“We regret to inform our fans that our commissioner, Roger Goodell, has passed away”, a tweet from the NFL’s verified account.
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After the initial tweet, two more related follow-up tweets were posted and deleted.
The second and third tweets came after the first was deleted.
Thousands of people retweeted the hacker’s tweets, but it doesn’t appear that many people actually fell for the fake news. ESPN’s resident NFL swami is apparently so good as his job that he actually scooped the league itself by five minutes.
At 12:36 p.m. ET, the NFL’s official account tweeted out that news that Goodell had supposedly died at the age of 57.
A group called Peggle Crew has claimed responsibility, saying that they got the account’s password from an National Football League employee’s email.
Then the hacker responded, through the agency’s account.
Sorry, Patriots fans, Roger Goodell isn’t dead. “We are reviewing and strengthening our cyber-security measures”.
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Goodell didn’t comment on the finger but did joke about the tweet killing him off. Before the account was suspended, it claimed the password protecting the NFL Twitter feed was “olsen3culvercam88”.
