By Taylor Nigrelli
Sports Assignment Editor
Sports Illustrated named St. Bonaventure graduate and current Yahoo Sports NBA columnist, Adrian Wojnarowski ‘91, the sixth most powerful person in sports media in its Mar. 6 issue.
The article, written by Richard Deitsch, listed the 10 most powerful sports media members with the stipulation that they must appear on television or have a byline Deitsch referred to Wojnarowski as “the NBA’s preeminent writer and reporter.”
Yet Wojnarowski refuses to take full credit for earning the recognition. Instead, he shares the honor with the staff at Yahoo.
“Obviously it’s great that someone recognizes the work,” Wojnarowski said. “But I think it’s recognition of Yahoo Sports, not so much me. I don’t do anything alone there, so I think it’s more of recognition of the site and guys like Marc Spears (NBA Writer), Johnny Ludden (editor) and Dan Wetzel (columnist).”
“I took it more as somebody acknowledging what we built at Yahoo Sports more than being singled out individually. That’s how I see it.”
Wojnarowski’s former Bona Venture colleague and current NY Post columnist Mike Vaccaro believes the power he holds in the NBA is special.
“His power is the best kind of power in our business,” Vaccaro said. “He gets his phone calls returned, he gets his questions answered and the people who matter most in the NBA know that it’s every bit as important that they have a relationship with him as he has with them.”
According to Deitsch’s article, Wojnarowski’s derives his power from Yahoo’s popularity. The website receives the most unique visits of any American sports site. Wojnarowski believes the popularity of the site and himself is derived from quality reporting and the site’s lack of partnership with the NBA.
“I think it’s the kind of reporting we do,” Wojnarowski said. “We have great writing and great reporting on the site. We do a lot of stories that aren’t always done elsewhere. We don’t have the partnerships with the league that limit the kinds of stories we do. I just think people trust Yahoo to get the story behind the story and to get it first.”
Wojnarowski has no plans to leave Yahoo anytime soon, citing his freedom to approach any story in any manner he sees fit.
“I can write anything I want, I can report any story out to its end,” Wojnarowski said. “That’s why I stay at Yahoo, that’s why I never want to leave Yahoo. We have the biggest platform, I work with the best people and I don’t have the constraints on me. We’re not limited in what we can do. Our resources allow us to go out and invest in doing big stories.”
Some of the recent stories Wojnarowski has done include some investigative work on the NBA Players Union. He counts this among his most rewarding experiences at Yahoo and believes work like this is what helped to earn Yahoo its reputation as a reliable place to receive news on the NBA.
“I like that it’s a place that rewards your tenacity to break stories,” Wojnarowski said. “And when we started, we weren’t on the map. People knew Yahoo as a search engine and we’re known now, especially in the NBA, as the place where you go for breaking news and trades. I’m just proud of being a part of building what we’ve built here.”
Wojnarowski compared his experiences at Yahoo to those he had at the Bona Venture where he worked on a staff with Mike Vaccaro (NY Post), Charlie Crème (ESPN) and Jeff D’Alessio (The Sporting News). Wojnarowski said he firmly believes working with such talented people was instrumental in the success he’s achieved in his field.
“The people I was around, working with (Vaccaro), the professors I had and the opportunities I had all played a role,” Wojnarowski said. “I just had so many opportunities to do things and I was around so many talented people that pushed me. What I have at Yahoo is the same pride I had in the people I worked with (at the BV). To me, it feels the same. It feels very collegial in that way.”
