The Sporting News is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a print magazine. It became the dominant American publication covering baseball, acquiring the nickname "The Bible of Baseball".[1]
From 2002 to February 2022, it was known simply as Sporting News. In December 2012, The Sporting News ended print publication and shifted to a digital-only publication. It currently has editions in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
March 17, 1886:The Sporting News (TSN), founded in St. Louis [2] by Alfred H. Spink, a director of the St. Louis Browns baseball team, publishes its first edition. The weekly newspaper sells for 5 cents. Baseball, horse racing and professional wrestling received the most coverage in the first issue. Meanwhile, the sporting weeklies Clipper and Sporting Life were based in New York and Philadelphia. By World War I, TSN would be the only national baseball newspaper.
1901: The American League, another rival to baseball's National League, begins playing. TSN was a vocal supporter of the new league and its founder, Ban Johnson. Both parties advocated cleaning up the sport, in particular ridding it of liquor sales, gambling and assaults on umpires.
1903:TSN editor Arthur Flanner helps draft the National Agreement, a document that brought a truce between the AL and NL and helped bring about the modern World Series.
1904: New York photographer Charles Conlon begins taking portraits of major league players as they pass through the city's three ballparks: the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium and Ebbets Field. His images, many of which were featured in TSN, have become treasured symbols of baseball's past.
1936:TSN names its first major league Sporting News Player of the Year Award, Carl Hubbell of the New York Giants. It is the oldest and most prestigious award given to the single player in MLB who had the most outstanding season. To this day, it remains voted on by MLB players.
1942: After decades of being intertwined with baseball, TSN adds in-season football coverage.
1946:TSN expands its football coverage with an eight-page tabloid publication titled The Quarterback. The tab is later renamed the All-Sports News as coverage of other sports is added, including professional and college basketball and hockey.
1962: J.G. Taylor Spink dies. His son C.C. Johnson Spink takes over the publication. In 1962, after Spink's death, the Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) instituted the J. G. Taylor Spink Award as the highest award given to its members. Spink was also the first recipient.
1967:TSN publishes its first full-color photo, a cover image of Orioles star Frank Robinson.
1977: The Spink family sells TSN to Times Mirror in 1977.[3]
1991:The Sporting News transitions to a glossy, full-color all-sports magazine.
1996:The Sporting News comes online, serving as a sports content provider for AOL. The following year, it launches sportingnews.com.
2000: Tribune Company sells TSN to Vulcan Inc., headed by tech billionaire Paul Allen. The following year, the company acquired the One on One Sports radio network, renaming it Sporting News Radio.
2002: The magazine drops the definite article from its name and becomes just Sporting News (SN). Subsequent covers reflect the change.
2006: Vulcan sells SN to Advance Media, which places the publication under the supervision of American City Business Journals (ACBJ).
2007:Sporting News begins its move from St. Louis, where it had been based since its founding, to ACBJ's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C. The publication leaves St. Louis for good in 2008, when it also became a bi-weekly publication.
Transition to digital publication
In 2011, Sporting News announced a deal to take over editorial control of AOL's sports website FanHouse.[4] In December 2012, after 126 years, Sporting News published its final issue as a print publication, and shifted to becoming a digital-only publication.[5]
The following March, ACBJ contributed Sporting News into a joint venture with the U.S. assets of sports data company Perform Group, known as Perform Sporting News Limited and doing business as Sporting News Media. Perform owned 65% of Sporting News Media. Sporting News would join Perform Group's other domestic properties, such as its video syndication unit ePlayer and its soccer website Goal.com.[6] The deal excluded the magazine's Sporting News Yearbooks unit and NASCAR Illustrated.[7] Almost immediately after the venture was established, Sporting News laid off 13 staff writers.[8] Perform Group acquired the remainder of Sporting News Media in 2015.[6]
Under Perform's ownership, Sporting News shifted to a more tabloid-like editorial direction.[6] The site introduced a new logo and website design in 2016.[9] Following Perform's acquisition of ACBJ's remaining stake, it began to align itself more closely with the company's other units, including replacing Associated Press articles with Perform's own Omnisport wire service for articles and video content (which began to constitute a sizable portion of the site's overall content).[6]Sporting News also began to introduce new localized versions in other markets, with a focus on countries where it had launched its sports streaming service DAZN. These sites are, in turn, used to promote the DAZN service.[6] Perform Media president Juan Delgado explained that the company was trying to preserve the heritage of the Sporting News brand by still publishing original content, while also publishing content oriented towards social media to appeal to younger users.[6]
Later history
In September 2018, Perform Group spun out its consumer properties, including Sporting News and DAZN, into a new company known as DAZN Group. The remaining sports data business became Perform Content, and was sold in 2019 to Vista Equity Partners and merged with STATS LLC.[10][11]
In the summer of 2020, Lindenwood University of St. Charles, Missouri, acquired the archives collection of The Sporting News from ACBJ.[12] The collection was described as consisting of "10,000+ books on baseball, football, hockey, basketball, NCAA, and other sports."[12]
In December 2020, DAZN Group sold Sporting News to a private investment consortium, which became Sporting News Holdings.[13]
From 1968 to 2008, the magazine selected one or more individuals as Sportsman of the Year. On four occasions, the award was shared by two recipients. Twice, in 1993 and 2000, the award went to a pair of sportsmen within the same organization. In 1999, the honor was given to a whole team. No winner was chosen in 1987.
In 2009, the award was replaced by two awards: "Pro Athlete of the Year" and "College Athlete of the Year". These in turn were replaced by a singular "Athlete of the Year" award starting in 2011.[14]
TSN sponsors its own annual Team, Player, Pitcher, Rookie, Reliever, Comeback Player, Manager, and Executive of the Year awards. Many fans once held the newspaper's baseball awards at equal or higher esteem than those of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.[21] Prior to 2005, the SN Comeback Player Award was generally recognized as the principal award of its type, as MLB did not give such an award until that year.
Also, between 1975 and 2005, Sporting News conducted an annual poll and named a national champion for Division I-A (now Division I FBS). It is regarded as a "major selector" in NCAA official records books.[24]
Notable staff
Thomas G. Osenton, president and chief operating officer of Sporting News Publishing Company and publisher of The Sporting News weekly
Bob Ferguson, journalist and author of Who's Who In Canadian Sport[25]
The Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) is a professional association for journalists writing about Major League Baseball for daily newspapers, magazines, and qualifying websites. The organization was founded in 1908 and is known for its annual awards and voting on membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A Rookie of the Year award or ROY is given by a number of sports leagues to the top-performing athlete in his or her first season within the league. Athletes competing for the first time in any given league are also known as "rookies".
The Sporting News Rookie of the Year Award is an annual Major League Baseball (MLB) award established in 1946 by Sporting News. For the first three years (1946–1948) and again in 1950, there was a single award. In 1949 and since 1951, the award has been given to a rookie from both the American League and National League. In 1961 and from 1963 through 2003, Sporting News split the rookie award into two separate categories, Rookie Pitcher of the Year and Rookie Player of the Year. In 2004 those two awards were discontinued, in favor of a single award, one for each league.
Professional baseball leagues, amateur-baseball organizations, sportswriting associations, and other groups confer awards on various baseball teams, players, managers, coaches, executives, broadcasters, writers, and other baseball-related people for excellence in achievement, sportsmanship, and community involvement.
The Major League Baseball Comeback Player of the Year Award is presented by Major League Baseball (MLB) to the player who is judged to have "re-emerged on the baseball field during a given season." The award was developed in 2005, as part of a sponsorship agreement between MLB and Viagra. In 2005 and 2006 representatives from MLB and MLB.com selected six candidates each from the American (AL) and National Leagues (NL) and one winner for each league was selected via an online poll on MLB.com. Since then, the winners have been selected by a panel of MLB beat reporters. Under the current voting structure, first place votes are worth five points, second place votes worth three, and third place votes worth one with the award going to the player with the most points overall. Past winners have often overcome injury or personal problems en route to their award-winning season.
This is a list of award winners and league leaders for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball.
Casimir James Konstanty was an American relief pitcher in Major League Baseball and National League Most Valuable Player of 1950. He played for the Cincinnati Reds (1944), Boston Braves (1946), Philadelphia Phillies (1948–1954), New York Yankees (1954–1956) and St. Louis Cardinals (1956). Konstanty batted and threw right-handed, stood 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) tall and weighed 202 pounds (92 kg).
Carroll Christopher Chambliss is an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball from 1971 to 1988 for the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. He served as a coach for the Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, and Seattle Mariners.
Kenneth Raymond Hunt Jr. was an American starting pitcher who played one full Major League Baseball season for the 1961 Cincinnati Reds. Listed at 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and 200 pounds (91 kg), Hunt batted and threw right-handed. He overcame control problems to reach the major leagues with the Reds in 1961, starting games for the National League champions. He won The Sporting News Rookie Pitcher of the Year Award and appeared in the World Series, which the Reds lost in five games to the New York Yankees. However, his control problems resurfaced in the minor leagues after that, and he never appeared in another major league game. Following his career, he coached baseball and basketball at Morgan High School in Utah for 20 years.
Jerry Reuss —pronounced "royce"—is an American former left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball, best known for his years with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Alfred Henry Spink was a Canadian-born American baseball writer and club organizer based mainly in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1886, he established a weekly newspaper, The Sporting News (TSN), that emerged from World War I as the only national baseball newspaper or magazine.
The 1945 Major League Baseball All-Star Game was cancelled on April 24 after the Major League Baseball (MLB) season began on April 17. The July 10 game was cancelled due to wartime travel restrictions in World War II. 1945 is the first of two years since 1933, when the first official All-Star Game was played, that an All-Star Game was cancelled and All-Stars were not officially selected.
James Anthony Happ is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB). He won the World Series as a member of the Philadelphia Phillies, and was an All-Star as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays.
Colonel Buster Mills was an American outfielder, coach, scout and interim manager in Major League Baseball. A native of Ranger, Texas, in his playing days, he stood 5 ft 11+1⁄2 in (1.82 m) (181.6 cm) tall, weighed 195 pounds (88.5 kg), and threw and batted righthanded.
The 1954 Major League Baseball season was contested from April 13 to October 2, 1954. For the second consecutive season, an MLB franchise relocated, as the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Orioles, who played their home games at Memorial Stadium.
The 1953 Major League Baseball season was contested from April 13 to October 12, 1953. It marked the first relocation of an MLB franchise in fifty years, as the Boston Braves moved their NL franchise to Milwaukee, where they would play their home games at the new County Stadium. This was also the first regular season of the televised Major League Baseball Game of the Week, originally broadcast on ABC.
The 1941 Major League Baseball season was contested from April 14 to October 6, 1941. The Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees were the regular season champions of the National League and American League, respectively. The Yankees then defeated the Dodgers in the World Series, four games to one.
The city of St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States is home to a number of professional and collegiate sports teams. The Sporting News rated St. Louis the nation's "Best Sports City" in 2000 and the Wall Street Journal named it the best sports city in 2015.
Aaron James Judge is an American professional baseball outfielder for the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball (MLB). A five-time MLB All-Star, Judge was unanimously selected as the American League (AL) Rookie of the Year in 2017 and finished second in voting for the AL Most Valuable Player Award that year. In 2022, he set the AL record for most home runs in a season with 62, breaking the 61-year-old record held by Roger Maris, and winning the AL Most Valuable Player Award. Judge stands 6 feet 7 inches (2.01 m) tall and weighs 282 pounds (128 kg), making him one of the largest and tallest players in MLB.
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