Jack Snape
Jack Snape focuses on the power structures, money and politics that shape sport, with a particular emphasis on rugby league and the NRL, rather than on routine match reports. He covers sport for the Guardian with a style that blends news-breaking, document-based reporting and sharp analysis of how administrators’ decisions affect clubs, players and fans.
Rugby league, the NRL and battles for control
Snape’s most distinctive work sits around rugby league governance and the NRL’s internal power struggles. His reporting on the clash between Andrew Abdo and Peter V’landys shows how he treats leadership tussles as a story about authority, performance and perception, not just personality. He returns to themes like boardroom influence, the role of the commission, and how strategic calls on expansion, scheduling or rules are made and sold to the public.
Across his NRL pieces he explains who holds real power in the game, how decisions are contested behind the scenes, and what those decisions mean for the long-term shape of the competition.
He often frames rugby league stories around accountability. Rather than focusing on individual matches or weekly selection dramas, he follows threads such as the handling of crises, the fallout from controversial calls, and the relationship between the league and its clubs. He pays attention to how key figures communicate and manage narratives, and how those narratives land with supporters and other stakeholders. The tone is critical when needed, but driven by evidence and close reading of what officials say and do over time.
Money, media rights and the business of sport
Another recurring focus is the business side of major codes. Snape writes on broadcast deals, commercial partnerships and the financial health of competitions, showing how media rights decisions and sponsorship strategies flow through to players, grassroots programs and fans.
He is interested in how leagues and governing bodies present their financial position, and how that compares with the numbers in public documents and statements.
His coverage often links money back to public interest questions. When he writes about stadiums, expansion or major events, he is attentive to who pays, who benefits and what trade-offs are being made. He scrutinises claims about economic impact and growth, and explores how funding choices affect different codes and communities.
This business lens extends beyond rugby league to other sports when rights, infrastructure or governance arrangements come under pressure.
Governance, integrity and the wider politics of sport
Snape frequently uses individual sports stories to explore broader governance and integrity issues. He covers disputes between players’ bodies and administrators, highlighting how bargaining power and decision-making processes affect athlete welfare and competition integrity. He is drawn to moments where internal politics, regulation and culture collide, whether in disciplinary matters, policy changes or responses to off-field controversies.
He also pays attention to how sport interacts with government and public policy. His pieces on funding decisions, regulatory questions and political involvement in sport examine how ministers, departments and sporting bodies negotiate priorities and credibility. Rather than treating these as sidebars to the on-field action, he places them at the centre of the narrative, explaining how they shape what audiences eventually see in competitions and broadcasts.
Documents, data and analysis-led formats
Snape’s reporting often leans on documents, data and close textual analysis rather than anecdote alone. He draws on reports, official statements and financial or governance papers, making them accessible without losing their precision. When he writes analytically, he breaks complex situations into clear sequences of decisions and consequences, helping readers follow how a dispute or structural problem has built over months or years.
He typically writes in a reported analysis format: there is news in his pieces, but the emphasis is on explaining what it means and how it fits into a longer story arc. He uses quotes sparingly to move the story rather than to decorate it, and he focuses on the systems and incentives driving behaviour.
For communications teams, he is most engaged by stories that intersect with governance, finance and accountability in sport, and that come with enough detail or documentation for him to test claims and place them in a wider context.
4 more sports journalists.
Aaron Timms
Aaron Timms is a sports writer at The Guardian who treats sport as a way to interrogate power structures, media ecosystems and cultural currents rather than to file match reports or transfer gossip. He focuses on sports media, ownership and era‑defining stars, tracking how broadcasting, business and masculinity shape what fans see and feel. His work ranges across football, basketball, US sports media and cricket, with recurring attention to US television networks, commentators, podcasts and the “sports bros” manosphere, and to governance, regulation and money in elite football. He writes about figures such as Kylian Mbappé and Victor Wembanyama as markers of new epochs in sport. Timms has also written for The Sydney Morning Herald, Salon, The Daily Beast, The New York Times and The New York Review of Books.
Adrian Proszenko
Adrian Proszenko is distinct for treating rugby league as a year-round ecosystem, with hard-news reporting on the NRL and the off-field decisions that shape it. He is a senior rugby league reporter for The Age, covering the NRL, State of Origin and elite club competitions. His beat spans player movement, governance and the business of the sport, with frequent reporting on squad changes, injuries, judiciary outcomes, selection calls, contracts, salary cap pressure and club politics. He also covers expansion discussions, franchise bids, venue decisions, broadcast and scheduling issues, and industrial disputes. His work relies on sourced detail from coaches, agents, club officials, administrators and players, and he uses reported news, direct quotes and specific facts to explain how decisions are made and what they mean.
Andrew Wu
Andrew Wu is a sports journalist at The Age whose AFL work uses game nights, especially for big clubs, to test how well teams are built, focusing on structure, depth and pressure rather than just the score. He writes where individual star performances meet system-wide problems, asking why a side can fail even when its marquee players deliver. His match analysis treats each game as evidence in a larger case about a club’s direction, with clear, direct reporting built from player roles, match‑ups and key passages that reveal mentality and adaptability. Wu covers major codes, particularly AFL and cricket, bringing a cross‑code view of how teams manage form, fatigue and selection over long seasons. He is drawn to list balance, system integrity and whether clubs and national sides can turn talent into reliable performance with stakes beyond a single match.
Andrew van Leeuwen
Andrew van Leeuwen covers top-level motorsport with a focus on how rules, governance and competitive dynamics shape what happens on track. He writes for Speedcafe about Supercars and international series, treating officiating and regulation as core competitive factors rather than background noise. His reporting follows how race control and judicial processes influence Supercars outcomes, unpacking stewards’ calls, penalties, protests and appeals and linking them to points, grids and race results. He also runs the week-to-week Supercars beat, tracking race weekends, team form, strategy, technical changes, balance of performance shifts and the driver market. Team principals and drivers feature heavily in his coverage of car development, engineering changes and intra-team dynamics. He consistently explains Gen3 regulations, parity debates, format and calendar changes, and covers major global series through the lens of governance, commercial shifts and high-level regulatory change.