Money is tight across sports media, and many people are losing their jobs because of it.
Weeks after layoffs hit both ESPN and Sports Illustrated, Yahoo appears to be the next site to cut costs by cutting jobs.
This week, two editors of Yahoo’s Puck Daddy hockey blog tweeted that they had been laid off. Both said they’d been told the decision was “budgetary.”
Unrestricted free agent about to hit the market. pic.twitter.com/71g8XZvbHb
— Jen Neale (@MsJenNeale) May 17, 2017
Yesterday I was informed that I am no longer with Yahoo for budgetary reasons. Appreciative of my time there but excited for what's next
— Josh Cooper (@JoshuaCooper) May 17, 2017
The latest
It is unclear whether cuts at Yahoo will be confined to the hockey staff or whether they’ll affect other sports as well.
Yahoo as a whole has struggled financially for quite a while and last year sold itself to Verizon. Now, the company’s larger problems seem to be affecting its sports operation. Last month, Recode reported that NBA breaking news ace Adrian Wojnarowski will leave Yahoo for ESPN this summer and take some of the staff at The Vertical with him. Though Wojnarowski has not confirmed that report, he also has not denied it.
At this point, layoffs are a part of the sports media industry that aren’t going away any time soon, but it’s still jarring to see so many people lose their jobs in such a short period of time. And for hockey fans, it’s particularly upsetting that both ESPN and Yahoo seem to be scaling back their hockey coverage.
We’ll update this post if we hear anything more about Yahoo Sports’ layoffs.
About Alex Putterman
Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.