With ESPN, Reilly sells out
Steven Sandberg
Issue date: 10/26/07 Section: Sports
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Rick Reilly sold his soul to the devil.
That was the first thought that entered countless readers' minds earlier this week when it was announced that the veteran Sports Illustrated columnist had given the finger to SI and was leaving for a gig with ESPN.
Reilly's move was unexpected, but thanks to the rumored 10 million reasons he was given by ESPN, the respected sports journalist is now cashing in his morals and teaming up with a network that couldn't find the word journalism if it was written on its teleprompters.
As a columnist, Reilly represented everything ESPN was not and he campaigned against the devolution of sports journalism that ESPN has epitomized in recent years. Sports had taken a backseat to entertainment, with the airwaves filled with pundits screaming at each other in split screen, reporters who had biased relationships with athletes and an overall lacks substance. While it remains the No. 1 source of sports news, their in-depth coverage of sports has given way to non-stop self-promotion of nearly all of the network's personalities.
Whereas ESPN dominated sports coverage with sound bites and trivial viewpoints, Reilly managed to maintain the gravitas of sports without blowing it out of proportion. To Reilly, sports wasn't the biggest thing in the world, but he understood the times when it needed to seem that way. He didn't write about sports, he wrote about people, which appealed to the casual and die-hard fan alike.
Now he's joined the worldwide leader in the bastardization of sports coverage.
ESPN's daily agenda is obvious every time you tune in to SportsCenter: appealing to the lowest common denominator in the biggest U.S. markets. If something doesn't appeal to the big-time cities, it doesn't appeal to ESPN. Reilly has now put himself in a position where his columns on the sports everyman will face one of two scenarios: Either they'll be exploited for cheap tears and laughs, or altered to fit better within coverage of New York and Los Angeles.
That was the first thought that entered countless readers' minds earlier this week when it was announced that the veteran Sports Illustrated columnist had given the finger to SI and was leaving for a gig with ESPN.
Reilly's move was unexpected, but thanks to the rumored 10 million reasons he was given by ESPN, the respected sports journalist is now cashing in his morals and teaming up with a network that couldn't find the word journalism if it was written on its teleprompters.
As a columnist, Reilly represented everything ESPN was not and he campaigned against the devolution of sports journalism that ESPN has epitomized in recent years. Sports had taken a backseat to entertainment, with the airwaves filled with pundits screaming at each other in split screen, reporters who had biased relationships with athletes and an overall lacks substance. While it remains the No. 1 source of sports news, their in-depth coverage of sports has given way to non-stop self-promotion of nearly all of the network's personalities.
Whereas ESPN dominated sports coverage with sound bites and trivial viewpoints, Reilly managed to maintain the gravitas of sports without blowing it out of proportion. To Reilly, sports wasn't the biggest thing in the world, but he understood the times when it needed to seem that way. He didn't write about sports, he wrote about people, which appealed to the casual and die-hard fan alike.
Now he's joined the worldwide leader in the bastardization of sports coverage.
ESPN's daily agenda is obvious every time you tune in to SportsCenter: appealing to the lowest common denominator in the biggest U.S. markets. If something doesn't appeal to the big-time cities, it doesn't appeal to ESPN. Reilly has now put himself in a position where his columns on the sports everyman will face one of two scenarios: Either they'll be exploited for cheap tears and laughs, or altered to fit better within coverage of New York and Los Angeles.