Former ESPN Star Dan Le Batard: Sports Journalism Is 'Dead'

Longtime sports show host Dan Le Batard has been complaining about the decline of sports media and sports journalism in particular for a long time now. But now he's ready to assert that sports journalism is flat-out dead.

On the latest episode of his show, Le Batard argued that sports journalism is dead because networks have decided that it's better to simply have reporters that prioritize getting along and never being inflammatory over finding uncomfortable truths.

"They don't need to do journalism. The people objecting to Shams there, where were the journalists on that screenshot when you saw Udonis, Steve Nash, Blake Griffin, Dirk, and Taylor Rooks. Where was the journalism? Taylor's the journalism but Taylor is the way that athletes would like the media to behave. Come in here, ask me questions, get along, don't say anything inflammatory, don't be too critical, celebrate us. Why does Prime have to do journalism? Where is the journalism on Prime? Where is it?" Le Batard asked.

"I'm telling you in the documentary sphere that all of these big corporations are seeing less and less importance in doing things that are going to bother the masses because there are uncomfortable truths. They'd rather do antiseptic stuff than do the stuff that's a little dangerous because it's the truth. I happen to want the undistilled truth. I want it pure. But that's not what everybody wants and I come from a different time."

"It's not dying, it's dead."

Le Batard believes that streaming services in particular have less interest than any media company in doing journalism. Ultimately, he believes that journalists have lost the battle for relevancy.

"I'd like that time to live forever. It's dead. It's not dying, it's dead. These streamers have no interest, none of them, none of them, have any interest in doing journalism and that's why I'm telling you this war, the journalists have already lost it," Le Batard declared.

Le Batard might be going overboard by calling sports journalism totally "dead," especially given the accolade-filled work that his longtime guest Pablo Torre has been doing. But it's clear that actual investigative journalism is no longer a priority at sports networks.

There are fewer and fewer deep dives into the inner-workings of sports and most of the information we get is either publicly available or given to reporters through PR firms. Networks barely bother retaining investigative journalists and nearly all TV shows that would showcase it have been discontinued.

Whether or not it's dead, the sphere is clearly shrinking and fans seem to be okay with it.

That's pretty sad.

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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 12:16 PM.