Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Simmons is the Dane Cook of sportswriting. His audience is avid, but neither broad nor deep. His constituency is likely younger, and thus attractive to advertisers, but it certainly isn't bigger. And they aren't close on name recognition. That's Reilly, by a mile.

 

All right point taken. Hell, I have never subscribed to SI and I know who Reilly is, so maybe that is your point.

 

Where do I send my resume?
:

 

One advantage of Reilly over Kornheiser... no combover....

 

For what they're worth, here are my anecdotal guesses: of the 23-and-under big sports fans I know, maybe 50% know Simmons; maybe 10% know Reilly. And some of them "know" Reilly because Simmons has mocked him in three or four columns over the years. People my age just don't get SI subscriptions anymore.

Over the years, I've had maybe 25 conversations with youngish friends about Simmons columns; I've had maybe 3 conversations about Reilly.

Sad but (I think) true - where I'm from, at least, under-25s almost certainly know Scoop Jackson better than they know Reilly.

 

Every time I read posts about Reilly 'mailing it in" one thought comes to mind: These people have no idea how difficult it is to write a weekly column.

Reilly has produced some duds lately -- who hasn't? -- but more often than not his column is a must read. I do agree with the posters who say he tries to be too cute. A clever phrase here and there is fine. A column filled with clever phrases is a writer trying to compensate a lack of something, usually reporting. Reilly is guilty of that once every two or three months.

The man's forte always has been long form, and I think he said a while back that he doesn't miss that kind of writing because it took so much time. Is he going to ESPN for sure? My guess is you'll see him on First Take, ESPN.com and just about everywhere in-between. He's a personality. He'll do well.

Are you serious that Dan Patrick is going to SI?

If so ... Ugh.

As far as the magazine debtate. SI is still better than ESPN The Mag; it's just the gap isn't as large as it once was. SI seems to be on the verge of a big change. Its staff is changing. Some of its better writers are gone. I hope theyre not trying to be more like The Mag. I subscribe to both. I always spend more time with SI. The writing is better. For a while, just about every Mag writer was trying to write like Gary Smith. It was annoying.

The Mag has better ideas than SI. Letting athletes do an issue (Leinart on the cover) a while back was brilliant. But the Mag also has a bunch of stupid weekly features. I don't understand half the stuff they do in the first 10 pages. They should've dumped Stuart Scott's Q&A or whatever it is years ago. Don't they also contact people who have the same names of sports stars and interview them like they are the real Randy Johnson, Tim Duncan or Marvin Harrison? Every time I read it I'm never sure if it's realy or just made up. The answers are almost too good to be real.

Anyway my point is I spend way too much time trying to figure out simple things when I read the Mag. Like a headline. If they stopped trying to be so hip, they'd be much better.

 

Simmons vs Reilly?
Here's the ridiculous thing: ESPN already has on their payroll the better columnist than either one of them --- Norman Chad --- but they don't use him. And SI had him on their payroll maybe 10 years ago but that didn't work out. Simmons is an egomaniac and Reilly is lazy. Chad's got plenty of ego, I'm sure, and he's pretty lazy too, but he's damn funny.

 

I don't miss Rushin, and I won't miss Reilly if the new columnist works hard and writes well. There are plenty of people out there willing to step up to the challenge.

Oh my god, now I sound like a publisher.........Somebody come shoot me.

 

I fully understand that writing a column a week is hard. But his latest effort is the definition of 'mailing it in'

After finally getting my SI this week (On a Saturday, with a great article on No. 2 South Florida...come on SI!) I can't understand why a writer from Denver isn't writing about the Rockies. There has got to be a story or two he can tell about the team that nobody has heard yet. Or maybe he was too busy making out with a whore. He was the sole reason I got SI, now I am regretting my choice. But hey, at least I still have the nice NFL fleece jacket.

 

Gammons.

Olney.

Verducci.

 

A weekly column, with the budget, time and access to report on just about anything in the country? With no other regular coverage reponsibilities?

With his salary and placement in the most prominent sports-related publication in the country?

Every single week he should produce an absolute winner that makes aspiring writers feel like their talent is very, very insignificant. Every single week should have even the most cynical among us paying respect to that columnist as a dogged reporter who re-earns his position every time out.

 

What Reilly did with the SI column was possible because the magazine's network of correspondents fed files, reports, ideas, and suggestions to editors. I'd guess most of his reported columns (excepting here the "witty" columns for which only he could be credited/blamed) were first reported by correspondents who led Reilly to the sources.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

A weekly column sounds easy. But it doesn't take long, I imagine, with travel, with a day on the golf course, with a picnic with your girl friend, until the deadline day must feel like it comes up every five minutes.

Nobody ever did it as long as Reilly and as well.