This week saw a lot of discussion on the @NFL_DovKleiman X/Twitter account and just who is behind it.
While that’s not clearly resolved yet, there have been significant suggestions that the person behind the account may have changed in the last year. And while that’s drawn some “Who cares?” reactions, there is a case to be made that the identity of the person or people behind that account (which has almost 290,000 followers) and other aggregator accounts is notable.
How did we get here? Well, there had been some conversations about the identity of the poster or posters behind that account for a long time. That included WFAN’s Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti last year, who suggested both that the account wasn’t run by a real individual and that it was a “plant for Tom Brady.”
However, a subsequent New York Post piece from Ryan Glasspiegel seemed to solve the “mystery,” with Kleiman revealing photos of himself and saying he lived in Israel. And following a furor over Kleiman’s framing of an old Pro Football Talk piece from Mike Florio on Caleb Williams in October, he spoke to A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports for a wider piece on aggregator and satire accounts. He objected to being lumped in with other NFL ones run by anonymous people.
At that point, Kleiman was concerned about his reputation and how some of those comparisons to other aggregators impacted it. He told Perez, “I hate it. It is what it is. And you know the worst part? In some ways, I have a worse reputation on Twitter because of them.”
And that was somewhat of a fair complaint. For example, @_MLFootball didn’t respond to Perez’s request for comment (for that aforementioned piece) on two completely inaccurate stories, and @jasrifootball (JPA Football) did, but only anonymously. So Kleiman stood out as someone a. using his real name and b. answering requests for comment on his posts. He did that with other media requests around that time, too, including some from Awful Announcing around a January 2024 accusation from the @GameDayNFL account staff that he’d hacked their account.
That proven identity and willingness to discuss actions was the basis for a March 2024 piece here. That piece covered how Michael Lombardi saying he’d “fight back” against Kleiman and labeling him as “some cat in a basement somewhere in Israel” seemed like a throwback to early “bloggers in basements” criticism of people like Florio and didn’t seem fair given Kleiman both revealing his identity and answering requests for comment. And Kleiman’s account has long promoted accuracy, including with a bio of “Follow for the best and most accurate NFL stories.”
However, following that piece’s publication, several AA sources reached out to suggest that Kleiman was not, in fact, running that account any longer and had sold it to someone else. And Kleiman declined to respond to a request for comment on that at that time.
At that time, AA could not get enough solid information to report speculation about Kleiman selling the account. But things took a turn this week following a controversy over a since-deleted X/Twitter post with a picture of Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis and Hayden Hopkins that referred to the Instagram influencer as Davis’ “girlfriend” (which Hopkins shot down). The Kleiman account was only one of many to suggest that, but it sparked renewed discussion on who was operating the account. And Barstool Sports’ Jack McGuire posted (in a since-deleted post) that he’d confirmed Kleiman had sold the account.
As of Thursday, AA has not confirmed a sale. But we have confirmed DMs of Kleiman discussing a potential sale with media members last fall, and there are several other notable changes in behavior around the account: repeated ads for 888sport and Instagram and TikTok accounts featuring someone who looks different than the previous photos Kleiman shared.
Perez has added to that with a report that Kleiman asked Snapback Sports’ Jack Settleman for $75,000 for the account in December (Settleman declined). He also noted that the account received several large “tips” in February and deposited $21,000 worth of Bitcoin on a linked profile. Kleiman told him via e-mail, “Respectfully, I can’t comment on that Twitter account.” So that certainly adds to the case that the account is no longer run by Kleiman, especially given his previous willingness to discuss posts there.
But why does that matter?
Well, it comes back to the aforementioned discussion of reputation and accountability. The past issues with Kleiman’s account were about specific pieces. He did stand out from those other aforementioned aggregators for both putting a name behind his posts and being willing to discuss them.
Sportswriting under an alias can be okay, but it has sometimes made sense for those who might have an issue with their day jobs (hello, Mike Schur). But well-respected alias writers have been contactable and have had their past work easily trackable, and it’s been clear that their posts are coming from a particular person, just one not using their real name. Putting a real name behind that elevates the credibility further.
Putting a name to content doesn’t mean the person has accurate information. Many of the criticisms of Kleiman’s content and framing had a point. However, someone using their real name, with a history of work, and willing to respond to requests for comment should get criticisms on their content, not their identity. And that’s part of why the discussion on Florio is so different now than it was when he first started, to a point where he can point to his history when people question his sources.
However, the ownership uncertainty around Kleiman’s account certainly removes him from that category.
Of course, this is less of a big deal with an account like Kleiman’s that presents itself as an aggregator only rather than an original reporter. This isn’t to say that there’s absolutely no value to the Kleiman account if it is, in fact, being run by a new person or group; if it still presents accurate information from a variety of NFL sources, there will definitely be people who prefer that to follow every insider and beat writer. And that’s the same for the other aforementioned aggregators.
But there’s certainly less of a claim for the Kleiman account to be considered separately than those other accounts these days. That’s especially true, given the amount of data that seems to support a sale theory, plus the no-comment response from Kleiman. (And a sale is a good reason for a no-comment reaction, given that account sales are against X policies.)
Yes, for some, it’s not going to matter at all who’s behind @NFL_DovKleiman. And that’s fair; if the content is valuable to a reader, they don’t have to care about who supplies it. But even an aggregator-only account is presenting a particular point of view with what it’s covering and how it frames the information, as noted in some of these past controversies around the Kleiman account, and it can be useful for many readers to understand where that point of view is coming from. And that’s different if it is one person with a history of using their real name and a history of past work, or if it is a different person or people entirely, with no provided biographical information or comments on the gambling ads they’re posting.
The ads there also raise further questions. In an era of increased sports gambling and increased sports gambling scandals, there are many questions about the relationship between sports media content and gambling. The best way to solve that is with transparency.
Many network insiders have sponsorship deals with different sportsbooks, but they’ve been open about those and have made clear public comments on how they don’t let those influence their reporting or tweeting. And even the newest form of the site using the Deadspin name is more credible with a named gambling-linked owner who does respond to requests for comment than it was with a mystery owner. (The value or lack thereof of that site can still be debated, but “We don’t know who owns it” isn’t the case anymore.)
While aggregator accounts aren’t breaking original news, there’s certainly still the potential for them to influence lines based on what they do or don’t present to their followers and how they frame it. And there would be less skepticism around that if it was clear who owned the account and how they plan to use it. (And given the scale of these accounts and the numbers of players and other plugged-in people who follow them, some of them might wind up breaking some news at some point if they chose to go down that path.)
Again, if the @NFL_DovKleiman account chooses to remain silent on who’s currently behind it, that’s their right. But there is merit in presenting to the public the growing suggestions that that account may no longer be run by the person who initially ran it and spoke about who they were. That does impact the account’s credibility and will impact the way many view it and its information. A “Who cares?” response can be valid, too, but there are people who care.
And there’s a case for caring.
