Sarah Phillips of ESPN

[The Cosmic Kid]

[JayPrimetown]

WagerMinds gets into it a little more saying that she was purchasing Twitter followers. To create a false sense of popularity.

That's really pathetic if true.

[ChiefZilla]

Meanwhile, at Covers...

[The Peoples Champ]

Remember this as one of my first true discussions on the board way back when. Touche to BTB and the rest of you to all coming to the conclusion in the first or second thread that she was a fraud.

[ScottKimberly]

Is it possible to explain this situation in one paragraph? I'd prefer not to read through pages of material, but I am curious as to what is going on.

[zman1415]

(05-01-2012 10:44 PM)JayPrimetown Wrote:  WagerMinds gets into it a little more saying that she was purchasing Twitter followers. To create a false sense of popularity.

That's really pathetic if true.

Why is that pathetic? She obviously thought there was a way to make advertising dollars off it. It's a bit of a vicious cycle but buy twitter followers --> market yourself as having a big following --> get some site to pay you for advertising based on it. What are these twitter accounts worth and how many kids who own these meme accounts are dumb enough to hand over an account before receiving any thing? If that's the worst scamming that happens here (and get's outed), this story is mild.

There are a few parts of this story that I get outraged about. The scamming is obviously bad news, but scams like this happen on a regular basis. It's half the internet and 3/4ths of the betting websites. How many college kids thought they could find a bunch of easy money (I know I sure tried) with random pyramid schemes and whatever else. We should be outraged at it, but only as much as every other one out there. The kid should pay a stupid tax for letting some random people he met on the internet take control of his website. He should get the site back (and all the free traffic this story generates), but c'mon, this is small potatoes compared to most stuff that happens. The guy who sent multiple thousand dollars for advertising costs? That's straight out of "A Nigerian Prince Would Like To Give You 1 Million Dollars". That I have a problem with, because actual money is changing hands, but how does someone fall for that with their hard earned money?

My guess would be that she started legit (posting on the Covers msg board, cause who the hell fakes an account on Covers, it's not like they'll just magically send you a message and hire you, right?), got some sort of offer from Covers, started to think she was in over her head, and turned over most of the strings to the other dude, while still being the face. Then, out of nowhere ESPN chimes in and her popularity is taken to new heights. Somewhere in that time period, she comes up with a scheme that she thinks will work--using her popularity and legitimacy to pick up people's of their twitter accounts. Maybe the plan was to con people out of them from the start, maybe the plan started as legit but descended from there. The guy who posted his story earlier tonight on his website seems legit (and I have no reason to question his story), but since when did 2k followers mean a quick 500 bucks? That's like me offering you $1000 dollars for a 4 pack of regular season basketball tickets that normally would cost you 75 bucks a pop. But I can't pay you until next week after I get paid. But I'm good for it. I swear. Again: Stupid Tax.

The part that really bugs me is ESPN/Covers. How do you pick up a hire without doing ANY homework? The two sites enabled the rest of the behavior, and neither seems to care about black eye after black eye. Covers now has this one plus Jack Zito in short order. In a business that clearly needs some transparency and legitimacy, this is the opposite of what's needed. That Covers and subsequently ESPN hired her without any sort of background check, without any real effort from her speaks to just how bad both sites are willing to play to the right demographic, no matter if the story actually checks out.

What am I missing here? Should I be more outraged? At different parties?

Edit to note this isn't to defend Phillips, only to wonder why the outrage is at such an extreme level at Phillips when I feel most of the outrage should be directed at Covers/ESPN.

[Skating Tripods]

The sad part is, that narcissistic bitch is loving this. Sure, she was exposed as a giant, untrustworthy fraud, but she's dominating storylines across all the mediums she cares about. Gambling, Deadspin, sports comedy, everything. She's in her absolute glory now.

There should come a time where her bubble will burst and she'll be forgotten as "that girl who, yeah, what'd she do again", but for now, she's in the limelight. Who knows if this will ever affect her in the future with employers or whatever.

As much as this looks like a quasi fall from grace, so to speak, it really means nothing more to her than being the center of attention.

Not to take anything away from how glorious it is to expose her and the ongoing work by BTB, WagerMinds, and others to expose the other frauds among us in the sports gambling world. But I can't imagine Sarah Phillips is wallowing in too much self pity right about now.

Who knows, maybe we'll get another fraudulent suicide story out of it.

[thebigsald]

(05-01-2012 03:59 PM)Skating Tripods Wrote:  What am I missing here? Should I be more outraged? At different parties?

Well the real person to be outraged at is Nilesh. It seems that someone else created SP from the beginning and then as offers came in, her need to be more involved was necessary. It seems as though the Cover articles were clearly written by someone else (Nilesh maybe), and the crappy ESPN articles were probably written by her. In return for getting this random girl a gig and exposure at ESPN, he was allowed to perform these stupid scams to make some cash on the side. Just my guess.

Shit hits the fan and SP is taking all this slack for what she did. She is def guilty of being a fraud, but the puppet master (Nilesh or whomever) is sliding under the radar while SP takes a beating from everyone.

By the way, "Ben" got his page back.

[ChiefZilla]

(05-01-2012 11:55 PM)zman1415 Wrote:  My guess would be that she started legit (posting on the Covers msg board, cause who the hell fakes an account on Covers, it's not like they'll just magically send you a message and hire you, right?), got some sort of offer from Covers, started to think she was in over her head, and turned over most of the strings to the other dude, while still being the face. Then, out of nowhere ESPN chimes in and her popularity is taken to new heights. Somewhere in that time period, she comes up with a scheme that she thinks will work...

Except that she was scamming that "Matt" guy from the beginning of her time with Covers. This was a scam from the very start.

But yes, much of the outrage should be directed at Covers/ESPN. They're the ones who gave these jokes/frauds/low-lifes the platform they needed to do what they did.

And, once again, Covers is just hoping this all just passes over without them getting too much negative attention. "Let's never address it, because people will be dumb enough to believe that we were fooled just like everyone else."

I'm so sick of it. THEY'RE THE REASON THAT STUFF LIKE THIS HAPPENS!

Seriously, it pisses me off. The amount of decent, good people who bet on sports far outweighs the low-lifes, but these types of stories dominate the news and will forever be roadblocks to any real progress within the industry ever being made.

[The Posse]

Just got back from honeymooning and saw the news. Wow.

...also, I'm strangely proud that the thread I started on this forum got linked to a Deadspin article.

[zman1415]

(05-02-2012 02:00 AM)ChiefZilla Wrote:  I'm so sick of it. THEY'RE THE REASON THAT STUFF LIKE THIS HAPPENS!

Totally agree with this.

As to your point on it being a scam from the beginning, your right, it started as a scam fairly quickly at Covers, but for it being a scam from the beginning, I'm not sure I buy it. What did she do on the Covers msg board that was so noticeable that Covers offered her a column? If someone came up to you and said

(05-02-2012 02:00 AM)Man of Mystery Wrote:  ok my friend Johanna is good looking, we're going to use her as a face for a fraudulent personality we're going to create, and hope that she can move up the sports media ladder in less than a year, and use the popularity to scam a bunch of morons. Oh ya, we're going to start by posting on a message board in a sports gambling website. And yes, she is a real person, so when this all comes crashing down, it will fall on her.

You'd laugh at them right? That doesn't make any logical sense. That's why I believe this started as nothing more than a ridiculously dumb hire by Covers, and then Team Phillips realized they could use their power for more. But you are right, it had to start earlier than I suggested.

Did she sell picks? I assume she did because Covers is Covers? Or did she just write for them?

[Wiseguy]

Had no idea about this whole thing. Crazy Espn could hire her, on a side note I would hit it for sure.

[BetATL]

If SJP was 200+ with a face like Rosie O'Donnell this whole fiasco would have been avoided.

[Wiseguy]

I know she is a fraud and I am caught up....she has that medusa effect, sports talk from a hot chick. ATL I think you are 100% right.

[SkyBlues42]

(05-02-2012 08:27 AM)Wiseguy Wrote:  Had no idea about this whole thing. Crazy Espn could hire her, on a side note I would hit it for sure.

Seemed to be a theme on Twitter last night.

[JayPrimetown]

Waiting for the additional articles today which will give even more insight into the scams one tried to pull.

[SkyBlues42]

I guarantee there is so much more to this story. Aside from what we all thought and read yesterday.. I think it goes even further.

[Beyond the Bets]

[Skating Tripods]

Awful Announcing has totally taken this ball and run with it. Some great investigative work being posted on their site today.

[ChiefZilla]

(05-02-2012 06:58 AM)zman1415 Wrote:  

(05-02-2012 02:00 AM)ChiefZilla Wrote:  I'm so sick of it. THEY'RE THE REASON THAT STUFF LIKE THIS HAPPENS!

Totally agree with this.

As to your point on it being a scam from the beginning, your right, it started as a scam fairly quickly at Covers, but for it being a scam from the beginning, I'm not sure I buy it. What did she do on the Covers msg board that was so noticeable that Covers offered her a column? If someone came up to you and said

(05-02-2012 02:00 AM)Man of Mystery Wrote:  ok my friend Johanna is good looking, we're going to use her as a face for a fraudulent personality we're going to create, and hope that she can move up the sports media ladder in less than a year, and use the popularity to scam a bunch of morons. Oh ya, we're going to start by posting on a message board in a sports gambling website. And yes, she is a real person, so when this all comes crashing down, it will fall on her.

You'd laugh at them right? That doesn't make any logical sense. That's why I believe this started as nothing more than a ridiculously dumb hire by Covers, and then Team Phillips realized they could use their power for more. But you are right, it had to start earlier than I suggested.

Did she sell picks? I assume she did because Covers is Covers? Or did she just write for them?

Very good points, zman, and yeah that makes sense. Probably started after the msg boards, because yes, there's no way that "business plan" sounds realistic from the start.