(SP) – According to a source inside the Players’ Tribune, the Derek Jeter-owned website that claims to provide athlete-written content, the site’s many ghostwriters have been placing some of the top athletes in the sports world on their favorite teams.
“A lot of the athletes who we work with cut their free agency decision down to three or four or five teams and have a problem deciding who to go with,” said a longtime writer for the site who asked to remain anonymous. “So a lot of times, a staffer with an allegiance to a certain team will just hit ‘publish’ on a piece and then there’s no way for the athlete to really take it back. That’s what happened with Gordon Hayward. A Celtics fan who works here just wrote up an article on him going to Boston and that was that.”
Representatives close to Hayward confirmed that the now ex-Jazz player was still deciding on where to sign when the Players’ Tribune piece published Tuesday night announcing his move to Boston.
“We weren’t too happy to have it forced on us,” said the source. “But we were obviously considering Boston. So we’ll just go with it.”
The same thing happened last summer when Kevin Durant announced he was signing with Golden State.
“That came out of nowhere,” said a Players Tribune source. “He was all set to re-sign with OKC. But we had an intern from Northern California who somehow got hold of the password for our publishing platform and that was that. The rest is basketball history.”
