WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS BUNDLE: CROSSWORDS, COOKING AND … SPORTS?

Eyeing profits, the New York Times is ditching its traditional sports section for less prestigious content from The Athletic, an outrageous packaging decision that will save or kill sports journalism

     A bundle is wonderful when a baby is wrapped inside. But subjecting the work of a sports journalist to a subscription-based bundle of revenue-driven gadgetry — Wordle, cooking recipes and reviews of vacuum cleaners and teeth-whitening kits — doesn’t exactly advance a waning profession. As it is, sports coverage often is ridiculed as the outer borough of news content.

     Now, if not forevermore, it will be the toy department of life. And sportswriters are reconfirmed as “the world’s tallest midgets” — as Frank Deford once titled his best-of compilation — thanks to the New York Times, of all places. Apparently no longer as interested in Pulitzers as profits, the Times has dumped its prestigious sports section so it can justify its dubious 2022 purchase of The Athletic for $550 million. If sports pages were actors, the Times would be Daniel Day-Lewis and The Athletic would be Justin Bieber. One is dignified; the other covets a Gen Z audience as a fast-food product. I never thought the Times would ditch a model of its longstanding reporting reputation for a churn of top-40 commercial hits.

     But that’s what is happening as a traditional, awards-showered section moves aside for the new kids. This way, the company can charge separately for sports coverage that had been part of the presentation — unless you “subscribe to two or more of the Times’ bundle of products.” I happen to have the crossword-puzzle and Spelling Bee components because I want to massage my mind; the Cooking content and Wirecutter feature, offering advice on household products I don’t need, are wastes of time and money. But if I don’t subscribe, I pay extra for The Athletic, an inferior rollout to what the Times section delivered for decades.

     Consumer extortion? All The News That’s Fit To Monetize? I’d call it a frantic Hail Mary, a desperate response to gushers of red ink from an acquisition that lost $7.8 million in the first quarter of 2023 and $37 million the last four quarters. Like an NFL franchise that overpays for a free agent who underperforms, the Times won’t admit its investment gamble is wobbling. Instead, the nepo baby in charge of The Athletic’s integration into the paper — publisher David Perpich comes from the controlling Ochs-Sulzberger family, fifth generation — thinks entirely in corporate branding terms. Specifically, sports will be part of his “All-Access” package. So what if sportswriting has nothing to do with making paprika-rubbed pork chops and lemon-blueberry shortcakes.

     Red Smith would be wincing. Jim Murray would be laughing.

     I am crying, left to wonder about the modus operandi of the Times, which I’ve previously hailed as one of journalism’s remaining beacons. Is this a labor power play, knowing The Athletic staff isn’t unionized while the disbanded sports staff is part of an incensed, busting-leery New York Times Guild? In saying it will assign current sportswriters to other departments, is the Times hinting at more layoffs that will gut The Athletic and further diminish coverage? And if the remaining writers don’t cover sports as the $800 billion industry it has become — one rife with scandal and dominated by a seamy sportsbook business — will The Athletic subject readers to league-friendly coverage that contradicts the Times’ mission of aggressive, for-the-record newsgathering and analysis? My head is spinning after executive editor Joe Kahn and deputy managing editor Monica Drake spoke of “an evolution in how we cover sports.”

     Or devolution, if I’m reading this right. Perpich speaks glowingly of his wish to cover “fandom.” That means he’s trying to attract fanboys and fangirls to buy The Athletic, even if it contradicts what Kahn and Drake wrote in their note to the staff. “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. At the same time, we will scale back the newsroom’s coverage of games, players, teams and leagues,” they said.

     I take that to mean holdover sports staffers — stalwarts such as NFL writers Ken Belson and Jenny Vrentas and baseball writer Tyler Kepner — will continue their best, most serious work elsewhere in the newsroom. And that The Athletic’s beat reporters will continue day-to-day coverage of leagues and prominent teams, while some of its more experienced and worldly types focus on the intersection of sports — I hate that phrase — with “money, power, culture, politics and society at large.” What I do know is, the original plan to smother every pro team in North America is long gone. That will lead to more subscription erosion, as it signals a drastic change in editorial philosophy. The Times can’t charge $72 for a first-year subscription and yank coverage of certain local teams without a mass reader revolt. You can’t sell a bill of goods in 2023 without word getting around.

     The plan is ass-backwards. Why replace established Times stars with less accomplished writers from The Athletic? Does this business have anything to do with merit, experience, credibility and mass appeal anymore? Without batting averages, editors can make staffing decisions subjectively, unable to separate mastery from mediocrity. Maybe this is the new harsh reality: time catching up to the elite. When I was 25, I was the nation’s youngest sports columnist before I was ready. Now, I write as well and as frequently as anyone, but the corporate likes of Perpich can’t differentiate. The Athletic skews younger. That doesn’t mean it skews better.

     Can I tell you something about The Athletic? In too many cases, writers are extensions of the leagues, teams and media companies they cover — rarely rocking boats or risking relationships that allow routine access — and they aren’t inclined to scrutinize their daily subjects unless someone with an agenda wants a story written. To those unfamiliar with media coverage, it means writers won’t cross an edgy line that should be crossed more than ever in the Big Sports era.

     The purported aim of sports journalism is to write for the reader and broadcast for the viewer and listener. When reading The Athletic, I often think the authors are writing for the people they cover, their editors and each other — it’s safer that way, for all, ensuring job security amid the current media layoff frenzy. They don’t hold truth to power, only exposing wrongdoing if it involves the crimes of convenient targets. They don’t challenge the power-and-money set, except for occasional tweaks that don’t make dents. They can be fanboys and fangirls themselves, obeying the surface fodder of what they’re told. And it doesn’t surprise me — recalling my four job conversations with The Athletic founders, which concluded when they asked me to help arrange a meeting with the CEO of the San Francisco Giants. They didn’t care much about journalism. They were venture capitalists trying to build a start-up that eventually could be peddled to a major media company.

     And they eventually cashed in, much to the industry’s detriment.

     For instance, The Athletic broke the story about the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal but only lightly explored the much-chronicled practice of other teams cheating via technology at the time. This suggests Major League Baseball commandeered the story, after pitcher Mike Fiers blew the whistle, and wanted it framed as one rogue team participating in the scheme — outside the power axis of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, all accused, as were other clubs. The Athletic obliged. This allowed Yankees general manager Brian Cashman to separate his team’s sins from those of the Astros, which he described as “so illegal and horrific.” Astros owner Jim Crane wouldn’t have it, telling USA Today, “You were there too, dude. What are you talking about?” Crane’s contention never resonated. The Athletic already had done MLB’s dirty work, with Cashman joyfully piling on: “No one’s buying the tune (Crane) is singing. No one’s singing to that dance tune.”

     Last week, an expansive story in The Athletic tried to explain why the PGA Tour abruptly and shockingly shifted its philosophical course and embraced Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The story preached as if the legions questioning the dirty geopolitical deal, including the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, were school kids. It was headlined, “The PGA Tour, PIF and understanding the deal to shape golf’s future,” and The Athletic’s daily newsletter demanded we read it because, “Nuance is a wonderful thing, and when we lose it — which happens often in today’s media landscape — incorrect narratives can flourish unchecked.” Incorrect narratives? Such as: Why would Tour commissioner Jay Monahan, after months of rightfully excoriating the Saudis as 9/11 murderers and human-rights abusers, suddenly jump into bed with them? Was The Athletic doing the Tour’s dirty work, too? The site’s lone national columnist, Jim Trotter, wrote a piece titled, “PGA-LIV Golf merger was the only logical outcome.”

     Really? The only one? Ask Tiger Woods, whose one posted comment so far suggests he was defrauded by Monahan and is disgusted by it all. Ask confused professionals who have no idea what the future holds. The Athletic shouldn’t be condescending about “nuance” when delivering one side of the story. That’s a form of brainwashing and hand-clasping with the Tour, which testified Tuesday, through an executive, that the Saudis are investing $1 billion-plus while agreeing to oust LIV ringleader Greg Norman. Put it this way: Congress fired many more pressing questions than The Athletic did in its story.

     “We’re here because we’re concerned about what it means for an authoritarian government to use its wealth to capture an American institution,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. “There is something that stinks about this path that you’re on right now because it is a surrender, and it is all about the money, and that is the reason for the backlash that you’re seeing. The equity ownership interest that the Saudis will have … gives them financial dominance. They control the purse strings.”

     Before aligning with the Saudis, why didn’t Monahan try to raise billions through any number of wealthy Americans who’d want to help the Tour? He wasn’t available on Capitol Hill, still recovering from an unspecified medical event after the problematic merger was announced. Forgive me for asking if the Times has a connection to the Saudis. Is anything beyond the realm right now?

     What this radical Times-to-Athletic shift does, ironically, is leave an opening for local sections. In 2017, one of The Athletic founders, Alex Mather, vowed to “wait every local paper out and let them continuously bleed until we are the last ones standing. We will suck them dry of their best talent at every moment.” Mather made the comment to a Times reporter, Kevin Draper, whose job status now is in limbo. Alas, most local sections have been decimated by the continuing industry downturn. Few are able to capitalize as much as tread water.

     The Washington Post, subsidized by Jeff Bezos, has the last remaining great sports section. The Los Angeles Times, still markedly short of digital readership goals, is spinning off its print section into a magazine stand-alone — without fresh stories or scores from the night before. Chicago’s two sections were blown out on the Pat Fitzgerald hazing scandal by The Daily Northwestern, a student newspaper. Already in free fall, the business is about to hit rock-bottom.

     Which leaves The Athletic as the last-gasp hope. But to subscribe without a charge, you’ll also have to buy puzzles, recipes and/or product reviews. Unless the coverage improves dramatically, here’s a consumer tip: Save your money.

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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.