Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - now confirmed by NYT

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

I can't speak for Jason, but I just followed the inexplicable boner I so suddenly popped.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Let's start the Whitlock to SI rumor... ;D

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Can we take the hypothetical off there... It's pretty clear it's true...

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Will his title be senior cast member?

I guess we know now what space Patrick column will occupy at SI

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Being presumptuous here, but Patrick being on the back page seems like a good thing, as it likely means an actual column as opposed to interview transcripts from his radio show.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

I won't miss Reilly. A couple of weeks ago they ran the "pick up Butch" column" and I thought, hasn't he already done this (but then I get that feeling a lot reading Reilly's column). It turned out he was on vacation and I guess couldn't whip something together. I don't know what his contract was, but being courted by ESPN was the best thing that happened to him in terms of money and the back page column. There are dozens of writers that can put that page to better use, but I'm afraid Dan Patrick isn't one of them.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - apparently

Wondering which came first, Reilly's exit or Patrick's hiring, but if it's the latter, this is why you don't call him a Senior Writer.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - apparently

The timing?

From the original press release:

Patrick will pen a weekly column for Sports Illustrated beginning in January.
SI Digital will re-launch DANPATRICK.com in early 2008 with audio simulcast from the nationally syndicated radio program, “The Dan Patrick Show”.
FanNation technology will power a daily Patrick blog and social-networking community.
SI writers will make regularly scheduled appearances on “The Dan Patrick Show,” with Peter King, Tom Verducci and Rick Reilly all joining the week of October 22nd.
Patrick will serve as an emcee on December 4th for SI’s Sportsman of the Year Award celebration, an honor awarded by SI to the sports figure or team which best symbolizes the ideals of sportsmanship.

From today's NYT:

He does his radio show, which is broadcast from 9 a.m. to noon Eastern, in a new home studio with a red light that warns his children not to come in, but they do anyway.

The Sports Illustrated deal guarantees that writers like Rick Reilly, Peter King and Tom Verducci will appear on the program regularly.
Patrick’s column will be in the front of the magazine, sort of a bookend to Reilly’s, which serves as its weekly coda. “I told him it should be dangerous,” McDonell said.



It would seem to have come as something of a surprise.

Unless keeping Mr. Reilly's name in the press releases was simply window dressing.

Or Mr. Reilly's not leaving.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - apparently

And when you're on vacation you have enough things "whipped together" so the readers didn't even know you were gone?

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - apparently

Yeah, that's a silly complaint. That was actually a pretty good column, even if it was a re-run. I'm gonna miss Reilly in SI. Guess I'm one of the few.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - HYPOTHETICAL

Does SI give that spot to an unproven columnist? I'd think SI would try to find a heavy hitter who'll see that column as his/her No. 1 gig, not something to do during commercial breaks of their radio show.

 

Re: Rick Reilly leaves Sports Illustrated - apparently

It was a good column. My comment was more on some of Reilly's less involved columns, like things to do when Barry Bonds hits 756 or athletes' Christmas lists.
He gets a week off in December for the double issue, a week off for the "Where Are They Now" issue. My point is this "THIS IS SPORTS ILLUSTRATED!" THIS IS TIME INC! "IT'S Not USA TODAY SPORTS WEEKLY! He gets more time off than you guys get! Go write for ESPN brother and debate Skip and Woody. Go write for ESPN and appear on Rounding the Horn.