Victor Wembanyama is all the rage. The 7-foot-4 shot-blocking, rim-destroying, opponent-embarrassing center from Le Chesnay, France, has been dominating headlines after leading the upstart San Antonio Spurs to 62 wins and a spot in the NBA Finals.
Yet, despite earning nicknames like “The Extraterrestrial” and “Alien” en route to becoming the next face of the NBA, Wembanyama remains something of a mystery.
Sure, the 22-year-old big man appears regularly in social media clips, team and league-produced videos, branded content and agent-influenced storytelling, giving fans the impression that they know him well — in some cases, enough to develop parasocial relationships. But what we know about Wembanyama has been carefully curated to fit into a wholesome narrative — one that the player, team and league want to push.
For instance, basketball fans know that Wembanyama is enormously tall and athletic from the highlight clips the Spurs post to social media, but do they know that his parents are both former competitive athletes? Avid readers know that he enjoys reading fantasy from a New York Times story, but do they know where his love of reading comes from? And Spurs fans know he spent last summer training with Shaolin monks in a 1,500-year-old Chinese Monastery due to an ESPN feature, but do they know why?
In another era, reporters covering him daily might have uncovered more details about the man behind the phenomenon. But in 2026, as in-house content replaces sports journalism in ever-expanding ways, Wembanyama is closed off to the media. And as a result, we are not privy to the more complex details that once made these larger-than-life athletes feel human and relatable. In this, Wembanyama is not alone.
“We (see) these people more and more, but we know less about them than we ever have,” said Andrew Haubner, who has worked in sports media since 2013 for companies like CBS and ABC and now runs the “No Cap Space” Substack. “We know the brand more than we ever have; we know the person even less.”
From journalism to in-house content
Welcome to the post-journalism era of professional sports, where traditional journalism is being replaced by in-house content.
Although journalism has historically played a major role in helping professional sports leagues reach new audiences and grow their bottom lines, there has been a fundamental shift in how sports stories are told.
Since the advent of YouTube in 2005, athletes have been able to share intimate details of their lives with fans without involving the press. In 2014, the historically guarded New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter started The Players’ Tribune, giving athletes “the tools they need to share what they really think and feel,” Jeter wrote in his first post. “We want to have a way to connect directly with our fans, with no filter.”
It marked the beginning of an explosion of player, team and league-produced content, from fun social media clips to behind-the-scenes access videos on YouTube to player-hosted podcasts like “The Draymond Green Show” and documentaries like Michael Jordan’s “The Last Dance.”
Former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter attends the launch party for The Players’ Tribune in New York on Feb. 14, 2015. The athlete-driven media platform helped usher in an era in which players could communicate directly with fans without relying on traditional journalists. (Andy Kropa/Invision/AP)
“Everybody wants to have their platform,” said three-time NBA champion Danny Green. “People are realizing: Why give away this good information or these hidden gems to people when they can have their own platform and make a living off of it?”
Meanwhile, journalists have attempted to keep doing their jobs in an environment marked by heightened team control, punitive access restrictions and a general distrust of the press — not to mention their bosses shying away from long-form storytelling as shrinking newsrooms and relentless audience pressures push coverage toward faster, more measurable forms of content — becoming strangers to the very people they were attempting to cover.
“When I started (in 2002) … you’d go to practice and you’d get all the main guys,” said ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne. “And you felt like if you were there almost every day, or most of the time, that you would get to know the players and they would get to know you.”
“Now, they’re all protected,” ESPN’s Michael Wilbon said. “I mean, no teams do that anymore.”
Out of a desire to protect, they shelter
Since he was a teenage prodigy growing up in France, Wembanyama was seen as a unicorn who could change the NBA indefinitely. So, when the Spurs selected him first overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, they did everything in their power to protect their prized child from the swarms of media descending upon San Antonio. And it just so happened that their power was growing.
Instead of being made available for informal interviews in the locker room, as the collective bargaining agreement mandates, Wembanyama only ever speaks to reporters during press conferences — by nature a less intimate and more adversarial setting. During times of political upheaval, the Spurs’ public relations team prepares him with specific media-trained answers. French reporters who moved across the Atlantic to cover Wembanyama only get one question in their native language per session. And forget about one-on-one interviews, where journalists have historically been able to build a rapport with athletes and draw vulnerable information out of them — Wembanyama doesn’t even speak to the most plugged-in reporters.
“You talk about wanting to be the greatest player that ever lived,” ESPN’s Michael C. Wright said on “Howdy Partners” after Wembanyama skipped his mandatory media session after Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals. “Well, talking to the media when you had a rough night, that’s a part of it.”
It used to be, at least. But everything changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when locker rooms were closed to the media for safety reasons and never reopened to the same extent. By 2021, professional athletes could reach the public directly, bypassing the press, and the relationship between the two grew increasingly antagonistic.
Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese (5) shoots during a game against the Dallas Wings in Arlington, Texas, on May 12, 2026. Reese, who hosts the podcast “Unapologetically Angel,” is among a growing number of athletes building their own media platforms. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
“I’ll take a fine before I have to go media and feel like my back is against the wall,” WNBA star Angel Reese said during an appearance on Michelle Obama’s “IMO Podcast.” And why wouldn’t she? In an era where WNBA stars are living increasingly under the microscope, Reese has her own podcast, “Unapologetically Angel,” where she can get her own message across with greater control and clarity, without having to answer challenging questions from combative reporters.
The proliferation of smartphone cameras and algorithms drumming up extreme content on social media has only exacerbated the problem. Now, everything an athlete says can be recorded, cut up, aggregated and misrepresented online through bad-faith actors. (It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s the press doing it, because most young people see no difference between the media and social media.)
In a world where athletes get little to no privacy on or off the court, it’s no wonder they shrink away from the media as much as possible, especially now that there is a safer alternative.
What’s missing in this new media environment
Much of what fans consume now originates with teams, leagues and athletes rather than independent journalists.
This shift can be seen through the diminishing number of local beat reporters, coupled with slashed travel budgets and an increased reliance on wire coverage. Meanwhile, leagues like the WNBA that were historically open and accessible to media recently got much more restrictive, mimicking the NBA by introducing a two-tiered system where only select media can interview athletes informally.
Now, teams run full-blown media companies out of their own buildings, employing photographers, videographers, podcasters and writers in charge of showcasing the best aspects of their teams and athletes to fans and potential sponsors. American colleges were the first to fully incorporate media into their athletic departments, but pro teams like Manchester City are following suit, building a media studio inside their training facility.
In-house content is curated not by journalists but instead runs through several levers of league, team and player control before ever being presented to the fans. That includes the increasingly rich and powerful people atop the sports world, who can and do showcase only one side of themselves — the good side — without any honesty, intricacy or accountability from the press.
Plus, what fans see increasingly comes through controlled channels. With less journalistic access, there’s less reporting on who fought on the bench or who said what in a timeout, what happened behind the scenes in contract negotiations or locker room meetings, and other revealing details about the mistakes and blemishes that have historically made our favorite athletes seem more human and relatable.
An empty NHL visitors’ locker room is seen at Capital One Arena in Washington on March 12, 2020. As access to players has become more restricted, many of the spaces that once produced the most revealing sports journalism have largely disappeared from reporters’ daily routines. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
“Athletes of that caliber do play a role in people’s lives as inspirational figures,” Haubner said. “And as opposed to allowing for a discussion to be had around the humanity of a person, what the agents and team PR and all these guys are doing is … acting like you’re (a) run-of-the-mill Italian or Jewish mom who, in her pursuit of trying to make sure her baby is safe, she wraps him in bubble wrap.”
But it’s not always done with ill intent. Now, the people making the decisions are content creators, not journalists, and they don’t always have the skills to get to the heart of issues fans care about.
“Confronting someone more powerful, wealthy, and famous than you about sticky issues that may create an uncomfortable moment is the name of the game, and it’s quite difficult to do for a reason,” Tanya Chen wrote in Fast Company. “It also takes real gumption and an obsession to delve into the meaty material of something (research, sitting with a piece of work to understand it holistically and profoundly, and an interrogation of your own personal biases).”
Jordan’s “The Last Dance” docuseries offers a great example. While entertaining, it told an uncomplicated and one-sided account of a difficult and antagonistic person’s legacy. In-house productions like the NFL’s “Wide Receiver” and NBA’s “Starting Five” do something similar, highlighting players in a more comfortable but ultimately less holistic and satisfying way, which can become a problem if a lack of honest storytelling creates a worse connection between athletes and potential new fans.
“Expression has just evolved,” said Wilbon, putting a positive spin on this change.
“You can get frustrated by it, but I have chosen to see it as a challenge,” Shelburne added.
The future of sports media
One can’t help but wonder who the next great investigative reporters and profile writers will be when independent journalists are finding it increasingly difficult to build relationships with high-profile athletes and develop fresh perspectives. And forget about doing it while trying to gain or at least maintain some semblance of access.
“There is a particular investigative story I’m working on,” said Maya Goldberg-Safir, the creator of the “Rough Notes” women’s basketball Substack. “And I’m like: How am I supposed to make that as an indie if I want to be allowed back into the press room?”
In recent weeks, a Vancouver Canucks reporter and an Indiana Fever reporter both had their press credentials revoked without a reasonable explanation from the teams.
“What I can say is that this latest action follows a pattern that has made it increasingly difficult for an independent journalist to provide the type of on-the-ground coverage that readers deserve,” Scott Agnes, the Fever reporter, wrote on his Substack.
This power shift is happening outside of sports, too. In every industry, from politics to entertainment, traditional journalism is being replaced by influencers, podcasters and in-house content that reflects more favorably upon the subjects. (American influencer Jake Shane has said that he allows all his interview guests to vet their appearances, which is typically not allowed in journalism.) In all of these industries, enough gets through for fans to get the impression that these celebrities are being vulnerable and accountable.
But “the actual thing of discovering new information, it’s just not incentivized anymore,” said journalist and podcast host Pablo Torre on “The Joe Budden Podcast.” “Today, in 2025, there is the biggest gap between what rich and powerful people want you to know, and what is actually happening in reality.”
“That gap has never been bigger. And especially in sports.”
