2026 Politics in Sports Media Report
CSCM has released the fifth annual “Politics in Sports Media” report. In 2025, sports and politics intersected in many forms and contexts. Our survey and content analysis provide quantitative data and our critical essays reveal the underlying dynamics that reflect struggles over resources and power.
To compile the report, researchers from the Center for Sports Communication & Media surveyed over 500 sports fans about how they define and react to political content in sports and how they perceive leading sports media brands and their mix of sports and political content. The report also includes a content analysis of ESPN and Yahoo websites that reveal which political topics are most frequently featured in mainstream sports media. The report concludes with six case studies evaluating news stories from 2025 that featured politics and sports.
Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting
2025 Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting
Wright Thompson Wins Best Sportswriting;
Roy Blount Jr. Awarded Lifetime Achievement
Wright Thompson and Roy Blount Jr. were recognized as the winners of the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting at the 2025 awards dinner at The Penn Club in New York City. Thompson won the Best Sportswriting award for his monumental profile, Caitlin Clark and Iowa Find Peace in the Process, published by ESPN. Blount's Lifetime Achievement recognition has roots with his time at Sports Illustrated as a staff writer, associate editor (1968-75) and later a Senior Special Contributor. His 1974 book about the Pittsburgh Steelers, "About Three Bricks Shy of a Load," is cited as a masterpiece of New Journalism. Sports icon Billie Jean King received the Jenkins Medal Sports Legend award.
This is the ninth iteration of the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. The awards are named annually by a jury of working sports journalists in honor of the legendary Texas sportswriter and best-selling author, who defined the sportswriter’s craft for a generation.
2025 McGarr Symposium
The most recent McGarr Symposium on Sports and Society brought together five members of the editorial team for the Olympic and Paralympic Analysis report. Participants included:
Dr. Alina Bernstein from the School of Communications, College of Management and the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University in Israel
Dr. Danielle Sarver Coombs from Ravensbourne University in the UK
Dr. Michael Devlin from Texas State University
Dr. Daniel Jackson from Bournemouth University in the UK
The panel reflected on the 2024 Summer Games in Paris and the plethora of insights shared by 100+ scholarly contributors to the report. Symposium speakers discussed a range of topics, including the impact of hosting a sports mega-event, matters of identity and representation among athletes and in sports media, and the inevitable effects of politics on the world's largest sporting spectacle.
Dr. Butterworth moderated the conversation.
2025 Deford Lecture
Joe Buck, ESPN play-by-play commentator, delivered the 2025 Frank Deford Lecture in Sports Journalism on March 3.
In 2022, Buck, along with Troy Aikman, agreed to a to a multi-year deal with ESPN, making him the new play-by-play announcer of Monday Night Football. Buck and Aikman are the NFL’s longest broadcasting tandem in history, beginning their partnership in 2002 as a three-man booth with analyst Cris Collinsworth, before becoming a duo in 2005. Over their 22 seasons together, they have called more than 300 regular-season games, more than 40 playoff matchups, 18 NFC Championships and Super Bowls XXXIX, XLII, XLV, XLVIII, LI and LIV. Both have been nominated for Sports Emmy Awards multiple times, with Buck winning a record-tying eight times for play-by-play. In December 2022, Buck was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame.
The Frank Deford Lecture in Sports Journalism
The Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting
The Center for Sports Communication and Media hosts the Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting as a celebration of the craft and history of sportswriting. Named in honor of the legendary Texan and one of the most accomplished sportwriters of his generation, the Jenkins Medal is awarded annually at a dinner every fall.