Joshua Mbu
Joshua Mbu ties together the major U.S. sports leagues with a focus on how competitive storylines, business decisions, and off-court disputes shape the wider sports conversation. He works on the sports desk at the Mirror U.S., concentrating on NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and other American competitions for a general audience. His coverage often explains why a specific game, promotion or controversy matters beyond the box score, drawing out the commercial and legal angles around star athletes and teams.
U.S. sports beat across leagues
Joshua is a senior sports reporter for the Mirror U.S., where his remit spans the major American professional and college competitions. His author profile sets out a broad topic range that includes the NFL, NBA, NHL, college football, college basketball, college sports more generally, football, NASCAR, Formula 1, tennis, boxing, MMA and BMX racing. Within that breadth he is positioned as a generalist across U.S. sports rather than a single-team reporter, moving between leagues as news and talking points develop. The desk expectation described in his profile is that he “regularly” writes on the major U.S. leagues, which places him in the flow of day-to-day fixtures, postseason runs and off-field developments across multiple sports.
That multi-league brief means his work is useful when a story touches more than one sport or when a communications plan needs someone used to switching between different rulesets and fan bases.
NBA and player narratives off the court
His coverage of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s dispute with Underdog Sports shows how he approaches NBA stories that blend marketing, image and legal rights. In that piece he explains a promotional board game called “Unethical Hoops,” styled on Operation and built around a cartoon version of the Oklahoma City Thunder star known for drawing fouls.
He lays out how the game’s concept mocked Gilgeous-Alexander’s foul-drawing reputation and then tracks the escalation from a viral promotion to a formal cease-and-desist letter sent by the player’s lawyer. The article details the demands in that letter, including a requirement that Underdog permanently stop using Gilgeous-Alexander’s name, image and likeness and destroy all physical copies of the game. Joshua structures the story as a clear chronology - promotion, backlash, legal response - while quoting from legal correspondence reported elsewhere to anchor his explanation of the publicity-rights issues at stake.
The end result is a piece that is as much about intellectual property, athlete branding and the limits of parody as it is about an NBA MVP’s on-court reputation.
Combat sports and motorsport coverage
Beyond ball sports, Joshua’s stated topic expertise covers combat sports such as boxing and MMA alongside motorsports including NASCAR, Formula 1 and BMX racing. That mix places him at the crossover of television-driven events, sponsorship-heavy disciplines and individual-athlete narratives. His author profile positions these sports alongside the major U.S. leagues, indicating that he is a regular hand for pieces where fight schedules, title races or high-risk events generate wider headlines. This breadth is useful when a story touches both competitive performance and commercial partners, as is often the case in motorsport and combat sports where broadcast deals and promotional campaigns drive visibility.
Digital sports desk background
Joshua has spent three years with Reach PLC working on the Mirror U.S. sports operation. Before joining the Mirror he worked for three years as a digital sports reporter at The Sun, giving him a solid run of experience in fast-paced online sports newsrooms. That background signals a comfort with quick-turn coverage, live news cycles and explainer pieces that need to be assembled from multiple external reports and official documents. It also means he is used to translating detailed material - such as legal letters or technical competition formats - into accessible copy for a broad readership.
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