76ers reporter caught threatening to T-bone fan in Discord, immediately gets wrecked
Sixers reporter and demolition derby enthusiast Austin Krell has caused quite a stir on Twitter this afternoon. A fan on Twitter, the well-known CliffNotez, informed his followers that he obtained screenshots of Krell openly threatening physical harm on him in a Discord server. More specifically, he disliked Cliff’s takes so much he wanted to crash into his car.
An interesting choice, especially for a sports reporter verified on Twitter, but not without its roots in history (which we’ll get to later).
Here’s Cliff’s tweet outing the now-maligned reporter:
Totally disgusting language by this reporter. I’m all for threatening to kill somebody with a car. Just do it to their face. And definitely don’t do it over Sixers takes, especially since you both root for the same team. If I want to dribble your head off the sidewalk because you want Furk to get more playoff minutes, I’ll tell you directly, not do it behind your back on Discord.
Krell left an underwhelming apology, which I took a screenshot of if he deletes it. At the same time, I wouldn’t blame him for deleting it, as the number of quote tweets indicates the public’s reaction was less than favorable.
Many of the replies have taken issue with the idea that Krell didn’t want Cliff in the car. This requires people to believe he just wanted to crash into an empty vehicle. While that may seem odd to most people, I have an inside scoop on where this car crash fixation may have come from.
Interestingly enough, this isn’t Krell’s first time in an automobile-related controversy. In fact, I’m not only a colleague of his in the oversaturated world of Philly sports media; he’s an old classmate of mine. We went to school together for nine years.
After this tweet blew up, I talked to a few buddies from school and we all brought up the same thing.
Rita’s.
While a particular group of people will understand why that’s funny right off the bat, allow me to explain. A younger, just as disliked Austin crashed his car into the storefront of a Maine Line Rita’s location while trying to back out. He thought it was in reverse, but it was not. The rest is history, and history is cyclical.
I don’t know if he’s looking to transition from reporter to participant in a sort of “Death Race” style competition or what. Still, there’s precedent for vehicular violence, especially towards inanimate objects. On the other hand, maybe he’s practicing to become a Monster Truck reporter. It’s all a mystery, really.
Also, this isn’t the only time Krell had some regrettable words for prominent members of the Philadelphia sports community. Just look at the following email he sent a few years ago to one of the most well-known radio personalities in the city.
While he didn’t threaten to harm Natalie, it definitely hurt to read that stupid email. Rightfully, he got packed up on Twitter then, and it’s happening again now. I’d like to say it’s been a comedy of errors over the years, but that would require any of this to be remotely funny.
It’s disappointing to see a beautiful sport like basketball create such toxic rhetoric. I’m all for jabs and talking shit, but it’s all got to be within reason (and ideally with people you at least semi rock with). What he said was something I’d expect from a salty Raptors fan hammered off of their ass, not a reporter representing my city and team.
