Zachary Pereles
Zachary Pereles focuses on the moments when major sports news crosses into business, ownership and off-field change, writing quick, fact-forward pieces that explain why those moves matter for fans. He is a sports writer for CBS Sports, with work that centers on high-profile athletes and the teams and leagues they help shape.
Off-field moves by on-field stars
Pereles pays close attention to how star players use their stature away from the field, court or diamond.
In his coverage of Travis Kelce buying a minority stake in the Cleveland Guardians, he treats the story as more than a novelty, laying out how an NFL star’s investment alters the picture for an MLB franchise and its fan base. He highlights the hometown connection, the structure of the stake, and the broader trend of active players moving into ownership roles, giving readers a clear sense of where this fits in the larger sports-business landscape. That approach typifies his interest in the places where athlete celebrity, team identity and financial power overlap.
News-driven coverage across major U.S. leagues
Working on the news desk, Pereles writes in a concise, update-focused style that is built for fast-moving sports cycles. His pieces are built around a clean summary of the core development in the headline, followed by the immediate implications for the teams and leagues involved. Rather than long features, his work reads as timely dispatches: a key move or decision, the essential details, and enough recent context for a plugged-in fan to understand why it matters without slowing the story down.
That format lets him move quickly between leagues when a story warrants it, such as an NFL figure stepping into an MLB ownership group.
Explaining business and ownership implications
A recurring thread in Pereles’ work is an emphasis on what deals, stakes and structural changes mean in practice, not just that they happened.
In the Kelce–Guardians story, he spells out what a minority stake entails, how it fits into modern ownership models, and what it signals about the appeal of particular franchises to outside investors. He writes about these topics in plain language, keeping the focus on outcomes for teams and fans rather than financial jargon.
That makes his coverage useful for readers who follow the games closely but need a clear, quick explanation when business news and ownership shifts start to drive the sports conversation.
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.