Prepare Thyself For Rick Reilly Overload On ESPN

Friday, May 30, 2008

Next week the 5-year, $17 million dollar contract (seriously) that Rick Reilly signed with ESPN will kick off in full force. Teddy Greenstein at Chicago Sports has an interview with the former SIer and what some of his early projects will be.

Early assignments include an essay during ESPN's coverage of the June 7 Belmont Stakes and a column for ESPN the Magazine that hits newsstands Wednesday.

The topic: Reilly's father, Jack, who died last month.

"It will be an emotional, confessional thing," he said.

In addition to his every-other-week magazine column, Reilly will write biweekly columns for ESPN.com.

He'll do essays for SportsCenter — "I hope you don't have hi-def," he joked — and is developing a monthly show called "ESPN Homecoming."

You've heard of "Inside the Actor's Studio"? This would be like "Inside the Athlete's Studio" with the athlete surrounded by friends, family and former teammates in his hometown.
In all honesty the subject matter seems spot and hopefully Reilly's "attitude" portrays them in the best light. My problem with his writing was always the "I'm better than you" attitude and the "I get to do stuff you'll never be able to" tone of his columns. Maybe on-air he won't seem as egotistical, but I guess we'll see.

Rick Reilly digs in at ESPN (Chicago Sports)

7 Comments:

so will reilly be harding and simmons, kerrigan? or the other way around?

and will mangino play shawn eckard (since eckard's dead)?

-dan

Anonymous said...
May 30, 2008, 5:51:00 PM  

The guy is an insufferable megalomaniac. Blecchhhh!

Anonymous said...
May 30, 2008, 8:21:00 PM  

is he hitting the bottle there?

Anonymous said...
May 30, 2008, 8:24:00 PM  

AA, please let's have this pic for a caption contest!!

Anonymous said...
May 31, 2008, 12:13:00 AM  

It's funny, I just came across his article (which I tore out of SI and saved) about the Beerbelly yesterday.

I gotta get me one of those.

Anonymous said...
Jun 1, 2008, 3:14:00 PM  

They have done this before with their newly acquired faces like Bill Walton and Stephen A. Smith. Don't be alarmed just keep your remote within reach for the next few months and it will all be over.

Anonymous said...
Jun 1, 2008, 7:09:00 PM  

I dunno, I liked Reilly's columns. some of them were garbage, but he was the most high profile writer in America for a while. Of course he can't come with the heat every single week. The guy is talented, without a doubt, I don't think anyone can deny that.

Anonymous said...
Jun 2, 2008, 2:39:00 AM  

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