​Newsday is slated to be the latest New York metro newspaper to curtail its sports coverage.The Long Island-based tabloid owned by Patrick Dolan — the brother of Madison Square Garden Entertainment CEO James Dolan — announced a buyout program at an all-hands newsroom meeting on Wednesday amid plans to heavily cut back on travel for its pro sports beats, according to two sources with knowledge of the anticipated changes at the newspaper. AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhile other sections of the newspaper were exempt from the buyout initiative, several editors and reporters in the sports section are among those eligible for the buyouts that require employees to be 60 or older and have worked at Newsday for 20 or more years. Those eligible employees have until July 29 to decide to take Newsday‘s buyout offer.Newsday’s traveling sports beats currently include the Knicks, Mets, Yankees, Jets, Giants, Rangers, and the Islanders. While plans haven’t been finalized, Newsday is expected to eliminate travel on multiple beats altogether, although all beats are likely to have smaller travel budgets, the sources said.The buyouts equate “to less than 10% of employees and only in certain areas,” Newsday spokesperson Tara Rogers said in a Newsday story published late Wednesday. “We continue to grow our in-depth reporting, investigations and data analysis,” Rogers said. “We are expanding NewsdayTV, our portfolio of live events and new niche products and experiences for Long Islanders.” AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementNewsday didn’t respond to an Awful Announcing inquiry sent earlier Wednesday.The cuts to travel have been discussed for several weeks, and the changes were not on the agenda for Wednesday’s newsroom meeting, which focused solely on buyouts, the sources said. There was no reason given for the need for the buyouts.The expected changes to Newsday‘s sports coverage won’t be as drastic as a couple of other area papers in recent years.The New York Times eliminated its sports section in 2023, a year after the company acquired The Athletic. In 2018, the New York Daily News laid off about half of its newsroom, and a year later, the paper eliminated the sports editor position before replacing it with a new version.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementPatrick Dolan purchased Newsday for an unspecified sum in 2016. That transaction came a year after the Dolan family sold Cablevision — which included Newsday to Altice USA (now known as Optimum Communications) for $17.7 billion.“There’s been a ton of chatter equating newspapers with Jurassic creatures lurching around on their last legs,” Patrick Dolan wrote in 2020. “The reality is far different. Though Newsday‘s roots are in a product made from ink and trees, more people than ever are experiencing Newsday‘s world-class journalism in many different ways on many platforms. At our core, we’re about delivering the truth, holding the powerful accountable,