The New York Times Shuts Down Pulitzer Prize-Winning Sports Desk, Relying on The Athletic for Coverage

The New York Times announced on Monday that it is shuttering its Pulitzer Prize-winning sports desk and will instead rely solely on The Athletic, a sports news startup the media outlet bought last year, for coverage on that topic.

The email sent to the staff by Times executive editor Joe Kahn and deputy managing editor Monica Drake read, “We plan to focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power, culture, politics and society at large.”

CEO Meredith Kopit Levien told staffers in a separate memo that current sports staff will be reassigned to different parts of the newsroom. “Many of these colleagues will continue on their new desks to produce the signature general interest journalism about sports — exploring the business, culture and power structures of sports, particularly through enterprising reporting and investigations — for which they are so well known,” Levien said.

The New York Times’ decision to shutter its sports desk and rely on The Athletic for coverage marks a major shift for the newspaper. The Athletic, which was founded in 2016, is a subscription-based sports media company that has grown rapidly in recent years. It now has more than 8 million subscribers and covers more than 40 professional and college sports teams.

The New York Times’ move to rely on The Athletic for its sports coverage is part of a larger trend in the media industry. Many news outlets are increasingly turning to outside sources for content, as they look to cut costs and focus on their core strengths. It remains to be seen how this shift will affect the Times’ coverage of sports, but it is clear that the newspaper is making a major change in its approach to sports journalism.