The rising national debt crisis and wasteful spending has been one of the front and center issues in the 2012 presidential campaign. But when it comes to the most egregious examples of throwing money away, there's nothing that compares to ESPN's multi-million dollar contract with Rick Reilly. By the time his contract expires next year, ESPN will have spent a reported $17 million dollars over the last five years for Rick Reilly's various shenanigans.
The veteran sportswriter is in the news once again as Deadspin unveiled Reilly inserting a satirical story into a recent column as fact… for a second time!
Earlier this year, Reilly lifted a Basketball Jones bit about LeBron James punching a walking stick and laughably wrote about it as fact. Now, it's a story about Mike Richards of the Kings taking the Stanley Cup to taunt an ex-girlfriend who dumped him in high school for his day with the beloved trophy. That didn't actually happen. It seems that Reilly got the story from a satirical hockey website called The REAL Hockey News. The site's archives go all the way back to July and includes such news articles as "Hot Dog Vendor Refuses to Report to Islanders" and "Lou Lamoriello in Talks to Extend Contract with Satan."
ESPN sheepishly deleted the Richards anecdote from Reilly's column and added this disclaimer at the bottom of his article, "An Oct. 18 story on ESPN.com incorrectly characterized what Mike Richards of the Los Angeles Kings did with the Stanley Cup during the offseason. The anecdote the story relied on was false." They should have also put in a disclaimer about Rick Reilly being a bigger albatross to ESPN than Alex Rodriguez is to the Yankees. Maybe SI would take Reilly back now if ESPN would be willing to pay the remiander of his salary and throw in Wayne Drehs too.
Then again, maybe we're all being too hard on Rick Reilly. With a title like REAL Hockey News, it's obvious how an 11 time National Sportswriter of the Year could get confused so easily. After all, the REAL part is in all caps.
[Deadspin]
