Earlier today, there was story surfacing from a boxing site that longtime HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg was fired and was going to be replaced by Yahoo Americas boss Ross Levinsohn. This story had sports media reporters scrambling to see if this was true. When I went to Google News and other sites to check, I found no other site reporting this news.
Kara Swisher at All Things Digital which has its pulse on the Silicon Valley and Internet companies got a denial from directly Levinsohn that he wasn’t going to HBO Sports.
John Ourand from Sports Business Journal got in touch with HBO Sports spokesman Ray Stallone and he was told there was no truth to the report.
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Official word from HBO Sports on rumors that its president Ross Greenburg was fired: “Totally untrue,” says @raysports.
There was no indication that HBO was unhappy with Greenburg or otherwise. He’s been with HBO Sports either as a producer or executive for three decades.
I’ve e-mailed HBO for an official statement and if I get one, you can expect to see it here.
UPDATE, 11:59 p.m.: Thomas Hauser, the man who originally reported that Greenburg was being replaced by Levinsohn has now retracted his story and has posted an apology at BoxingScene.com.