ESPN, Fox Sports journalists blast Washington Post over report it could scrap sports section

Top sports journalists from ESPN to Fox Sports blasted the Washington Post and owner Jeff Bezos online over a report the newspaper is planning to decimate its sports desk.

News of potential “massive layoffs” at WaPo came over the weekend as management informed staffers that it was abruptly scrapping its planned coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics two weeks before the opening ceremony.

The paper is planning to cut up to 300 employees, focusing on sections like sports that haven’t seen enough demand, the news site Puck reported.

The paper now plans to send a small team of reporters to cover the Olympic Games, according to the New York Times – but journos are still panicking over the possibility that the paper’s sports desk could be eliminated.

ESPN baseball columnist Jeff Passan mourned the potential end of the WaPo’s sports desk, which he called “the best sports section in the country,” in a Tuesday post on X.

“Only a soulless corporate goon would think the paper is better without it. A short-sighted, cowardly decision. Shame is your legacy,” Passan wrote.

Several other sports journalists, like Fox Sports baseball broadcaster Ken Rosenthal, took fiery aim at Bezos.

“I’m incredibly saddened about what is happening at the Washington Post. Going back to my time at the Baltimore Sun, I’ve admired and envied the Post’s writers, and not just in sports,” Rosenthal wrote in a post on X.

“Jeff Bezos’ destruction of a great newspaper will be part of his legacy. #SaveThePost.”

Grant Paulsen, a sports radio broadcaster, called “the Bezos ownership” – which started in 2013, when the Amazon founder bought WaPo for $250 million – an “abomination.”

“Anybody who would allow the Washington Post to get rid of its sports section shouldn’t have anything to do with running the paper,” Paulsen wrote in a Monday post on X. 

Brianna Schroer, a senior designer at the Washington Post, also spoke out.

“Designing sports has been the highlight of my time at The Washington Post and I would be devastated if I was no longer able to do that,” she tweeted Monday.

Ben Portnoy, a college sports reporter for Sports Business Journal, called an end to WaPo’s sports desk “heartbreaking and incredibly short-sighted.”

“As a kid growing up in NW DC, I’m not being hyperbolic when I say I read the Washington Post sports page every single morning from the time I could decipher a box score,” Portnoy wrote.

“As I got older, I graduated to the actual stories. Those tales and that sports section genuinely changed my life – and are a huge reason why I became a sportswriter in the first place.”

Tim Rohan, sports editor and writer at NBC News, also sounded off in a Tuesday tweet.

“The @washingtonpost sports section is vital to the sports landscape. They write definitive features. They do important investigations. Their talented staff covers every major story, major game,” he wrote.

Freelance sports journalist Joon Lee bashed the decision as “shortsighted in a world where sports is becoming more politically & culturally influential.”

WaPo did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.