Magic 10 and NBA Bubble Sports Journalists’ Practices During NBA Season 2019–2020

After the NBA season2019-2020 was postponed due to the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, it was resumed on July 72020, in a tightly secured environment within Walt Disney World termed as NBAbubble. Only ten sports reporters were allowed within this bubble to provide news coverage for the fans, and they were soon called the Magic 10. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand, through textual analysis of metajournalistic discourse published about the NBA bubble, how these sports journalists adjusted their practices during an unprecedented sports event. The first theme was the disruption of the journalistic norms and practices of the in-bubble reporters. The second theme manifest in the content was related to reporting on timely social justice issues from within the bubble. The third theme emerged as an element of introspection or reflection about the peculiar experience of reporting from a "bubble." We discuss the implications of these practices for sports journalism and suggest that the NBA bubble may catalyze the relationship between sports and journalism.