The End of Sportswriting, Part V

(This is the final post of a five-part series.)

by Rick Rockwell

In our sportsbar culture, no one seems to be asking: Can sportswriting make a difference any longer?

Certainly, writers like the Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon wrote columns that pushed the National Football League to diversify its search for new coaches and to institute the Rooney Rule. That rule calls for a fair search for new coaches that includes minority candidates. Wilbon’s efforts and the efforts of others who pressured the league struck a blow against the continued racism in some sports.

But Wilbon has been hypnotized by the big money. These days, like his blog about the Super Bowl and much of his ESPN commentary, he is phoning it in rather than toiling at the keyboard. When he wants to, Wilbon can still write with erudition and style, but why is that necessary when punks and chumps can make seven figure salaries. That’s too much work.

Many sportswriters don’t seem to be interested in the craft these days. They aren’t reaching for literature, just a bigger paycheck, and some facetime on television.

As a Chicagoan, Wilbon likely read Jerome Holtzman of The Chicago Sun-Times when he was a kid. Holtzman wrote a baseball column. Holtzman also wrote an interesting book, No Cheering in the Press Box. The book is filled with the memories of great sportswriters like the Post’s Shirley Povich, Red Smith of The New York Times and George Strickler of The Chicago Tribune.

The trouble is today, writers don’t dream about being Holtzman or Povich or Smith. They all want to be on television with Tony Kornheiser. And that’s why sportswriting is dying. That’s why many deride sports coverage as brain dead. And that’s why consuming sports is a soporific pastime for a war-weary and depressed segment of the public. But perhaps it has always been so. The Romans had their bread and circuses. Today, we have McDonalds and Kornheiser.

(The magazine cover graphic is from the holdings of the Library of Congress and is in the public domain.)

(To see this series from the beginning, please click here.)

sports
media
journalism
Michael Wilbon
Tony Kornheiser
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