• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 11, 2023

In a move signaling the dramatic shifts taking place in the sports media business, The New York Times is no longer a sports newspaper of record, deciding instead to outsource its entire sports department and reassigning 35 journalists and supporting editorial staff.

A key component of the newspaper’s broad, legacy coverage -- everything from political, social, local, business, arts, and entertainment -- sports is no longer part of the Times' coverage, which will be handled instead by The Athletic, a website it acquired last year for $550 million.

The newspaper didn’t offer specifics from a business perspective, but we can guess, of course, sports has been a money-losing advertising business of late, at least for legacy newspapers like the Times.

That might seem like a head-scratcher for TV execs, where legacy networks and digital-first streamers seem to be placing increasing value on sports content.

Most recently, digital media has upped its act: YouTube TV (“NFL Sunday Ticket”), Amazon Prime Video ("Thursday Night Football”) and Apple TV+ (“Friday Night Baseball”).

But looking more granularly we actually see their are some cracks in sports, overall. This may have started some years ago when regional sports networks groups, like Sinclair’s Diamond Sports, started having trouble.

Then about the same time -- at the end of 2021-- NBCUniversal decided to drop its national TV cable sports network, NBCSN, which was a somewhat eye-opening move.

NBCSN's most prominent sports included the NHL, Premier League (European football/soccer), summer and winter Olympics, college basketball/football, and Tour De France/cycling.

Though the channel didn’t have the likes of the NFL and NBA, its roster of sports programming  was still top-level franchises. Obviously, that wasn’t enough.

Years before, legacy media owners would never consider giving up a valuable cable channel real estate with some 80 million pay TV subscribers. Times have changed.

Perhaps NBCU had a longer term streaming plan -- which eventually resulted in Peacock, as an all-encompassing TV/video platform for consumers. Indeed, Peacock now has the Premier League, cycling, as well as simulcasting (with NBC TV network) of “Sunday Night Football.”

The lesson for legacy media companies in regards to sports is that they shouldn’t focus solely on streaming in the near term. It’s streaming with regard to overall cost-saving.

That the Times is now outsourcing its sports coverage to a digital-first sports news/information service should signal to those potential new sports TV/video distributors two key business ingredients are needed: Lots of cash, and a stomach for long-term losses.

Getting into the sports TV business won’t be an easy layup.