Expert Questions New Game Plans at Sports Illustrated, Deadspin

The world of sports journalism has been rocked at both poles in recent weeks with dramatic layoffs and restructuring at venerable institution Sports Illustrated and a mass revolt from the entire editorial staff at the irreverent blog Deadspin.

Forty SI staffers—half the newsroom—were laid off a month ago, after their new owners, Authentic Brands Group (Nine West, Juicy Couture), immediately licensed publishing rights to a digital media firm called TheMaven. It plans to run dozens of team-specific “verticals,” or microsites, under the magazine’s name, using lower-paid freelancers.

At Deadspin (which ironically broke much of the details surrounding SI’s rejiggering), new management last Monday ordered the staff to “stick to sports”—despite its history of earning readers and plaudits with takes on broader political, social and cultural topics. Staff resignations started flowing in, and today, it’s unclear who’s working there.

George Solomon, professor of the practice and director of the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism, talked to Maryland Today yesterday about the impact on students, the difficulty of “sticking to sports” and the state of sports journalism.

What’s the top takeaway from such different sports media outlets having trouble?
As a faculty member who tries to get students jobs, this is very distressing. Sports Illustrated was the benchmark for great sports journalism for decades. They had great writers and you waited for that magazine every Thursday. Sports Illustrated was something you thought of as a lofty goal (for students). Deadspin was an opportunity to get jobs.

Is it even possible for a sports journalist to “stick to sports”?
There is a middle ground. You deal with each case individually. (Former ESPN reporter) Jemele Hill called President Trump a “white supremacist,” and that upset ESPN’s upper management. Could her editor have found a way to get Jemele to convey that thought without going over the edge? Sports is part of our culture. You can’t separate it. They have to deal with that, but it seems like the management at Deadspin and its staff had come at crosshairs where they couldn’t work together.

Do you agree with the basic idea of Sports Illustrated’s new strategy, that readers are more loyal to news about individual teams than they are to journalism brands or writers?
I don’t agree with that. Sports Illustrated made its mark by quality sportswriting, not just coverage of teams. It attracted its readership with writers like Frank Deford, Bill Nack; you bought the magazine for those people, not what those people had to say about the Washington Nationals. But let’s face it, a lot of the journalism today, particularly online, is geared toward the sports fan, not literary desires.

Given the demise of other outlets like ESPN the Magazine and the Sporting News, do you believe there is still a viable market for long-form print journalism?
Long-form journalism from ESPN still resides on the website. Is that the same? No. I would have preferred to see ESPN the Mag survive. The average length of time viewers give a story is seconds, and that’s not gonna cut it to read long-form journalism.

The Deadspin situation has attracted lots of attention on social media, including supportive statements from presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker. Why do you think this is resonating?
No one likes to see independent journalists quit or be forced out because of ownership wanting to create a domain that does not accept dissention and disagreement.

What’s the overall health of sports journalism today?
A lot of what I see is very encouraging. The Washington Post and the Athletic coverage of the World Series was extraordinary, in words and in photography. What scares me a bit are the decline in staffing among many, many newspapers around the country.