Surveys of 95 news directors reveal challenges and themes in local sports coverage, indicating evolving audience engagement.
The landscape of local sports coverage in legacy media is facing seismic shifts. Regional sports networks are filing for bankruptcy, newspapers continue with layoffs, and local sports anchors are leaving the industry because of a perceived lack of value in the newscast. In local broadcast newsrooms, news directors hold a significant influence on editorial decisions, specifically whether to include sports or not. The purpose of this study was to better understand how news directors view the role of sports in their local television newscasts. Researchers conducted surveys with 95 news directors representing markets from across the United States. The findings of this study rendered four themes regarding local sports coverage in newscasts: the importance of local, evolving to stay relevant, potential financial boost, and a lack of interest from the public. The study identifies the contribution sports continues to offer through a focus on local coverage, while newsrooms continue to assess the value of sports within a media ecosystem laced with challenges around audience engagement.
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Hull et al. (2025) studied this question.
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