The Times announced in July that it would disband the section, and it has spent the ensuing weeks relocating sports staffers to different sections around the newsroom. The move has outraged the NewsGuild, the union that represents the Times newsroom, which has accused Times leadership of union-busting. The guild filed a grievance with the newspaper accusing management of replacing union work with non-union work.
The Athletic’s newsroom of around 400 reporters and editors is not unionized. The Times has said it is contracting with the Athletic, which the company says is not part of the Times newsroom, the same way it does with a wire service like the Associated Press.
In continued protest of management’s decision, Times sports staffers are planning a march through the office and a rally outside the Times headquarters Monday afternoon, with speeches and a brass band.
Despite the dissolution of the sports desk, the Times company will continue to cover sports. The Times paid $550 million for the Athletic last year and acquired the site’s approximately 1 million subscribers. Its efforts to integrate the Athletic into the newsroom have been rocky, with Times staffers bristling at the shuttering of the sports desk and asking questions of management about the Athletic’s editorial standards and business model. The Athletic laid off around 20 staffers earlier this year, and it lost nearly $8 million in the most recent quarter, according to Times filings, though its revenues are up 50 percent from last year.
Several former Times sports staffers have already found new homes at the Athletic. Longtime baseball writer Tyler Kepner will continue his coverage there; veteran sportswriter and editor Matthew Futterman will lead the site’s tennis coverage; and Oskar Garcia will be an editorial director at the Athletic and serve as a liaison between the Athletic and the Times.
A number of other sportswriters have been moved to other desks in the newsroom, where their roles will continue to include some sports coverage. Scott Cacciola, formerly an NBA writer, will move to Styles; longtime sports staffers Andrew Keh and David Waldstein have moved to Metro. The Times also has plans to create a new pod to focus on sports business. The pod will exist within the business desk and include Ken Belson, who has covered the NFL; and investigative sports reporters Jenny Vrentas and Kevin Draper.
