Nearly one year after releasing his biography on Aaron Rodgers, Ian O’Connor has a new home.
Taking to X on Tuesday, the longtime sportswriter announcer that he’s joining The Athletic as a columnist. In an accompanying column, O’Connor explained the decision and what he hopes to bring to the New York Times-owned outlet.
“I left the daily game two years ago to finish my sixth and seventh books, and to make the (seemingly) permanent move from longtime columnist to full-time author. And yet to work exclusively as an author is to hunt and gather in solitude,” he wrote. “The endgame rewards are there, but they aren’t shared with colleagues who grinded with you during this Super Bowl week or that Masters week or that World Series run. You can’t replace that on your own.
“So that’s why I took this job at The Athletic as a columnist. I’ve been fortunate to be a part of some tremendous teams over the years, but The Athletic has the best and deepest roster of reporters and storytellers I’ve ever joined. I feel a bit like Shaun Livingston on those championship Golden State Warriors teams. I’m just hoping to make some meaningful plays off the bench.”
O’Connor also explained that joining The Athletic is somewhat of a full-circle moment in his career, which included an early stint as a “New York Times copy boy and clerk.” From there, the Englewood, New Jersey, native joined Frank Deford’s The National — a daily all-sports publication that wasn’t all that dissimilar from what The Athletic would become before being acquired by the Times nearly three decades later.
In the time between, Ian O’Connor has written for a variety of outlets, including ESPN.com, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and USA Today, in addition to being a regular panelist on The Sports Reporters. He’s perhaps best known, however, for his work as an author, in which he has published biographies on sports legends including Mike Krzyzewski, Bill Belichick, Derek Jeter, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Rodgers.
While he may have downplayed his future contributions by comparing himself to Shaun Livingston on the Warriors, landing a columnist of O’Connor’s caliber is obviously a coup for The Athletic. And it also seems to follow the outlet’s recent strategy of embracing a more national approach as opposed to a hyperlocal one.