Up to 15 sport staff are being made redundant at the Mail titles as publisher DMG Media continues a broader digital shift across the business.
The cuts coincide with sport journalist job cuts elsewhere in the industry, coming shortly after star Times writer Henry Winter was made redundant and a month after sports betting business Livescore laid off its news team.
Mail staff had been told earlier this month to expect “significant restructuring” on the sports desk.
Those affected include cricket correspondent Paul Newman, racing correspondent Marcus Townend, Spanish football reporter Pete Jenson and chief sports reporter Matt Hughes, as well as several production staff.
Despite previous reports that rugby union correspondent Chris Foy had also lost his job Press Gazette understands he remains in his role.
Affected staff will leave the paper by the middle of May.
Lee Clayton, the Mail’s global publisher for sport, previously emailed staff saying the desk would be changed “with a digital team leading the commissioning process, supported by newspaper experts who can publish print editions to tight deadlines”.
Sport redundancies latest in more than year-long Daily Mail digital shift
The cuts mark the latest in ongoing changes at DMG Media as it shifts emphasis towards digital production and faces ongoing decline in the size of the print business.
In late 2022 staff at the Daily Mail and Mail Online, which had long been kept separate, were told the two titles would stop producing rival versions of the same stories and that more print journalists would write digital-first stories.
A few months later Metro editor Ted Young stepped down to be succeeded by Metro.co.uk editor Deborah Arthurs, who has since implemented “one clear editorial voice” across both the print and web versions of the brand and added “.co.uk” to the newspaper’s name.
In March 2023 staff at the print Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday were told the papers would be brought “much closer together” as audiences shifted online, and dozens of journalists at the titles took redundancy as a result the following May.
Sport teams at the Mail titles have been cut: four senior sports journalists at the Mail on Sunday left in October and this January four of seven sports writers at the Scottish Daily Mail were put at risk of redundancy.
Away from job cuts, the digital shift has led the Mail titles to start putting ten to 15 articles per day behind an online paywall.
News team cut at sports betting company Livescore
Separately from the Mail news Press Gazette has learned betting business Livescore laid off its news team in March, replacing their coverage with stories aggregated from the web. Press Gazette understand around 15 jobs are affected.
Livescore runs an eponymous sports betting app and Virgin Bet, and had previously employed journalists to write about sports news for the app and its website. It continues to provide news stories and predictions to supplement its betting services, but most content is now provided by agencies PA Media and Spotlight Sports Group.
Livescore declined to comment.
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
