Never, my sites are all in the business and finance niches and they are overwhelmingly competitive and there are zillions and zillions of them out there. There is almost always something about my site, or the others for that matter, that is a little different and causes the search engines to see them differently, so getting them to rank never seems to have been a problem.
That does not mean there is no work involved; there is usually plenty of work but if I am going to build a site I plan on working.
I can't address a sports news site in particular as I have never looked at them from the point of view of a web site with a couple minor exceptions back in 2004 or so. I was completely clueless then and only made a few dollars because I stumbled into something by accident. I imagine it is a little competitive though on a grand scale as I do read plenty of them and the choices are astronomical.
I did have a news site that had an aspect of it about sports business that did pretty well but I had to add content to it several times a day in various "news niches" and although it made money it got a little tiresome so I moved it. i could remember the writer i used then for my articles. he's a fiverr seller and he provide the real deal when it comes to article writing. i recommend him to every other BHW marketers. inbox me for the seller link. if you wish to have best and unique contents try inbox me for the user details