Dianna Russini’s long-awaited return spectacularly failed as her new show was hit by technical difficulties as it tried to premiere.
Russini is returning to the spotlight for the first time since April, when photos of her and New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel sparked a massive scandal.
She stepped down from The Athletic, where she was NFL insider for the New York Times-owned sports outlet, and deleted her social media accounts.
But she has returned with Costa Rica-based offshore betting site BetUS, where she released a debut column on Wednesday, two hours before the first episode of ‘The Russini Report’ show promoted throughout the week.
The first episode of the show spectacularly failed as the website crashed as the episode was due to start. Viewers were greeted by an error page saying ‘sorry, we’ll be back soon’ for several minutes.
15 minutes after the show had been due to start, it was still not live. At 12:08 pm, the page had returned to a ‘Show starts soon’ promotional page.
Dianna Russini’s new show did not launch as planned with the offshore betting site crashing
Dianna Russini has launched her NFL comeback and opened up on her ‘nightmare’ six months
And at 12:24pm ET, the ‘@RussiniReport’ account for the show finally responded to the issues, writing: ‘Well… you broke it.
‘The premiere of The Russini Report drew a record-breaking audience today! We’re adding more seats so everyone gets in. Stay with us! We’ll be back shortly.’
Those trying – and failing – to tune in widely mocked the failed launch on social media, before the show eventually started working on a new link at 12:45pm.
One user wrote: ‘Doesn’t work. Oh how the mighty have fallen,’ as another said: ‘Of course it’s already failing… just give it up.’
Another said: ‘Great start. Professional cluster#@%&. But the nightclub music is catchy.’
A further post read: ‘Probably wasn’t even more than a thousand people and the server crashed.’
Her first show featured Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells as well as sports radio personalities Damon Amendolara and Spike Eskin.
She briefly touched on her absence at the start of the show and her renewed passion for covering the NFL after her time away as she said: ‘I really promise to try to make this hour worth your time.’
In her first blog post for the company, Russini wrote about how she coped with the immense fallout of the scandal that engulfed the NFL offseason, without directly addressing why she was forced to step away from the sport.
Russini released her first written column two hours before the premiere of her show
Russini resigned from her position at The Athletic after the Mike Vrabel affair scandal erupted
She revealed she took to walking as a way to clear her head and process her thoughts and next steps, as well as spending time with her husband and their two kids.
She wrote: ‘Somewhere along those walks, I found time to think. About my family. My choices. The things I’d made room for, and the things I’d too often asked to wait.
‘Being home with my husband and our two little boys reminded me how much happens in the ordinary hours, and how grateful I was to be there for them. And, because apparently I can’t help myself, I thought about football. A lot of football…’
She shared that she ‘kept coming back to one thing. I’m obsessed with the NFL’ as she declared: ‘I’m back. And I couldn’t be more excited about what’s next.’
