I don't mean to demean sports or sports writing, I was just intrigued by finding a reference to Shakespeare and Keats in one piece about Ronaldo and then a reference to Tennyson in another piece about Ronaldo in quick succession
righto, didn't mean to come across aggro or nothing. I think it's an interesting topic.
a great deal of sportswriting is beat reporting, bare bones recitation of fact, and/or investigate scoops (i.e. strategic leaking by teams/agents/players)
but once you get outside of that, to think pieces, long-form etc, it often gets quite purple and (sometimes) intellectual
that's done at extreme, varying levels of competency. a lot of it is quite florid and dull.
but when it's on it can be as truly good as anything, I think.
sports is among other things a mythological realm, with heroes, (seemingly) grand scales, etc. i.e., and this will sound dumb, but the Iliad for example is a kind of proto-sportswriting (among other things ofc)
see, for example, John Updike's justifiably celebrated essay on the final game of Ted Williams (The Kid, The Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame) a literal - WWII - and mythological hero, famously aloof
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1960/10/22/hub-fans-bid-kid-adieu
"Gods do not answer letters."