Mel Kiper and Agent Allegations Closed Case
Written by playerpress.com, Wednesday October 13 2010
ESPN Draft analyst Mel Kyper had been accused of being too close with NFL agent Gary Wichard by agent Josh Luchs in Sports Illustrated and allegedly building up Wichard’s clients in an attempt to increase their draft value.
Because of the allegations, ESPN did an investigation of Kiper in order to determine if in fact he rated Wichard’s clients higher then they should have been and was not business ethical with his player evaluations prior to NFL drafts.
Kiper has staunchly denied the allegations and people who have worked with him at ESPN have backed up his claims that he never played favorites for anyone and that all of his draft evaluations were his own opinions and he stood by them regardless of how their NFL careers eventually turned out.
Former ESPN producer Fred Gaudelli, who now produces NBC's Sunday Night Football told NBCSports.com: "I was the Producer or Executive Producer of ESPN's coverage of the NFL Draft from 1990 to 2001. I spoke to Mel Kiper virtually every day from combine time through draft day(s). He never falsely pumped or promoted any player for any reason.
"Mel's evaluations were from the tape he studied, team and league personnel he spoke to and whatever time he spoke to the players themselves. To suggest he was pimping for Wichard or any other agent is patently false.”
Gaudelli explained that Kiper rarely compromised his views in 11 years, and only did so at the behest of ESPN producers.
Kiper said he hasn't been compensated or offered to be compensated by agents: “Never, ever, ever, ever! First of all if it was ever suggested, they would be persona non grata with me, it would be over. And I’ll say this: it’s never been suggested. In 32 years of doing this, it’s never been suggested that anything like that could ever be done.”
ESPN has since closed the investigation mostly because of numerous instances where Kiper had actually ranked Wichard’s clients a lot lower then they were actually picked in the draft.
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