Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Uh, yeah. Even if I suck and get fired in a year, that's some serious bank to put away. You can always get a job somewhere else with SI on your resume.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Not if you suck and get fired, I'm thinking. That's a pretty public failing.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

I think it's hilarious to think any sportswriter in the country would turn down a columnist job at Sports Illustrated. I suppose if you're somebody like Dr. Z, Bill Simmons or Peter King and you've already carved out a specific (and lucrative) nitch, maybe you turn it down, but that's the biggest job in sportswriting.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Someone will still hire you. Hell, I've seen people get fired from major metros and hop to another one.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

It's precisely because it's the biggest job in sportswriting that I'm asking. If that's my job, my principal motivation is fear... And that means that the job becomes my life, when I'm awake and when I should be sleeping. I'd want to hit fifty home runs a year; a triple would leave me feeling dejected for weeks, a single and I might hang myself. That's just how I've always operated... Whatever fearless gene that Manny Ramirez has, I don't have.

And it might only be 800 words a week, and the pay might be great, and suddenly you're a household name, but it's not like a job like that doesn't have its costs. You're getting paid for a reason. If you do the math, Reilly was getting paid something like twenty-five bucks a word. You think each and every word wouldn't consume you?

You get paid that much because a job like that is your whole entire life, or at least it should be.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

I meant if it was actually happening, not the rumor.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Reilly starts at ESPN in June.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Jason -- is that a prediction or a fact? I think it's obvious he goes there, too, and that Dan Patrick takes Reilly's back page. I'm just wondering whether you know if the deal's already done.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

He has to sit out a six-month non-compete.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

What is the likely route for Reilly with ESPN? I would assume the .com, but would they use him on Pardon the Interruption? Maybe give him his own show?

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Gotcha, Jason, thanks.

An old film script of Reilly's has also come to fruition -- Leatherheads, starring and directed by George Clooney -- coming out in December, I believe. That could help fill the gap.

Along with some time in Tahiti.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Holy shit, both Jones and Whitlock are back. What a great day.