A CHICAGO PAPER CAN’T FUNCTION WHEN A WNBA SPONSOR SUBSIDIZES COVERAGE

The Sun-Times used Wintrust (as in Arena) to facilitate coverage of the Sky, as a Chicago Tribune reporter said, which allows us to ask if sports sections can become public-relations fools for teams

     The demise of the American sports section happened in Chicago, which doesn’t surprise me. Rather than cover the local WNBA franchise with internal resources and necessary readership credibility — a staff writer, part of a headcount payroll — the Sun-Times used a subsidy through a bank known as Wintrust Financial. You might have seen the company’s advertising at Wrigley Field.

     Turns out Wintrust, as a Chicago Sky sponsor and a rights holder of the team’s arena, could control some degree of the newspaper’s coverage. A media outlet has no reason to exist when it removes independence and gives any reporting reins to companies. For too many years, I wrote columns at that paper under a suspicious cloud — why did Jerry Reinsdorf think he had clout at the Sun-Times, to the point he sent clumsy attorneys after me as I watched them take over the newsroom? When sports owners have power, don’t the people who cover teams actually become wonky members of public-relations departments?

     Julia Poe, a staffer for the rival Chicago Tribune, said the Sky writing position at the Sun-Times was “subsidized” and “previously supported through a sponsorship by Wintrust, which is one of the main Sky partners.” Imagine if my columns there were sponsored specifically by Allstate, another Chicago company. “Mayhem!” they could say.

     Chaos, actually.

     I asked Poe, whose prime position is covering the NBA’s Bulls, about the beat as the Sky take on added importance. The Sun-Times, in particular, treats the team with nearly the same significance as the Cubs and White Sox this season. The good news: Women’s basketball is being read, another advantage of Caitlin Clark’s arrival. The make-you-wince news: On Monday, when the lead story on ESPN’s site involved a Sunday cheap shot to Clark’s face by Chicago rival Angel Reese, a big Sun-Times story was a lovey-dovey tribute to Reese.

     “Angel Reese making strong case for WNBA Rookie of the Year,” the headline said.

     “Top,” said Sky coach Teresa Weatherspoon, meaning No. 1 in the league, over Clark. “I always explain myself. I don’t say it just to say it because I’m coaching her. You have to sustain this type of play, and not only will I speak about it, but the world (will).’’

     I am having considerable difficulty, I must say, asking why any reporting position at a newspaper would be subsidized via a bank whose name is on the arena. Annie Costabile is the official beat writer, who travels on the road with the Sky, and Poe said she “could probably provide better info” on her current situation. Costabile, via X, hasn’t responded. If she happened to remain via a subsidy, the foundations that support the Sun-Times as a nonprofit operation — to the 2022 tune of $61 million, in concert with local public radio’s WBEZ — might ask why a sponsoring bank is involved. As it is, a free digital paywall brings in new readers but loses money. So the Sky is a key component with an audience.

     Dwyane Wade, a Chicago son, is a Sky investor. So is Laura Ricketts, co-owner of the Cubs. The principal owner is Michael Alter, who also welcomed an investment from Cari Sacks, whose husband, Michael, became an investor at the Sun-Times five years ago. That means a Sacks connection exists between the Sky and the Sun-Times.

     At the Tribune, owned by Alden Global Capital in New York, Sky coverage suffers. Said Poe: “In terms of advantage, the Sun-Times mainly has a leg up on us in Sky coverage because they have a beat writer. I’m the Bulls writer and cover the Sky as much as I can, but it’s not my designated beat so we can’t dedicate the same amount of time or travel to it. Hopefully that will change one day, but hiring has been pretty slow in general due to our ongoing union contract negotiation.”

     Never, in my dying day, did I think a Chicago paper would sell out to a company. Or, maybe I did. At least a timely Sun-Times column appeared today, wanting to know why “playing the role of villain” in the Clark matter “isn’t a good look” for the Sky. The piece discusses Reese, Weatherspoon and Chennedy Carter, who clocked Clark in a previous flare-up. At the same time, it creates a buzz in a town where fans at Wintrust Arena gave Carter a standing ovation. That’s what Chicago wants in the Caitlin story, to be the bad folks, to be Raiders fans.

     Which only helps the Sky. And only helps Michael Sacks, a trustee of the Obama Foundation, who helped raise the $61 million that kept the Sun-Times around. “I am proud to have played a part in securing the future of the Chicago Sun-Times and honoring its great legacy,” Sacks said two years ago. “Together we have created a model for sustaining local journalism which we know is vital.”

     Vital, he said. As a 17-year member of the paper, I send observations to executive editor Jennifer Kho. I do pay attention — and haven’t heard back from her on Wintrust. But if I were around when a bank was subsidizing Sky coverage, the same thing would have happened to me: I’d have escaped the building quickly and moved to Los Angeles, where it’s 72 and sunny and I don’t deal with crap.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.