Early history The Sporting News (
TSN) published its first edition on March 17, 1886, in St. Louis. Founded by
Alfred H. Spink, a director of the
St. Louis Browns baseball team, the weekly newspaper sold for five cents and focused primarily on baseball, horse racing, and professional wrestling. At the time, other prominent sporting weeklies such as
Clipper and
Sporting Life operated out of New York and Philadelphia. By World War I, however,
TSN had emerged as the only national newspaper devoted to baseball. In 1901, the American League began play as a rival to the National League, and
TSN became an outspoken supporter of the new league and its founder,
Ban Johnson. Both advocated reforms intended to improve the sport's integrity, including efforts to eliminate gambling, curb liquor sales at ballparks, and discourage assaults on umpires. In 1903,
TSN editor Arthur Flanner helped draft the National Agreement, which established peace between the two leagues and laid the foundation for the modern
World Series. The publication's cultural influence continued to grow in 1904, when New York photographer
Charles Conlon began taking portraits of major league players as they passed through the city's three ballparks: the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Ebbets Field. Many of his photographs were featured in
TSN and later became enduring visual records of baseball's early history. Leadership of the publication remained within the founding family when Alfred Spink's son,
J. G. Taylor Spink, assumed control of the paper in 1914. Under his tenure,
TSN further solidified its central role in baseball culture. In 1936, the publication introduced the first major league
Sporting News Player of the Year Award, honoring New York Giants pitcher
Carl Hubbell. The award became the oldest major individual honor in Major League Baseball and remains notable for being voted on by MLB players. Although long closely associated with baseball, the publication gradually broadened its coverage. In 1942, it began providing in-season football coverage, and in 1946 it launched an eight-page football-focused tabloid titled
The Quarterback, later renamed
All-Sports News as coverage expanded to include professional and college basketball and hockey. Following J. G. Taylor Spink's death in 1962, leadership passed to his son, C. C. Johnson Spink. That same year, the
Baseball Writers' Association of America established the
J. G. Taylor Spink Award in his honor, naming Spink himself as the first recipient. The publication continued to modernize during this period, publishing its first full-color photograph in 1967—a cover image featuring Baltimore Orioles star
Frank Robinson. Ownership of the publication changed hands several times beginning in the late 20th century. The Spink family sold
TSN to
Times Mirror in 1977. In 1981, C. C. Johnson Spink sold the publication to the
Tribune Company. In 1991,
The Sporting News transitioned from a newspaper format into a glossy, full-color all-sports magazine. The brand expanded into digital media in 1996 by serving as a sports content provider for AOL, followed by the launch of sportingnews.com in 1997. In 2000, Tribune sold the company to Vulcan Inc., led by
Paul Allen. The following year, Vulcan acquired the One on One Sports radio network and rebranded it as
Sporting News Radio. In 2002, the magazine dropped the definite article from its title and became simply
Sporting News (
SN), a change reflected on subsequent covers. Vulcan sold the publication to Advance Media in 2006, which placed it under the supervision of
American City Business Journals. Beginning in 2007, the organization initiated a relocation from its longtime home in St. Louis to ACBJ's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. The move was completed in 2008, the same year the publication transitioned to a bi-weekly schedule.
Transition to digital publication In 2011,
Sporting News announced a deal to take over editorial control of
AOL's sports website
FanHouse. In December 2012, after 126 years,
Sporting News published its final issue as a print publication, and shifted to becoming a digital-only publication. The following March, ACBJ contributed
Sporting News into a joint venture with the U.S. assets of sports data company
Perform Group, known as Perform Sporting News Limited and doing business as Sporting News Media. Perform owned 65% of Sporting News Media.
Sporting News would join Perform Group's other domestic properties, such as its video syndication unit ePlayer and its soccer website
Goal.com. Almost immediately after the venture was established,
Sporting News laid off 13 staff writers. Perform Group acquired the remainder of Sporting News Media in 2015. Under Perform's ownership,
Sporting News shifted to a more
tabloid-like editorial direction. Following Perform's acquisition of ACBJ's remaining stake, it began to align itself more closely with the company's other units, including replacing
Associated Press articles with Perform's own Omnisport wire service for articles and video content (which began to constitute a sizable portion of the site's overall content). In the summer of 2020,
Lindenwood University of
St. Charles, Missouri, acquired the archives collection of
The Sporting News from ACBJ. In December 2020, DAZN Group sold Sporting News to a private investment consortium, which became Sporting News Holdings. ==Athlete of the Year==