ESPN Demotes Brent Musburger, Rick Reilly

ESPN has decided to demote a pair of their biggest names.

Rick Reilly, the longtime journalist who joined ESPN from Sports Illustrated in 2008, will no longer write his column for ESPN.com; instead working on a part-time basis for television only. He’ll write his final column June 30.

Brent Musburger, meanwhile, will no longer call ABC’s college football game of the week. He has been named anchor of ESPN’s new SEC Network alongside Jesse Palmer.

The 74 year-old Musburger, who also called the national title game alongside Kirk Herbstreit, has been with ESPN and ABC for more than 20 years.

“I’m delighted to be staying with ESPN, thrilled to be able to call the best football conference in the nation every week and am really looking forward to working with Jesse, who I covered while he was at Florida,” Musburger said in a statement. “Jesse has tremendous football knowledge, knows this league very well and does his homework.”

One of the top choices to replace Musburger is ESPN’s Chris Fowler, according to reports.

H/T Variety