Dianna Russini’s Return To Sports Media Was A Bit Of A Disaster

This week marked Dianna Russini's return to public life. The former highly compensated NFL reporter, who blew up her career by canoodling in public with Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, began her return from disgrace the way a lot of notable people who can afford capable PR firms do: with a soft-focus profile in People. The next phase of her comeback, Wednesday's premier of her new weekly football show on BetUS TV, was not so competently executed.

The People article is about what you'd expect. Russini talks about how "heartbreaking" the the last six months have been, and how having to resign from The Athletic after going interlaced fingers mode with Vrabel at an adults-only resort was a "nightmare." Russini also seems to be maintaining her position that there was nothing inappropriate about her relationship with Vrabel, which included rendezvous in a bar, a casino, and on a boat. She complained to People about all the "lies" that "became so out of control.” The profile finished up with Russini trying to reposition herself as an inspiration to women. “I really hope that I can be someone other women see: you can pick yourself up, get back in there and not be afraid,” she said.

With that out of the way, it was time for the main event. The Russini Report, a weekly one-hour web show about the NFL, debuted on Wednesday. The show is hosted by BetUS, which is a sketchy offshore sportsbook that is headquartered in Costa Rica and regulated by the government of Curaçao. I also feel compelled to tell you that the show that preceded The Russini Report on the BetUS platform featured these three gentleman, who I'm assuming all know each other from a support group for uncanny individuals:

Would it shock you to hear that this company ran into some debilitating technical issues while trying to broadcast the first episode of Russini's show?

The Russini Report, which was promoted as a live show, was supposed to start at noon. Eager viewers who tuned in at that time were greeted by a looping video that featured a "Show Starts Soon" graphic, rotating photos of Russini in various poses, and hold music.

For the next 40 minutes, this was all people who wanted to watch The Russini Report had to look at. Perhaps she was too busy reporting to start the show on time? No, according to the show's official Twitter account, the delay was due to the sheer amount of people attempting to tune in.

As the delay crept towards the 50-minute mark, the looping poses gave way to this concerning graphic:

After refreshing the page a few times, that graphic gave way to a functioning video player, in which the entire 53-minute debut episode of The Russini Report was available to watch, which was sort of odd given that the show was meant to be broadcast live.

No matter. Russini started the show by thanking the troops, and then spoke vaguely about how spending the last few months at home with her husband and two children granted her new perspective on the kind of person she wants to be going forward. Soon, Russini was chopping it up with her first guest, Damon Amendolara. He strikes me as someone who is a valuable guest to have on shows like these, given how easy it is to mistake his name for Danny Amendola's when reading promotional material. Her second guest was Philadelphia radio host and podcaster Spike Eskin. I was a little confused by the show's running order, given that legendary former NFL coach Bill Parcells received top billing on all of the promotional materials. The 85-year-old Parcells did eventually make an appearance, via garbled telephone call, at the very end of the show. He and Russini talked for roughly two minutes, with Parcells offering sleepy insights like, "The most important thing in game management is the timeouts and how much time on the clock."

If these are the sort of pre-recorded insights you feel have been missing from the NFL media ecosystem over the last the six months, then The Russini Report is the place for you. Tune in next Wednesday, sometime between 12:00 and 12:49 p.m. EST, for more.