Allen Devlin
Allen Devlin covers sports for CBS News, focusing on how major games play out not just on the court but in the lives and wallets of the fans who follow them. His work on New York basketball shows a consistent interest in atmosphere, anticipation and access, treating big events as citywide moments rather than just box scores.
Big-game basketball and New York fan energy
Devlin’s coverage of the Knicks’ return to the NBA Finals centers on the experience of being a fan in New York at a historic moment. In his reporting on Knicks fan excitement for the Finals at Madison Square Garden, he concentrates on the build-up around the arena, the sense of shared momentum and what it means for long-time followers of the team.
He writes about the Finals as a cultural event for the city, using the Knicks as a lens on how a fan base reacts when a perennial storyline finally turns.
Ticket prices and the business side of the game
A defining element of Devlin’s sports reporting is his attention to the economics around marquee events. In the Knicks Finals coverage, he treats soaring ticket prices as a central part of the story, looking at how demand for seats at Madison Square Garden pushes costs “through the roof” and what that does to who can actually be in the building. He connects secondary market prices, scarcity and fan expectations, showing how the financial stakes around a game shape the atmosphere and who gets to participate in it.
Event-driven reporting with a fan-access lens
Devlin works on deadline coverage keyed to the sports calendar, using big-stage moments like the NBA Finals to explore the pressures and trade-offs fans face. His reporting balances the emotional high of a long-awaited run with clear-eyed detail on what it costs to be part of it, whether at the arena or following from outside. That mix of scene-setting and price-conscious reporting makes his work particularly relevant when a story sits at the intersection of major-league excitement, local pride and the practical realities of attending a game.
4 more sports journalists.
Adair Reid
Adair Reid is a sports columnist for The Cavalier Daily who covers Virginia men’s programs with a blunt, fan-aware voice that treats them as long-term projects rather than one-off games. He focuses on trajectory, legacy and risk, using opinion columns to question coaching decisions and program strategy while grounding his arguments in recent results, records, tournament performance and roster realities. Men’s lacrosse is a recurring subject, and his work on the program’s coaching change shows how he uses a single decision to examine overall health, standards and competitive standing. He frames games in terms of stakes, identity and institutional expectations, emphasizing postseason implications, recruiting, national perception and alignment with a championship standard. He writes mostly in the first person only when needed, keeps the spotlight on institutional choices and brings analysis-first, evidence-based judgment to Virginia’s flagship men’s teams.
Adam Stern
Adam Stern covers the business of motorsports and combat sports at Sports Business Journal, focusing on how sponsorships, media deals and new events reshape racing and fighting. His beat includes NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, NHRA, rallycross, UFC and boxing. He tracks brands, broadcasters, manufacturers, promoters and streaming platforms, with reporting on sponsorship strategy, rights deals, original content, series growth, team projects and technical regulations. He examines how Cadillac’s Formula 1 entry supports broader marketing aims, how F1 Academy builds commercial momentum and whether new MMA promotions can challenge UFC. His work includes short speed reads on deals and longer features on multi-party investments. He reports on the money and strategy behind the action, treating motorsports and combat sports as connected marketplaces shaped by branding, dealmaking and media innovation.
Albert Burneko
Albert Burneko writes about how systems of power bear down on ordinary people, using sports, politics, technology, food, and domestic life as entry points. He is an assignment editor and writer at Defector and part of its founding ownership group. His politics and capital reporting examines how policy, policing, and public rhetoric turn into harm for specific people, centering victims and vulnerable people. He also covers artificial intelligence, media criticism, and technology’s effects, asking who benefits and who absorbs the costs. His domestic writing focuses on parenting, bodily discomfort, and everyday frustration. His recurring Chefector column turns cooking failures into comic studies of impatience, ego, and routine. He writes sharp reported essays, first-person dispatches, mock explainers, and sports-adjacent guides. His work combines moral seriousness, comic voice, close attention to ordinary life, and a focus on how people live under larger systems.
Albert Samaha
Albert Samaha is a sports investigative reporter who uses games to examine how power, money and culture shape players, workers, fans and communities. He works in The Washington Post sports section, covering global tournaments, migration, fan culture, sports betting, match-fixing, ownership, NIL money, football safety, participation gaps and the changing culture of women’s basketball. His reporting connects events on the field to decisions in boardrooms, betting markets, government offices and law enforcement. He previously reported for BuzzFeed News and wrote for the Village Voice, San Francisco Weekly and the Riverfront Times. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, The New York Times and The Paris Review. He writes long, deeply reported stories that combine narrative scenes, data analysis, public records, medical records and other documents.