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FootBiz newsletter #140: Points deductions, Ronaldo on strike and ESPN to be sold?
PLUS: England's struggle to find friendlies and some M&A Murmurs
Ed Malyon
February 06, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
This week the Washington Post eliminated hundreds of its journalists’ jobs, the inevitable result of woeful mismanagement of the newspaper under Jeff Bezos.
CEO Will Lewis, a Brit brought over from Murdoch’s titles in London, never got a grasp of what would make the famous old title successful in the digital era, alienated his staff and now doesn’t even turn up to meetings. He never tried to diversify their business model to become a modern digital bundle, a holding company with assets in sports, games and other verticals (in the way the New York Times has with The Athletic, Wordle and Serial). He never tried to differentiate WaPo or drag it into the future. No, faced with a declining business the decision was to simply hope it declines less quickly. Managed decline. In the end, worthy, important and high-quality work was given no chance to succeed by those on the business side of the operation.
The key moment in all this came in late 2024, when fearful of a Trump administration that had promised to vengeful, the Post elected not to endorse a candidate for the election in a break of 50 years of tradition. More than 250,000 subscribers abandoned the Washington Post after Bezos’ supine capitulation, and while it takes a few mathematical assumptions to calculate, based on my experience looking at subscription metrics at a fairly similar publication, that editorial would end costing WaPo around $30-50m depending on a few data points we don’t have access to.
You probably don’t need me to tell you that the tight margins and rough economics of running a news media organisation in 2026 simply cannot absorb a hit like that.
Which ultimately resulted in this week’s layoffs.
It might not feel like that for those involved, and particularly those callously laid off while reporting from warzones, but there is opportunity in media. Many of these people will go onto great things, just not with the employer they had been so dedicated to.
When I started FootBiz, I knew there was a huge pool of talented journalists out there who had been laid off not because of a lack of ability but because their former employers had not evolved their business model. It was also one of the fundamental driving forces behind founding The Athletic, that there is a lot of talent out there being discarded or undervalued by businesses who don’t know what they are doing. There is no doubt we took advantage of that, and that business was sold for $550m after just six years of existence. New media companies can flourish. They just can’t pretend people still want what they used to buy in 1995.
Matt Hughes, who has been the most regular of all contributors and is a partner in the business, has contributed immensely to FootBiz during his time in the freelance world and been nominated for multiple awards in that time. But good work can only be overlooked for so long, and Matt this week has become the Global Sports News Correspondent for The Guardian.
It is not only a great job, but one he has earned the hard way through countless exclusives for national newspapers as a freelancer and consistently excellent work for FootBiz as a key part of the operation.
So going forward you won’t see his name here any longer but it is a lesson for all of those unfortunate enough to be hurting from the loss of a job this week. Many will go on to bigger and better things, hopefully at companies that have a business model that makes sense and can support their work.
Needless to say, we wish Matt all the best in his new role.
Guess you’re just stuck with me now!
Big ol’ newsletter (3,200 words!) on the news and analysis front below the paywall today. Remember that if you’re not yet a premium member it starts at the price of a Cornish pasty.
