Tuesday 6th July: The new sports journalism battle - who'll be the big winner?

July 06, 2021

Good morning! Today's Media Roundup is brought to you by Chris.

There's always money in the football stands! Reach (which to our delight is continuing to invest in talent) is recruiting 76 journalists to build out its sports coverage. Crucially it seems it will be focusing on more niche sports, in a sort of Athletic-lite approach . Game of Cheeses, anyone?

Meanwhile, a discussion over at the NYT raises the question about the extent to which sports journalists can hold athletes to account (particularly when those athletes are being courted as guest-editors for those publications), and the New York Post is reporting that Sinclair, the dominant owner of regional sports networks in the US, has made an offer to acquire NBCUniversal’s seven regional sports networks.

All of which is to say that sports coverage is still a money spinner. Perhaps spurred by The Athletic, publishers are recognising that there is still a huge amount of headroom in sports coverage. We're looking forward to seeing who will ultimately be the winner of this new investment in sports journalism - the newcomers like The Athletic, or the existing publications with a track record in mainstream sports coverage.

A totally engrossing potted history here of an ongoing row at ESPN, after an employee alleged the network had only hired Maria Taylor because it was "feeling pressure" over diversity. It's a sad but necessary reminder that the industry still faces inertia and opposition on its way to true representation.

An interesting corollary to our recent podcast discussions around Apple's tracking changes. Advertisers - who at least pay lip service to the need for user privacy - are shifting spend across to Android devices where their old tricks still work.

Interesting one from YouGov's head of account management Amelia Brophy after viewing figures for GB News plummeted from a peak of 2.2 million to just over 1 million (even if she did nick my headline). The worst news for GB News? The demographic it is counting on to pay for a subscription is the least likely to do so.

This week's episode:

This week, we hear from Chris Duncan, CEO of UK Publishing at Bauer Media Group. He joined the company just a few weeks after last year’s lockdown, so he talks about what it’s been like leading Bauer through such a turbulent year, their wins and losses throughout the pandemic, and which trends he’s seen accelerated in the business.

We don't just talk, we write too! We're aiming to bring you more regular written analysis exclusively from Media Voices, and you'll be able to find it (as well as links to content we write for other outlets) all here in our analysis archives.