New York Times announces it will close down sports department after staff demands answers

Fox News Digital spoke with Larry Buchanan outside the New York Times building ahead of a planned rally by striking employees.

The New York Times has announced it will be closing its internal sports department and will instead cover teams and games through The Athletic, a subscription-based sports website acquired by the company last year.

The shuttering of the sports newsroom, comprised of more than 35 journalists, comes 18 months after The Times bought The Athletic, which boats 400 journalists, for $550 million.

At the time of the acquisition, Chief Executive Officer Meredith Kopit Levien said the sports website would exist as a "stand-alone product." The Athletic staff will now provide much of the coverage around sporting events, players and teams.

The Times will solidify the shift by packaging The Athletic with the current NYTimes.com subscription and promoting the site's articles on the Times homepage.

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The outside of the New York Times Building pictured in midtown Manhattan.  (Fox News Photo/Joshua Comins)

No layoffs are expected as a result of this shakeup and journalists who currently work on the sports desk will move to other rooms within the newsroom. Additionally, some business deck reporters will cover money and power in sports while new angles around sports will be integrated into existing verticals.

Times' Executive Editor Joe Kahn, alongside Deputy Managing Editor Monica Drake, announced the move on Monday, calling it "an evolution in how we cover sports."

"We plan to focus even more directly on distinctive, high-impact news and enterprise journalism about how sports intersect with money, power,