L.A. Times coverage of the Los Angeles Kings is the poster child in a Sports Business Journal examination of waning sports reportage in newspapers and how worried pro sports teams are about losing the usual free attention. The Kings — like other teams no longer covered on the road by their hometown papers — may hire a beat writer to feed the team's website with quasi-independent news.

“If we’re gone for an extended trip, we fall off the map,” said Mike Altieri, the Kings’ vice president of broadcasting and communications. “Our team is gone for 14 days sometimes. That’s a significant time to not be in what is the primary voice in the local marketplace....

The Journal counts 330 lost jobs in the last year and a half at 50 sports sections. The story also discusses how MLB.com has negotiated the issue of having journalists cover baseball teams on their own websites.

Previously on LA Observed: ESPN invading Los Angeles

Another Times issue: Former LAT enviro writer Emily Green says the Times got this morning's water rebates story "more than a month late, and wrong." Here's what she blogs.