Washington Post Sports Is No More

Two days ago, many folks commemorated “The Day the Music Died” – — the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and The Big Bopper; today we should contemplate and come to terms with the death of the Sports Department at the Washington Post.  According to reports some of the sports staff will be reassigned to other sections of the paper; the rest are free agents in sports parlance.

Many folks outside the DC area probably think of the Post in terms of its investigative reporting like Woodward and Bernstein breaking the Watergate miasma; as a subscriber to the paper for the last 56 years, I recognized that the sports staff there was as good if not better than just about anywhere else in the country.  In addition to beat writers for local teams and folks who covered leagues or sports via a synoptic view, the Post sports section had great columnists – – and I mean great in the literal sense of the word.  Over the years I have been reading it, the Sports Section has had contributions from the likes of Shirley Povich, Tony Kornheiser, Michael Wilbon, John Feinstein, Tom Boswell, Norman Chad, Sally Jenkins, Christine Brennan, Jerry Brewer, Ken Denlinger, Dave Sheinin – – and probably another half dozen or so that do not spring to mind right now.  In case you are not familiar with the work of those people, let me assure you they were all informative and entertaining.

Recently, the NY Times eliminated its sports department and sports section in the paper, but the Times replaced it with The Athletic which does not provide “beat coverage” for local sports but does provide coverage and commentary at a more general level. There is no indication that there will be a similar “replacement” offered by the Post.  The NY Times seems to be surviving its sports shutdown, but before concluding that the Post will come out of this time in a positive direction, let me offer a cautionary note from right here in the DC area.

If you do not live in this part of the world, you may not know that there is another daily paper in the area – – the Washington Times.  About fifteen years ago, the Washington Times shuttered its sports section and offered no replacement coverage.  That shutdown was brief indeed lasting about six months before the Times started it up again and it was back to approximately what it had been in less than a year.  The reason for that was reported to be a precipitous drop in circulation numbers for the Washington Times.  Back then, the Post had a vibrant sports section and its dominance of the local market was magnified by the absence of any competition at all from the Times.  The current situation is the mirror image of about fifteen years ago; it will be interesting to see if the Post suffers significant subscription cancellations and if the Times sees an increase.  Stay tuned …

I mentioned The Athletic in passing above; there was a report there last week saying that the Athletic Department at Rutgers University lost more than $70M last year AND that was the third time in the last five years that the deficit had been of that magnitude.  I am not surprised that Rutgers runs a deficit athletically; I cannot think of a sport where Rutgers is a “must see” team today and it has been decades since Rutgers was a major participant in college basketball.  Here is why this is surprising to me:

• Rutgers is part of the Big-10 and therefore gets its share of the fat media rights package that comes from Big-10 football even though Rutgers is not much more than a football doormat.
• So, with that revenue inflow, how does Rutgers run up that big a deficit while remaining irrelevant in Big-10 athletics?

Moving on …  When the results of the Super Bowl next week are recorded, the New England Patriots will take the lead in one NFL statistic no matter what the outcome of this year’s game might be.  As of today:

• Most Super Bowl Wins – – Pats 6 and Steelers 6
• Most Super Bowl Losses – – Pats 5 and Broncos 5

            Ergo, as of next Sunday night, the Pats will either hold the record for most Super Bowl wins or most Super Bowl losses.  Take it to the bank …

Finally, here is an interesting perspective by author Ambrose Bierce:

“History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports …