SPORTS ILLUSTRATED DIES, PROVING ME RIGHT AGAIN ABOUT SPORTS MEDIA

The industry is crushed, with a spine-chilling management and digital flop reported to employees in emailed layoffs, which only recalls what I said some time ago: Bad companies aren’t worth the bother

     Upon hearing Sports Illustrated is dead to athletes and thonged models, I remembered my interview with Frank Deford, a media giant who cared about media. He wanted to know why I’d merrily evacuate a Chicago newspaper and hand back guarantees of one million dollars. He asked why I’d give up a so-called dream job, as his HBO cameraman followed me through Wrigleyville. Was I cuckoo?

     I told him that day: I don’t trust the newspaper, don’t trust the publishers and editors, and pleaded with him to stop crumbling that morning’s paper in his hand. My appearance further angered the Fleet Street-tainted editor, who watched the Sun-Times collapse into bankruptcy and still thinks I suck at my job, though he paid me one of the highest column-writing salaries in America.

     Why shower me with newspaper money? I captured readers with my impact and content. And I wanted the jackass and his management cadre to start investing in the operation’s flailing digital arm. Even then, I knew any publication would perish without placing a pivotal emphasis on the daily website. The Sun-Times has all but passed away since then, near death despite nonprofit leanings that plead each day for $150 in donations. I told the man who exhibited why I wanted to write sports for a living — Frank Deford, Sports Illustrated, later my editor-in-chief at The National Sports Daily — why I refused to write at a rotten place.

     Well, I was right. And I’m unfortunately right about the brand that Deford and the finest sportswriter of my generation, Rick Reilly, kept turning into a maelstrom of financial might for three million subscribers — until Sports Illustrated also crashed in the digital age. The Sun-Times can clunk in Chicago, a city that may not have any newspapers left in a short period, but the end of SI via emailed layoffs Friday reminds us that writing sports for trash heaps doesn’t work. That place continued to have the best in the business, from Pat Forde to Tom Verducci, and whoever ran it — the Arena Group — showed unfixable flaws when it trotted through an Artificial Intelligence absurdity that led to the ultimate professional trauma.

     As I’ve noted here, with great glee and thanks, I worked for media outlets from 20 through 56 and saw all parts of the world while covering major events well into double digits. I made more money than I ever dreamed, but life was bigger than a media scuzz. I was trying to tell the Sun-Times and Deford: I was sick of the junk, including the paper attempting to make me a local villain, when all I did was point out exactly what no writer in town did then or now. The sports owners steal money from the fans. They don’t win nearly enough in a city that still ranks third nationally in population. I trashed the billionaires. The owners responded with hostility.

     My editors were weak. And they were fired or quit. But I left on my own terms.

     So Chicago continues to lose in sports, with writers who are soft and lazy and barely existent, just as the owners want them. Last week, at a Bulls game, the wife of the deceased Jerry Krause cried when his name was booed at a Ring of Honor ceremony. One by one, I went through columnists in town on Saturday. The Tribune wrote two pieces. The Athletic wrote one. The Daily Herald wrote one. I wrote one, in Los Angeles, writing everything that matters in sports.

     The Sun-Times had zero.

     This week, the Sun-Times said White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is trying to build a new stadium in the South Loop. One by one, I went through columnists in town on Friday. The Tribune had one piece. The Athletic had one. I wrote one.

     The Sun-Times had zero.

     Which led me, as someone who once sold papers there, to write the executive editor and ask: Uh, what the hell are you doing?

     There is no time to wait. Earlier today, I stopped pushing Sports Illustrated on my app. I also stopped tapping the Los Angeles Times, where management plans to lay off a significant number of journalists while 300 Guild members are staging a one-day walkout. If it’s Saturday, who’s laying off more media employees?

     No longer is this a business for those who care, unless you’re a lucky sort like me, who loves to write often and does it in a cool place. If you want to gamble or participate in ESPN’s coverage groveling toward the NFL and NBA, go grab those public-relations gigs. I was telling a friend of mine, who also left the Sun-Times to become a successful college tennis coach, that I’ve never had more fun in media than my current daily offerings. What I do is real.

     What I left was phony.

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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.