New York Times shutters its sports desk

The New York Times is shutting down its sports desk, the newspaper’s leadership informed staffers Monday.

In a memo to the outlet’s journalists, Times Chief Executive Meredith Kopit Levien said the newspaper will “no longer have a freestanding sports desk,” and current sports staff will transition to other desks around its newsroom.

“Many of these colleagues will continue on their new desks to produce the signature general interest journalism about sports — exploring the business, culture and power structures of sports, particularly through enterprising reporting and investigations — for which they are so well known,” Kopit Levien said.

There are no plans for layoffs, she noted in her memo, adding that newsroom leadership will “actively work with all our sports colleagues to ensure they land in the right roles.”

The future of the Times sports desk has been uncertain since early 2022, when the newspaper spent more than $500 million to buy “The Athletic,” a sports news website covering national professional and major college athletics.

“We intend to utilize The Athletic — which has among the largest sports newsrooms in the world — to provide Times readers with a greater abundance of sports coverage than ever before,” Kopit Levien said.