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Tech is changing sports journalism, says ESPN’s Adam Schefter at Penn Law’s Sports Law Symposium

February 24, 2015

Adam Schefter delivered the keynote speech for the Penn Law Sports Law Symposium, which focused on the intersection of sports and enterta...
Adam Schefter delivered the keynote speech for the Penn Law Sports Law Symposium, which focused on the intersection of sports and entertainment in relation to business and law.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter delivered the keynote speech for the Penn Law Sports Law Symposium and discussed how social media is changing the landscape of journalism.

By Jillian Gutstein C’16 and Sarah Hampton C’17

On February 13, 2015, Adam Schefter delivered the keynote speech for the Penn Law Sports Law Symposium, which focused on the intersection of sports and entertainment in relation to business and law.

Schefter currently works as an ESPN football analyst and, according to New York Magazine, is “The Most Influential Tweeter in New York.”

Schefter claimed he didn’t set out to be where he is now. Before working for ESPN, he was as a student newspaper editor at the University of Michigan and then later, a reporter covering the Denver Broncos.

As a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Schefter emphasized that newspapers, where he spent 16 years of his career, are his “roots.” “I never had the mindset to want to be on TV,” he said.

“It used to be to me that newspapers were sacred ground,” he added.

News today is a news cycle on steroids, Schefter explained. With the Internet and social media news isn’t reported every 24 hours; it’s reported 24 seconds.

“Twitter has changed the way that we cover sports and we look at sports,” he said. People post news by the minute, but once something is posted, it’s out there forever and can’t be gotten back.

“I’d rather be second, third, last on the story, than be wrong on the story,” he said.

The conference, titled “The Intersection of Sports and Entertainment,” included panels on topics such as broadcasting and media rights, challenges of managing facilities with a cross appeal between sports and entertainment, and the emergence of conglomerate sports.

“This is our second annual sports law symposium,” said Max Goodman, a second year Penn Law student and a board member of the Entertainment and Sports Law Society. “No one else is really doing anything like this by bringing together the biggest names in sports and entertainment law and putting them in one room to cover interesting topics.”

Tweets from this event: