It seems that pro athletes aren’t the only people in the sports world that use contract holdouts. Include sports columnists as well.

Syndicated columnist Paul Finebaum is in negotiations with Advance Publications, which owns The Press-Register in Mobile, his flagship newspaper. He has not written a column since Dec. 14.

Press-Register Sports Editor Randy Kennedy, who handles the distribution of Finebaum’s column to subscribers, said in an email message to editors on Friday that the future of the column is “up in the air.”

Kennedy said he hopes to have an agreement to resume the column by at least Feb. 8.

Finebaum first gained fame as a sports columnist for the now-defunct Birmingham Post-Herald. He left that paper shortly before its closure, finally ending up with The Press-Register, who then syndicated it to other newspapers throughout the South.

The Birmingham News declined to carry the column, even though Finebaum is based in Birmingham. He had no newspaper presence in the metro area until his column was picked up by The Hoover Gazette, a short-lived weekly, in 2006. The Birmingham Times, a weekly geared toward the city’s African-American community, also started carrying the column shortly thereafter.

The North Jefferson News picked up the column in 2009.

Finebaum’s column is now a small part of his overall media presence. His daily radio show, which is based out of WJOX in Birmingham, has long been syndicated to other stations across the South; it was recently added to the Sirius XM satellite radio lineup, expanding Finebaum’s reach across the country.

Finebaum has also been a staple in Birmingham television for years, having worked for all four major stations at one time or another, and is a frequent guest on ESPN and other national sports shows.