more than $250 million from Utah donors. A four-time Olympic long track speedskater between 1998 and 2010, she still holds the American records in the women’s 5,000 and 10,000 meters. She starts July 20, with the sport coming off a sweep of the men’s, women’s, and sled hockey golds in Milan.

Michael Bazemore → Director of Athletics, University of Alaska Anchorage
Bazemore comes to Anchorage to run UAA’s 13-team Division II department after five years as athletic director at Montana State Billings, a fellow Great Northwest Athletic Conference school where he oversaw 14 varsity sports. In between two Billings stints, he spent 2018 to 2021 at the NCAA national office in Academic and Membership Affairs, handling bylaw interpretations and legislative relief waivers. A former defensive starter on Michigan State’s football team, he becomes the 10th AD of UAA’s NCAA era and begins July 19.

James Gray → Chief Executive Officer, Sunderland AFC Women
Gray leaves The FA, where his commercial director brief included the women’s game and the Women's FA Cup, and starts at Sunderland in September. He’ll run the club’s strategy, revenue, and day-to-day operations under Bay Collective, the Sixth Street-operated group that bought a majority stake in April, reuniting him with the group's CEO and former FA colleague Kay Cossington. His 25-plus years in sport include earlier stops at Manchester United and Disney.

Penn Garvich → Managing Director of Business Operations, Huntsville City FC
Garvich will run the business side of Nashville SC’s MLS Next Pro affiliate, from revenue growth to community engagement. He crosses town from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where as deputy athletic director he led the department's external relations. His near-decade of sports business in the city includes managing Radiance Technologies’ title sponsorship of the Independence Bowl, since extended through at least the 2027 game, and directing the Korn Ferry Tour’s Huntsville Championship from 2019 to 2022.

James Avery → Chief Executive Officer, GWS Giants
Avery returns to lead the AFL club where he spent eight years on the executive team from 2015 to 2023, most of it as chief operating officer and deputy to chief executive David Matthews. Since 2023 he has been the inaugural CEO of Stadiums Tasmania in his hometown of Hobart, with earlier senior roles at the AFL, the England and Wales Cricket Board, and the Melbourne Storm. Matthews stays in the job until Avery starts at the beginning of November.

Ryan Douglas → Manager, Global Partnership Activations, Vegas Golden Knights
Douglas steps up from senior coordinator of partnership activations for the Henderson Silver Knights and Vegas Knight Hawks, where he managed most of Foley Entertainment Group’s minor league sponsorship portfolio. He joined the organization in 2024 and now moves to the NHL side.

Sophie Geis → Coordinator, Premium Service, Vegas Golden Knights
Geis joins the Golden Knights from the Minnesota Vikings, where she worked in premium client service and game day operations. Her focus in Vegas is high-touch service for the club’s top accounts.

Nick Rackley → Director of Athletic Communications, Notre Dame of Maryland University
Rackley arrives from Angelo State, where he spent two seasons as director of athletic communications after three years as assistant director. In Baltimore he becomes the communications lead for the Gators' Division III department. NDMU announced in May that it will add men’s volleyball as a varsity sport, one more program he’ll cover.

We surveyed nearly 1,700 Americans for our June 2026 Sports Fan Index and found that the spending gap between dedicated and occasional fans is 41 points. Our analysis: deepening the relationship with fans already on board is as big a growth opportunity as acquiring new ones. You can read the complete poll summary and takeaways on our website.

Director of Digital Marketing — Miami Dolphins & Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens): Owns email, SMS, push notifications, and performance marketing across all lines of business: the Miami Dolphins, the Formula 1 Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix, the Miami Open, and Hard Rock Stadium itself. Reporting to the VP of eCommerce & Digital Product, the Director leads a team focused on digital engagement and revenue, spanning A/B testing through executive reporting tied to ticket sales. Learn more and apply here.

Associate Athletics Director, Human Resources — University of Missouri (Columbia): Serves as the athletics department’s chief human resources officer, leading all HR functions for a workforce of roughly 300 full-time employees. Talent acquisition, compensation, employee relations, workforce planning, and compliance all run through this desk, and the position advises the Director of Athletics directly on organizational structure and personnel matters. Learn more and apply here.

Vice President, Ticket Sales & Service — Portland Thorns FC (Portland): Leads all Thorns ticketing, covering season memberships, premium and suites, groups and hospitality, partial plans, single-game sales, and ticket operations, and reports to the President of Business Operations. The executive will establish a new membership program and grow the season ticket base for a club that has led the league in attendance for nine seasons and drew 21,321 fans to its 2026 home opener. Learn more and apply here.

Assistant Athletic Director, Ticket Sales & Operations — University of Arkansas (Fayetteville): Oversees the day-to-day of both the ticket sales and ticket operations teams as part of the department’s external leadership, charged with hitting the annual ticket revenue goal across season renewals, single-game, and group sales. Also runs the back-end Paciolan infrastructure, serves as the primary ticketing contact for football, and travels to administer away-game ticketing. Learn more and apply here.

Senior Manager, Fan Experience — Washington Mystics (Washington, DC): Designs and delivers the fan experience for every Mystics home game plus the franchise’s large-scale fan events, including theme nights, shoulder events, and game-day tactical plans, inside the Monumental Sports & Entertainment portfolio. This person also runs the fan survey program, produces weekly sentiment dashboards for leadership, and manages the Fan Experience budget. Learn more and apply here.

Manager, Marketing — Seattle Kraken (Seattle): Drives the planning and execution of integrated marketing campaigns supporting ticket sales, brand growth, retail, events, and broadcast, translating department objectives into plans across paid, owned, and earned channels. Campaign teams span Sales, Business Intelligence, Creative Services, Digital, Partnerships, Retail, and Communications, with on-site activation work at games and special events. Learn more and apply here.

JPMorganChase × Dallas Mavericks: The multi-year agreement designates Chase the official Jersey Patch and Banking Partner of the franchise beginning in 2026-27, placing the Chase logo on the upper left side of all four player jerseys and adding a dedicated cardholder entrance at American Airlines Center. The Mavericks are the financial services company’s first NBA jersey patch team, and the deal includes new community basketball courts across North Texas.

Monster Energy × Big 12 Conference: Monster Energy becomes Entitlement Partner of the Big 12 Football and Big 12 Basketball regular seasons, with the sports branded Monster Energy Big 12 Football and Monster Energy Big 12 Basketball and a co-branded logo on jerseys, fields and courts across all member schools.

Thrivent × Green Bay Packers: The Fortune 500 financial services company will serve as the Official Financial Services Partner of the Green Bay Packers under a multi-year agreement, with Thrivent Studio now the home of the team's broadcast, digital and social content operations. Thrivent also presents the Packers Everywhere fan platform and the team’s My Cause My Cleats participation, plus a new Game Changing Players program spotlighting Wisconsin nonprofits.

Ripple × Kansas Athletics: The blockchain company signed a multi-year partnership, created in collaboration with Learfield’s Jayhawk Sports Properties, that puts an XRP patch on the uniforms of every Kansas team, with additional branding across venues, digital properties, and event signage. Kansas calls it the first time a cryptocurrency has been integrated into the jersey of a major college athletics program.

Playfly Sports × DePaul Athletics: The revenue-maximization firm entered a 10-year multimedia rights partnership with DePaul, becoming the exclusive commercial partner across the school’s 15 intercollegiate programs under the DePaul Sports Properties banner. Playfly will also take naming rights for DePaul’s new Lincoln Park practice facility to market ahead of its Fall 2027 opening.

Capella University × WNBA: The online university joined the WNBA on a multi-year deal as its Official Higher Learning Partner and will also be the Presenting Partner of WNBA overtime across league channels, sponsoring the extra periods played when games run beyond regulation.

Entrata × BYU Football: The Lehi, Utah-based property management software company reached a multi-year agreement making it the first company to enter a program-specific jersey patch sponsorship with BYU Football. Entrata’s logo goes on every football game jersey this season, and the relationship extends into in-venue branding, digital activations and community initiatives across Utah.

Gate City Bank × North Dakota State Athletics: A decades-long supporter of Bison Athletics, the Fargo-based mutual bank takes on the program’s first all-sport jersey patch partnership, putting its logo on the uniforms of all 16 varsity teams in 2026-27. The patch debuts in NDSU’s first season in the FBS and the Mountain West.

Schmidthorst College of Business × Bowling Green Women’s Athletics: BGSU Athletics named the Allen W. and Carol M. Schmidthorst College of Business the presenting partner of Bowling Green Women’s Athletics, expanding a relationship that began in 2024 to span all 11 women’s sports. The agreement marks the first time nationally that a college of business has become the presenting partner of a university’s women's athletics programs, and it was facilitated by Falcon Sports Properties, Learfield’s local team.

Seattle Sports (710 AM) × Washington State Athletics: Bonneville Seattle Media Group struck a multi-year partnership with WSU that restores Seattle Sports (710 AM) as the Seattle flagship for Cougar football and men’s basketball, with games moving to 770 KTTH-AM during Mariners or Seahawks conflicts. Women’s basketball streams on the Seattle Sports app for the first time as the Cougars enter the rebuilt Pac-12.

See you next Wednesday.