media Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Let's Watch A Flyers Beat Writer Throw Ilya Bryzgalov Under The Bus

The Flyers bought out Ilya Bryzgalov's humungous big contract today, after two years of a rocky relationship with Philadelphia fans and media. It took about 20 minutes for Randy Miller, of the South Jersey Courier-Post, to start the smear campaign....

Only One CBS Viewer Complained To The FCC About Kevin Ware's Injury

Louisville's Kevin Ware's compound fracture of his right leg in the Elite Eight, bone jutting through the skin, may have been the most horrific sports injury ever shown on national TV. CBS aired the replay twice, spurring discussion about the appropriate way to handle gruesome moments. But in the en...

Serena Williams Says She's "Deeply Sorry For What Was Written"

Serena Williams said some regrettable things about the Steubenville rape case to Rolling Stone's Stephen Rodrick, and today she's released a statement apologizing, sort of....

NFL teams are allowed to designate two "stars" who only have to face the media once per week. The Patriots' stars? Tom Brady and Tim Tebow. [NY Post] ...

Gary Hoenig, A Founding Editor Of <em>ESPN The Mag</em>, Has Been Laid Off

The first-ever hire at ESPN The Magazine, Gary Hoenig, has been laid off, three sources tell me. Hoenig was the executive editor at the magazine in 1998, and was promoted to editor-in-chief in 2003. He's been the GM and editorial director of ESPN's publishing division for the last five years. Hoeni...

Howie Schwab Among The Layoffs At ESPN [UPDATE]

Round 2 of the ESPN bloodletting began today, and a source tells us that Howie Schwab—remember Stump the Schwab?—was among those let go. ...

Tennis Channel CEO: Comcast Battle Like "Being Raped By Brutal Captor" [UPDATE]

Two weeks ago, a federal appeals court ruled that Comcast did not have to put Tennis Channel on its basic cable service and could, instead, throw it on a more-expensive sports tier. The court overturned an FCC ruling in the process. Tennis Channel was unhappy about this. In fact, Tennis Channel CEO ...

Next Round Of ESPN Layoffs Coming This Week

Layoffs are coming to ESPN's production unit this week, according to several sources. A tipster told me this morning that "tension is at an all time high in production operations," and the cuts will begin tomorrow....

SB Nation went deep on Montaous Walton, the phony baseball prospect who created an identity on the internet, tricked the media, and secured an agent before finally getting arrested. Go read it. [SB Nation]...

Steve Phillips And Brooke Hundley: A Romance Told Through Filthy Sexts

You can head over here and read the long version of the affair between then-ESPN baseball analyst Steve Phillips and then-ESPN production assistant Brooke Hundley. Or you can get a pretty good idea of their very brief romance by reading their text messages. As the full story points out, this was a m...

The Mostly Sexless Sex Scandal That Shook ESPN

A few hours after the 2009 Home Run Derby, Steve Phillips bought Brooke Hundley a drink. They were at the bar of St. Louis's Millenium Hotel, a block from Busch Stadium, where more than a dozen ESPN staffers had gathered after wrapping up another day's work during MLB's extended All-Star weekend. Hu...

Keith Olbermann Will Host Turner's MLB Playoff Coverage

Well, Keith Olbermann has a job again. After months of showing up at ballparks, Olbermann is going to be the studio host for Turner's coverage of the MLB playoffs this October. The Hollywood Reporter reports he'll be on with Dennis Eckersley and maybe one other studio guy (Jim Miller broke the Olber...

Ex-ESPNer David Berson Is The Clear Successor To Take Over CBS Sports

David Berson is the new president of CBS Sports, a jump up from his previous role overseeing the difficult-to-remember-it-exists CBS Sports Network. Sean McManus will remain chairman of CBS Sports, but I've been told that his job will become increasingly figurehead-ish and Berson is going to take o...

One Reporter's Reflections On Covering John Tortorella, Bully

Dave Lozo used to write for NHL.com. He doesn't anymore, so he's free to tell you exactly what it was like to cover the Rangers for four years under John Tortorella. Spoiler alert: scary at first, then almost pathetic....

ESPN President's Memo: Support The Troops; Also, We're Firing People

Below is a memo from ESPN president John Skipper, sent companywide just before the Memorial Day weekend and forwarded to us by a Bristol tipster. "This is the only communication we've received from upper management this week that mentions the layoffs," our tipster writes. Happy Memorial Day!...

David Foster Wallace's Interview With Roger Federer Lasted 20 Minutes

David Foster Wallace's 2006 Times Magazine profile of Roger Federer is one of sports journalism's most famous write-arounds. Or, as Wallace wrote himself, the piece was "a spectator’s experience of Federer, and its context." But the Times flew Wallace out to Wimbledon, so surely he got to spend some...

ESPN Is Now Hiring. Young And Cheap May Apply. [UPDATE]

One ESPN source put it this way: ESPN "hacked" hundreds of jobs and will replace those laid off "with younger, cheaper, less experienced people."...

Lynn Hoppes, Who Was The Worst, Is Out At ESPN

ESPN's Dancing with the Stars correspondent Lynn Hoppes—a man who drooled over swag, recruited a scam artist, plagiarized Wikipedia, and stole my girlfriend—has been laid off, three sources have confirmed. ESPN is also shutting down Playbook, Hoppes's home for the past year. An ESPN spokesman decli...

Ex-ESPNer: Did Network Cut 300-400 Jobs To Pay For <em>SportsCenter</em> Set?

A recently laid-off ESPN source gave us more details about the ESPN job cuts, the first significant staff reduction in four years. First off, it appears these layoffs will stretch over several weeks. There will be more technology and creative services layoffs today. Layoffs in production are coming ...

Sources: ESPN Laying Off Hundreds [UPDATE]

ESPN is laying off a portion of its staff today, a network spokesman confirms to us. How many? ESPN won't say. A tipster told us earlier today that it would be more than 400 staffers. A source at ESPN said that number is a little high, but it appears to be in the hundreds. ...