On Wednesday morning, after weeks of rumors, Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray told his staff that the paper’s sports section is effectively dead.
‘We will be closing the Sports department in its current form,” Murray said, as reported by WaPo columnist Barry Svrluga. (Svrluga was not included in the layoffs today; he will cover the Olympics from Italy.)
The Post will still run features, but its regular Sports coverage – including beats for the Nationals, Wizards, and Capitals – will not continue. Bailey Johnson, beat writer for the Capitals since 2023, did not travel with the team to Philadelphia. She confirmed on X that she is among the layoffs.
Scott Allen, who has covered every DC team for over a decade, has also been laid off. Allen has been sharing classic WaPo sports pages for the last few days.
— Scott Allen (@ScottSAllen) February 4, 2026
Neil Greenberg, a former RMNBer who ran the betting beat for the Post, says he is also among those whose positions were eliminated.
“If any media outlet needs a data-driven sportswriter who can produce millions of page views let me know,” Greenberg wrote on X. “March Madness is coming up.”
Spencer Nusbaum covered the Washington Nationals through their post-championship struggles. He was part of today’s layoffs.
Sarah Larimer has worked at the Post since 2014 and has served as an editor for the sports department since 2019. You have not seen her byline, but you have felt her work.
Sam Fortier covered the Commanders and Nationals for the Post before switching to the national beat. He is among the layoffs today.
Varun Shankar left his position as beat writer for the Washington Wizards before the layoffs came. He now works for the Houston Chronicle covering the Houston Rockets.
There are surely more firings we don’t know about – people behind the scenes who made departments like this run, who made possible the legendary status that the Washington Post Sports section once held and now abandons.
The layoffs reach far beyond sports. John Ourand and Dylan Byers of Puck News report that as many as 300 people have been fired today. The reduction is the latest step of CEO Will Lewis’s regime of restructuring since he was hired in 2023, the same year the paper reportedly lost $100 million.
Lewis’ first step was to reorganize the newsroom, forcing the ouster of esteemed editor Sally Buzbee, along with suppressing the Post’s reporting on his involvement in the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal.
Lewis was hired by CEO/entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, who bought the Washington Post for $250 million in 2013. At the time of the purchase, he released a statement describing the changing landscape of journalism as well as the paper’s responsibility to its readers:
The Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition, some of which bear little or no news-gathering costs. There is no map, and charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about – government, local leaders, restaurant openings, scout troops, businesses, charities, governors, sports – and working backwards from there. I’m excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention.
The Washington Post was the primary text of the Washington Capitals. Running backwards from Ovechkin’s goal record to the Cup to the Young Gun era to Jagr and the fire sale to the first Cup final and all the way back to that cursed inaugural season, the history of the Caps was written on Post letterhead.
On March 28, 1975, the Washington Capitals beat the California Golden Seals to end a historic losing streak. Post staff writer Kenneth Denlinger ran this column the next day. The byline read OAKLAND, Calif., March 29:
The Washington Capitals’ sense of perspective is exquisite. Moments after winning their first-ever road game — after 37 losses — they paraded around the dressing room carrying their “Stanley Cup,” a half-filled wastebasket.
“Everybody’s signed it,” said Doug Mohns, who scored the first goal of the 5-3 victory over the California Golden Seals Friday night. “We’re gonna have the trainer pack it, then when we get back we’ll mount it.”
That is the origin story of the Washington Capitals, told by the Post, the paper that brought us Sally Jenkins, Shirley Povich, Michael Wilbon, Tony Kornheiser, John Feinstein, our beloved Dan Steinberg, and the Katie Carrera “flamethrower” piece. Now it is gone.
