Abstract: The legitimacy of the sport journalism and communication needs to be considered from the perspectives of the independence of research, the establishment of academic organizations, the development of professional academic journals and the scale of researchers. Judging from these indicators, the legitimacy of the current sport journalism and communication has basically been met. Sport journalism has gradually become a de-Americanized academic concept, and its research objects, research methods and paths are relatively clear. On the other hand, the research object of sport communication is expanding day by day, and it has gradually become an interdisciplinary field with its connotation and denotation beyond the framework of early researches. Sports and media research has been neglected in the past domestic research, nevertheless, as an academic field between sport journalism and sport communication, it is becoming the focus of international academic realm. The research of sport journalism and communication in China is facing some practical problems, such as the narrowlization of research content, lack of depth, single and simple research paradigm and dimension, stricture of research ideas and infatuation with media technopoly, etc. The research of sport journalism and sport communication must learn from each other and develop together with related disciplines, so as to reflect the characteristics of its two parent disciplines. Sport international communication, sport communication-between-cultures and global sport communication may become the hot spots of sport journalism and communication research in the future.