How To Become A Sports Reporter: What It Is and Career Path

What is a sports reporter and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted Expert

Darel La Prade

Sports Reporters gather relevant information and report on sports news in an engaging and informative manner through various media outlets. They usually report on news regarding sports teams, sports events, athletes, coaches, and fans.

A sports reporter may work for television or radio stations, online publications, newspapers, or even networks. The job of a sports reporter involves a lot of traveling because they need to go to the field to cover sports events or to interview athletes.

A sports reporter may choose to specialize in the coverage of a particular sport (e.g., football) or to cover all sports. Nonetheless, their reporting content must be factual and accurate.

Some other duties of a sports reporter include researching and fact-checking sports news, interviewing sports personalities, taking photographs and shooting videos, and writing detailed articles for publication.

Since a sports reporter performs most of his/her or her work in the field, they don't usually have regular working hours. They must be on call all the time because they work with their interviewees' schedules.

What general advice would you give to a Sports Reporter?

Darel La Prade

Senior Vice President, Independent Newsmedia, Inc.

The pandemic and the necessity to keep everyone safe have affected every aspect of the newspaper business. We are still hiring as needed, of course. Still, we are putting more emphasis than ever on recruiting digital natives for all our positions, whether in editorial, sales, or circulation. It only makes sense. In-person training and orientation are limited, so much of a new person's introduction to our company, its values, and culture, is now passed on digitally. We need people who are comfortable with video-conferencing and using collaborative software like Teams. More than ever, we need motivated self-managers, who take responsibility for their training and improvement. Then, of course, all of this also applies to our workflow, which is now more digital and remote than ever.

ScoreSports ReporterUS Average

Salary

7.5

Avg. Salary $96,119

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability Level

7.3

Growth Rate -10%

Growth Rate 0.3%

Diversity

5.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.30%

Asian 8.54%

Black or African American 6.64%

Hispanic or Latino 13.26%

Unknown 4.43%

White 66.84%

Gender

female 20.94%

male 79.06%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress Level

7.3

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity Level

8.9

Complexity Level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work Life Balance

2.1

Work Life balance is very poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a sports reporter

Explore sports reporter education requirements

Most common sports reporter degrees

Bachelor's

87.4 %

Associate

6.0 %

Master's

3.3 %

Start to develop specific sports reporter skills

Skills	Percentages
Twitter	7.35%
Facebook	6.58%
Feature Stories	6.16%
Sports Coverage	6.00%
Sports Stories	5.57%

Complete relevant sports reporter training and internships

Accountants spend an average of Less than 1 month on post-employment, on-the-job training. New sports reporters learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a sports reporter based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real sports reporter resumes.

Research sports reporter duties and responsibilities

Manage the day-to-day production of the Olympics section as needed.
Assist with play-by-play commentary for local high school sports including: football, soccer, volleyball, baseball, and basketball.
Cover games for the men's ice hockey and basketball teams, as well as, the women's soccer team.
Earn repeated commendations for excellence in writing, reporting, photojournalism and infographics.

Prepare your sports reporter resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your sports reporter resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a sports reporter resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose From 10+ Customizable Sports Reporter Resume templates

Build a professional Sports Reporter resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your Sports Reporter resume.

Apply for sports reporter jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a sports reporter job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do sports reporters rate their job?

-/5

5 Stars

4 Stars

3 Stars

2 Stars

1 Star

Sports Reporter reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Apr 2020

Pros

Being creative, making your own hours, attending city council meetings, getting to know the mayor and members of the city council and writing about accused felons on trial.

Cons

Things get slow during the holidays. Staff reporters resent stringers.

A zippia user wrote a review on Sep 2019