In one of the more surprising sports media moves of recent years, ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi is reportedly leaving for Fox.
The New York Post reported Wednesday that Rinaldi — the ESPN essayist and reporter best known for his emotionally-tinged features on College Gameday, SportsCenter, E:60 and Outside the Lines — will join Fox Sports as a contributor across all of the company’s major properties. Fox officially announced the move Thursday morning.
Rinaldi had been with ESPN since 2002. It was not clear when he will join Fox, or whether he will finish out the current college football season with ESPN.
Beyond his feature stories, Rinaldi also held roles on ESPN’s live event programming, serving as a sideline reporter on major college football games, the Masters and U.S. Open tennis.
Rinaldi was one of ESPN’s most-prominent reporters. It was he who the network turned to voice its obituary of Kobe Bryant earlier this year and to conduct the first post-scandal interview with Tiger Woods in 2010.
His departure further depletes ESPN’s journalism ranks. Longtime Outside the Lines host Bob Ley retired last year and ESPN has also parted ways with a number of feature reporters in its waves of layoffs over the past four years.
As for Fox, Rinaldi represents a different kind of hire. The company has not traditionally employed the kind of essayists who have held roles at other networks, whether Rinaldi at ESPN, Jimmy Roberts at NBC or the late Jim Huber at Turner.
[News from NYP 12.16]
