- Social media has a field day with Aaron Rodgers telling ESPN’s Adam Schefter to ‘lose my number,’ in text exchange Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- Rodgers says he wants to play for Jets in 2023 ESPN
- Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets are off to a dubious start The Washington Post
- After stringing everyone along, Aaron Rodgers reveals what we already knew: It’s all about him Chicago Sun-Times
- Aaron Rodgers wants to play for the Jets in 2023, Honda recall issued for half a million vehicles, and more: 3News Daily with Stephanie Haney WKYC.com
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Schefter
Adam Schefter apologizes for ‘insensitive’ Dwayne Haskins tweet
Adam Schefter has apologized for how he insensitively broke the news of Dwayne Haskins’ death, and paid tribute to the late quarterback.
“It was insensitive,” Schefter said on his podcast on Monday. “It was a mistake. And I can assure you it was not my intention.
“I wish I could have that tweet back. The focus should have been on Dwayne — who he was as a person, a husband, a friend and so much more. I wanted to apologize to Dwayne’s family, his friends, the players in the NFL and offer my condolences to everyone close to Dwayne.”
On Saturday, when breaking the news that Haskins had died after being struck by a dump truck on a highway in South Florida, Schefter’s tweet discussed the quarterback’s professional struggles.
“Dwayne Haskins, a standout at Ohio State before struggling to catch on with Washington and Pittsburgh in the NFL, died this morning when he got hit by a car in South Florida, per his agent Cedric Saunders. Haskins would have turned 25 years old on May 3,” read Schefter’s original, since-deleted tweet.
In addition to apologizing, Schefter retracted his original tone, saying that Haskins had indeed been working diligently to turn his professional career around.
“And in the way I failed Saturday,” Schefter continued on his podcast. “I wanted to turn people’s attention to make sure that Dwayne is remembered properly. After his outstanding career at Ohio State, which led him to become a first round draft pick, most recently Dwayne appreciated the opportunity that the Steelers had given him. And he was responding to it.
“Every day when he left practice, he would bump fists with head coach Mike Tomlin, [former] general manager Kevin Colbert and team president Art Rooney — which was his way of showing that he was grateful to be a member of the organization.”
Schefter continued to praise Haskins’ work ethic within the Steelers organization, and commitment to community service work.
“Dwayne Haskins was beloved by his teammates in the NFL community, as the outpouring of support from over the weekend showed,” Schefter said. “He was beloved because of his smile, his attitude, his work ethic, his growth and the man he had turned himself into. His was a life taken too young.”
Adam Schefter, Adrian Wojnarowski sign deals to stay at ESPN
ESPN has retained its high-profile NFL and NBA insiders after a push from sports gambling companies to poach them away.
The network announced on Thursday that it has signed multi-year contract extensions with Adam Schefter and Adrian Wojnarowski.
“Adam and Woj are difference-makers that solidify our long-term position as the definitive source for everything NFL and NBA,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement.
“When you combine today’s news about Adam and Woj with Jeff Passan’s signing, we are making a deliberate statement about ESPN’s commitment to serving fans with the most in-depth reporting, storytelling and around-the-clock news.”
All three of those insiders are represented by CAA.
“Covering the most popular sport in the United States for the leading sports media company has been a dream combination,” Schefter said in the release. “Every day, at each show and event, I am surrounded by the best teammates – producers, directors, researchers, production staff, and so many more – who elevate everyone around them. I love my job, feel blessed to continue and thank ESPN and Jimmy Pitaro for their consistent faith in me.”
Said Wojnarowski: “I’m eager to continue working with a remarkable group of colleagues and grateful for ESPN’s relentless commitment to newsgathering and reporting. My profound appreciation to Jimmy Pitaro, Cristina Daglas, Norby Williamson, Dave Roberts, Lauren Reynolds, Greg Dowling, David Kraft and the entire universal news desk for the support, vision and leadership that makes ESPN such a remarkable place to do my job. Also, a thank you to my representative Matt Kramer for helping to bring and keep me at ESPN.”
Schefter has been at ESPN since 2009 and Wojnarowski since 2017.
As the sports gambling industry continues its manifest destiny across America, ESPN had to battle sportsbooks — who would have benefitted greatly from the reporters’ enormous social media engagement — to keep its league insiders.
ESPN has been on a high-end talent spending spree of late, recently poaching Joe Buck and Troy Aikman from Fox Sports to be the new announce team for “Monday Night Football” — on contracts cumulatively worth $165 million.
Report: Caesars Sportsbook is “preparing to go after” Adam Schefter
The rumors have percolated in industry circles for weeks. Wednesday’s developments may have caused the rumors to transmogrify into an official report.
Via Michael McCarthy and A.J. Perez of FrontOfficeSports.com, Caesaers Sportsbook “is preparing go after” ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Schefter’s contract expires in the summer of 2022. A buzz has been building among those in the NFL media business that Schefter plans to leave ESPN for one of the gambling companies. Surely, Caesers isn’t the only one thinking about trying to hire him.
None of that should be a surprise. The sports books are VERY aggressive about exploring opportunities to add individual reporters/analysts and/or entire media companies. A massive audience for sports content instantly becomes a captive audience for the purposes of converting members of that audience into gambling customers.
As more and more states legalize gambling, the competition for media personalities and/or media outlets will intensify.
What’s compelling about the Schefter/Caesars report is that, while it had been an open secret for many in the media, it finally became reduced to print last night, after Schefter found himself heavily criticized for sending an unpublished article to Washington executive Bruce Allen in 2011, referring to Allen as “Mr. Editor,” and asking Allen if there is anything that should be “added, changed, tweaked” before the story goes live.
Well after defending himself in a Wednesday morning radio appearance, Schefter issued a statement acknowledging that he shouldn’t have done what he did. The statement was not posted or amplified by Schefter’s Twitter account, but by the much smaller ESPN P.R. Twitter page.
Throw in the publication of a report that took the backroom chatter public in the hours after Schefter issued a statement that he quite possibly didn’t want to issue, and it’s fair to wonder whether Schefter or his agent leaked his potential departure as a message to ESPN. Indeed, the die may have been cast the moment Schefter concluded (if he did) that ESPN didn’t support him on the Allen situation the way that Schefter believed it should.
Meanwhile, the article about Schefter also mentions that “cash-rich gambling companies could eventually try to pick off ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski.” That’s not an accident. The chatter has been that Schefter and Wojnarowski are considering joining a gambling company as part of a package deal.
The question of reporters whose value comes from having inside information (even if, as to Schefter, it’s obtained and published literally five minutes before it’s otherwise announced) working for gambling operations who thrive on having inside information raises plenty of questions that may or may not ever be fully explored and resolved.
While some will suggest that the NFL will be faced with telling its teams to cut Schefter off if he works for a sports book, someone will need to remind the NFL of the ever-growing collection of gambling commercials that end with a reference to the fact that the company in question is an “official sports betting partner of the NFL.”
Adam Schefter roped into Jon Gruden drama over email to Bruce Allen
Jon Gruden’s inflammatory emails, in which he used derogatory and racially insensitive language that led to him resigning as head coach from the Raiders, were part of an investigation of the Washington Football Team by the NFL. The league seized over 650,000 emails, according to several reports.
It’s possible that there are damaging things for a lot of people in those emails, but one interesting tidbit was revealed in a June court filing that led to the revelation of Gruden’s words. In July 2011 during the NFL lockout, ESPN insider Adam Schefter sent an email of an unpublished story to then-Washington GM Bruce Allen, asking for feedback.
“Please let me know if you see anything that should be added, changed, tweaked,” Schefter wrote to Allen, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Thanks, Mr. Editor, for that and the trust. Plan to file this to espn about 6 am ….”
Per the LA Times, the court filing was part of Washington owner Dan Snyder’s defamation lawsuit in India, in which he was trying to compel Allen to produce information.
ESPN shared a statement in response to the discovery.
“Without sharing all the specifics of the reporter’s process for a story from 10 years ago during the NFL lockout, we believe that nothing is more important to Adam and ESPN than providing fans the most accurate, fair and complete story,” the statement read.
Schefter is arguably the top insider in all of NFL media, and consistently breaks the top stories in the league. It’s not particularly surprising to hear he has a relationship with important league figures – but the extent of that relationship may come as a surprise, especially with a league figure who has been under immense fire.
Allen was the person Gruden shared his derogatory remarks with, in which he used the words “p–sy,” “fa—t” and “queers” to describe league figures and shared topless photos of Washington cheerleaders, among other offenses.