When Adam Schefter first heard that his friend Adrian Wojnarowski was considering retiring from his job as an NBA reporter for ESPN, he was surprised.
But that wasn’t the case for Wojnarowski when he announced his decision on Wednesday.
That’s because Schefter is part of a small clique in the sports media world and knows what it means to have an insider’s job.
“To me, these jobs aren’t about working, they’re about living, and Woj stopped living his job. He wanted to live his life,” said Schefter, who served as an NFL insider for 21 years, first with NFL Network and, since 2009, at ESPN.
Wojnarowski, as he was nicknamed by breaking news outlets on social media, made what could be called the mother of all Woj bombs when he announced he was leaving ESPN to take the newly created position of general manager of the St. Bonaventure University men’s basketball program.
He is expected to discuss his decision to return to his alma mater at a news conference scheduled for Wednesday on the upstate New York campus.
“He was at the top of his field for a long time and we all looked up to him,” said Pierre LeBrun, an NHL insider for Canada’s TSN and senior columnist for The Athletic. “So he was an insider in our industry, and for him to stop that now and start doing something completely different is just awesome.”
Wojnarowski’s decision to leave the company and become one of the first major insiders to try something new also came as a surprise, as some thought it might happen sooner.
“It’s a tough job. You’re tied to your phone,” said Bob Thompson, a former president of Fox Sports Networks who now runs his own consulting group. “You never get a break because you’re worried someone else is going to post it before you do. And it’s a grinding job.”
Schefter discussed with Wojnarowski whether he wanted to play one more season in the NBA or finish out the remainder of his five-year contract and then leave, but ultimately, that wasn’t what he wanted.
“For as long as I’ve known him, he’s an incredibly proud, incredibly principled person,” Schefter said. “We all live in a world where weekends and holidays don’t exist. That’s a reality not just in this profession, but in many professions. But in the age of social media, where the news cycle is accelerating at record speed, that takes a toll on everyone.
“We all recognize the price we pay and the sacrifices it demands. But so rarely do you see someone say, ‘I’m done.’ And that’s essentially what he’s just done. This isn’t about taking a vacation or a sabbatical or a break. This is him saying, ‘I’m done with the news business.'”
When Schefter and Wojnarowski began their journalism careers, the pinnacle of their aspirations was sports columnist. The decline of newspapers, the rise of social media and corporate investment in electronic media have made being an insider a highly coveted position.
The rise of social media has transformed the role and importance of insiders, and in the process, the quality of information has been replaced by who tweeted the breaking news first.
The sports department has recognized that importance and has invested heavily in acquiring top insiders. Wojnarowski signed a contract extension with ESPN in 2022 with an average annual salary of $7 million.
“If you’re an insider, the company you work for is very dependent on you. Information spreads instantly. If you have temporary access to a platform and are allowed to share information that no one else has, that’s why you’re making $7 million to $10 million a year,” said Patrick Crakes, a media consultant and former Fox Sports executive.
Jay Glazer, an NFL on Fox insider, noted the job can also take a personal toll. Glazer, who has covered the NFL for 32 years, the last 21 of them for Fox, gave examples of officiating his children’s soccer games and wearing a Bluetooth device in his ear to avoid missing calls at restaurants.
“When I don’t have something that other people don’t have, I’m really hard on myself because I have a responsibility to my guys (at Fox NFL Sunday). It’s like, they’re my brothers,” he said. “That pressure has never let up. Sometimes, if I don’t have the best or I’m missing something, it gets me really down. I still make a million calls. I don’t expect someone to call me because it doesn’t work that way. If I don’t see it, I forget it. I have to answer the phone more than anyone else.”
Glazer and Ken Rosenthal, Fox MLB insider and senior columnist for The Athletic, have tried to counter that, still reporting the news but with a focus on quality and making sure it resonates for more than two minutes.
“Immediacy has allowed many of us to get more exposure and advance our careers; Woj is an extreme example of that. But getting ahead of deals one, two, or five minutes in advance is not why I got into this industry, nor is that real journalism,” Rosenthal said. “Over the last few years, I’ve focused more on writing stories, actual stories, stories that contain news in some way but can’t be verified within minutes. … It’s helped that I’m not so worried about exposing every deal. I’m fortunate to work in a media outlet that doesn’t place as much value on those ‘scoops’ and understands that they don’t mean as much.”
Glaser noted that in a conversation he had with his bosses at Fox 10 years ago, he was told to focus on the big things.
“There are no boundaries in the job, so I think I drew boundaries for my own happiness,” he said. “Fox not only agreed with it, they suggested it, because they cared about my mental health more than anything. I’m going to keep hitting home runs, and people respect me enough that they’re not going to get stolen from me.”
Whoever replaces Wojnarowski at ESPN will feel the pressure of replacing a legend. “It was an honor to see you put on the insider’s Mount Rushmore,” Glazer texted after the announcement that he would be replacing Wojnarowski. And he offers the same advice to anyone just starting out in their careers:
Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of news for everyone.
“Put yourself out there more highly. I think people want immediacy now more than accuracy, and that worries me,” he said.
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