A sports beat writer is a journalist who is assigned to cover a certain sports team. A sports beat writer often covers his or her team year-round, even during the offseason. The job of a sports beat writer varies slightly from sport to sport, but the basic elements are the same. The sports beat writer is typically required to cover every game the team plays – even on long road trips – and write game stories, compile notes and occasionally write features and previews of upcoming games. The sports beat writer is also responsible for breaking news that occurs within the team, be it a big trade or a criminal development involving a player.

While a sports beat writer's focus is generally pretty narrow – since she only has to cover one team in one sport – her writing skills must be varied enough for all the different types of stories she must write. Sports beat writers must know everything there is to know about the sport as it is played on the field, as well as the intricacies of the business side of the sport. The life of a sports beat writer can be as trying as it is thrilling – he practically lives with the team during the season, but he also gets paid to watch sports and meet famous athletes on a daily basis.

The two extremes when it comes to covering a professional sports team – in the four major sports, at least – are baseball and football. A sports beat writer covering a baseball team has the challenge of finding new and interesting ways to report on each game in a 162-game season, but days off are so few that there is rarely time for features or previews. Features usually must be worked on over a long period of time, in the downtime before and after games.

In football, though, the routine is much different. There are only 16 games in a regular season, and there is a full week between each game – and the reporter must come up with a story nearly every day. The days during the week are typically filled with a follow-up story on the previous game; a feature on a player or unit on the team; breaking news stories of injuries, personnel moves, and so on; and a preview of the upcoming game. There is also much less travel in football than in baseball, as the time between away games is usually spent in the team's – and newspaper's – home city.

The offseasons of the two sports are very different, as well. Baseball has a very quiet offseason, which allows for the sports beat writer to recuperate from what can be an exhaustingly long season. Very little is expected from baseball writers before the start of spring training – only major free agent moves or managerial changes require much reporting.

In football, on the other hand, there isn't much of an offseason. The NFL Scouting Combine in February and college draft in April have become popular enough to warrant fairly thorough reporting, and minicamps and training camps keep the beat writer busy until the preseason. The busy offseason balances out what is a relatively relaxed regular season compared to baseball.