'The New York Times' to close down its sports desk; to depend on 'The Athletic' for games coverage

The New York Times, on Monday, announced that it is closing down its sports desk, which has more than 35 journalists and editors, and will depend on The Athletic for sports coverage.

The Times bought The Athletic, which covers more than 200 professional sports teams, in January 2022 for $550 million.

“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,” executive editor of NYT Joe Kahn and deputy managing editor Monica Drake informed the newsroom in a mail.

“At the same time, we will scale back the newsroom’s coverage of games, players, teams and leagues," the mail further read, according to a news report on The New York Times.

With this, for the first time, stories from The Athletic will appear in the print section of The Times.

However, none of the sports journalists at The New York Times will be laid off; they will be offered other roles in the newsroom.