🏀⚾️🎾 “Game Over” for Sports Department at NY Times, Now Tagging in The Athletic! 🥊🏈⚽️

TL;DR:
The New York Times is calling “game over” 🎮 for its sports department and passing the baton 🏃‍♂️ to The Athletic, its newly-acquired website. Over 35 people affected by the move, but no layoffs are expected. Times assures expanded sports coverage 🌐 with this change. All part of their strategy to keep the subscriber count booming! 💥💥

🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁🏁

The New York Times is essentially telling its sports department, “You’re benched! 🪑” But don’t worry folks, no one’s being kicked off the team. They’re simply bringing in a new star player, The Athletic, to run the sports game. 🏀⚾️🎾

So, how many people are we talking about? Over 35! But here’s the plot twist, there won’t be any layoffs. Rather, the journalists from the sports desk will transition to other roles within the Times’ newsroom. 🔄 Interesting strategy, right?

The power duo, New York Times Co. Chairman A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, penned a letter to the staff regarding this. They stated, “Though we know this decision will be disappointing to some, we believe it is the right one for readers and will allow us to maximize the respective strengths of The Times’s and The Athletic’s newsrooms.” 🤔 Are they implying that The Athletic is just better at covering sports?

But wait, there’s more! They’re promising to expand sports coverage under this shift. The digital homepage, newsletters, social feeds, the sports landing page, and the print section will now feature a wider range of stories from The Athletic, which already churns out roughly 150 stories a day about leagues, teams, and players across the U.S. and globally. 🌍 Are they trying to create a sports news avalanche? ⛷️

The Athletic joined the Times’ team after a $550 million acquisition last year. The Times has been making moves to diversify its content and keep its subscriber count on the up and up, especially after the news boom during the Trump presidency and the COVID-19 pandemic. 👀 Is this just another savvy business move in the ever-evolving media landscape?

With a few Pulitzer Prizes in their sports writing repertoire, it’s hard not to wonder what this move means for the future of sports journalism at the Times. Will the tradition of top-tier sports commentary continue under The Athletic’s flag? Or will it go the way of newspaper print ads? 📰

So, what are your thoughts on this? Is the New York Times playing smart by leveraging The Athletic’s strengths, or are they passing the ball at the risk of losing the game?

🤔👇 Let’s discuss! 👇🤔

Note: 🚦This article does not offer advice or recommendations. It merely reports on a shift in the media landscape. The opinions expressed are not those of Turnt Up News but are inferred from the information available in the source material.