Break Into Sports Writing: The Different Types of Sports Articles

Many magazines, newspapers, and websites extensively cover the wonderful world of sport. Millions, perhaps even billions, of fans tune in to watch the world’s biggest sporting events, such as the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The popularity of the world’s foremost sports, such as soccer, basketball, tennis, golf, and baseball, creates a large potential market for freelance article submissions in sports writing.

(How to Break Into the Software Article Writing Market.)

Sports writing is a form of specialized journalism for the reporting of sporting events, matches, athletes, and issues. One of the primary goals of sports writing is to tell compelling stories with some analysis and context. If you’re considering breaking into sports writing, there are various types of articles (or stories) you can submit to sports magazines and websites open to freelance submissions. These are the different types of sports articles that you can submit to websites and magazines.

The match report is one of the bread-and-butter article types of sports writing for newspapers and websites, typically produced by more regular staff writers rather than freelance contributors. Match reports cover what happened during games and put results into context. Such articles typically follow a traditional who, what, when, and where format. Some match reports also focus on more dramatic moments, with feature leads as an alternative to presenting chronological summaries.

Everybody has an opinion on their favorite sports, right? Opinion pieces are articles for expressing opinions on various aspects of sports, such as matches, coaches, players, events, and other sporting topics of debate. Strict objectivity is not necessarily essential for sport opinion pieces, as it is for historical accounts, but you should try to back up arguments and claims with evidence and statistics.

Opinion pieces can have column or list-style formats. I am a regular Stadium Rant contributor myself, and many of my sporting opinion articles have a list-style format. Such articles can be based on present-day or historical sporting topics. For example, many fans debate who the greatest soccer players in history are, both in the club and international game. You can read examples of sports opinion articles on these pages:

The match preview is a type of sports article that sets the stage and generates anticipation for upcoming games on fixture lists. These articles preview matches by providing injury updates, reflecting on recent head-to-head histories, analyzing matchups, and even predicting results. Effective match previews do more than merely tell readers when the games start by explaining why they matter. Thus, match previews can be considered viewing guides that discuss storylines to watch out for in upcoming games.

Sport is about legacies, and many fans (myself included) love reading nostalgia articles about football, golf, tennis, baseball, cricket, basketball, and other major sports. Historical retrospectives are articles that look back on the iconic matches, memorable seasons, great players, stadium histories, and sporting tournaments from the past. The purpose of retrospective articles is to remember sports history and reflect on it. You can also mix opinion into some retrospective pieces to reflect on sporting history through a modern lens. These are examples of sports history articles:

Historical retrospectives are more suitable for non-regular freelance article submissions than match reports, sport news, and previews because they’re evergreen articles. For example, When Saturday Comes is a soccer (or football in England) magazine open to freelance submissions for historical retrospectives. That magazine includes a regular Season in Brief feature for remembering past seasons. The FourFourTwo magazine and website are also open to freelance pitching and include retrospective list-style football features.

Season previews are the seasonal equivalents of their match-related counterparts. This type of sports article looks ahead to an entire season on the horizon. They are typically somewhat longer than match previews and are broken down for specific divisions or teams. Season previews report on the big new signings made during transfer windows, managerial changes, and discuss teams’ prospects for upcoming seasons. Some seasonal previews also include pre-season predictions for where sides will finish.

Most sports websites and papers include regular news stories from the sporting world. Sports news stories tell readers about the latest transfers, cup draws, player injuries, team triumphs, and other sporting gossip. These news pieces are typically relatively short, to the point, and factual. Reporting the details of sporting stories is one thing, but these articles should also discuss the implications of the news.

Sport news articles aren’t usually suitable for non-regular freelance submissions because they need to be submitted and published promptly. Some sports websites recruit freelance contributors to submit news pieces to them on a regular basis. You can read examples of sports news articles on these pages:

These are human interest articles primarily about the more famous players (or athletes) and managers (coaches) in sports. Such articles cover the backgrounds and careers of current or retired players and reflect on their sporting impact. However, they can also be more technical data-driven articles about players’ on-pitch performances, or even a mixture of both.

Sport travel pieces are sporting articles with travel angles. These articles can be about fan travel experiences, stadiums, and city or town locations of sports teams. They can be club profiles, travellers’ tales from fans, and sport-oriented country guides.

Football Weekends is an example of a sports travel magazine that’s open to freelance article submissions. That magazine has an In The Frame photo album section for articles with football travel themes. Or you can pitch traveller’s tale articles about match day experiences to Football Weekends. You can read the contributor guidelines on this Football Weekends page.

To break into sports writing, you must first find some suitable magazines or websites to pitch article titles to, such as When Saturday Comes, Football Weekends, and FourFourTwo. Then try pitching titles for the different types of sports articles discussed here. I recommend pitching sports travel, opinion, player profiles, and historical retrospective articles to print magazines or sites that are open to non-regular freelance submissions. To write sporting news, game previews, match reports, and seasonal previews, your best bet would be to join a sports website recruiting regular contributors.

If a particular sport is your passion, sports writing could be an ideal niche to break into. Remember that the goal of most sports article types is to tell stories that go beyond the basic scoreboards. The best sports journalism provides unique perspectives and storytelling about athletic drama for fans to read before and after watching the games.