ESPN Drops Bill Simmons
May 10, 2015 9:59 AM   Subscribe

Bill Simmons -- ESPN columnist, creator of sports and pop culture site Grantland, co-creator of the documentary series 30 for 30, and perpetual pain in his corporate masters' asses -- has been unceremoniously let go by the Worldwide Leader.

Simmons first caught ESPN's eye in 2001 when he was the proprietor of BostonSportsGuy.com, and one of his first columns for ESPN.com, Is Clemens the Antichrist?, was one of the most emailed stories on the site that year. He was given his own column on Page 2 and just kept growing in audience and influence. He wrote two best-selling books (an expanded collection of columns and a weird personalized iconoclastic history of the NBA). He opened Grantland in 2011, at which point he was the highest-paid talent in ESPN history, making somewhere around $5 million a year.

It was right around that time that John Skipper -- a valuable ally of Simmons during his ascent -- became president of the network. Vanity Fair notes that Skipper's move from head of content to the more business-oriented presidency "left [Simmons] largely to fend for himself amongst the ground troops in Bristol [Connecticut, where ESPN's headquarters is], and neither he nor they were pleased with the arrangement." It was a tempestuous few years, with ESPN occasionally suspending Simmons from Twitter for various reasons, and then Simmons dropped the nearly final straw on the camel's back with comments on his B.S. Report podcast calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar:
I just think not enough is being made out of the fact that they knew about the tape, and they knew what was on it. Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just saying it. He is lying. I think that dude is lying, if you put him up on a lie detector test that guy would fail. And for all these people to pretend they didn’t know is such fucking bullshit. It really is—it’s such fucking bullshit. And for him to go in that press conference and pretend otherwise, I was so insulted....

I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I’m in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell. Because if one person says that to me, I’m going public. You leave me alone. The commissioner’s a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast. Thank you. … Please call me and say I’m in trouble. I dare you.
A couple weeks earlier, Simmons had run a column titled "The Goodell-Must-Go Bag", featuring many questions from readers about how badly the NFL had botched the Ray Rice debacle (a star football player beat his fiancee unconscious and was suspended for two games, then indefinitely as more details leaked out, and a federal judge vacated the suspension), with Simmons answering in an increasingly exasperated fashion. ESPN took Simmons out of action for three weeks for that, two of which were unpaid.

This year, his massive contract was up for renewal, and rumors from the very start had the network and their star far apart on numbers. Simmons publicly complained about ESPN's level of support for Grantland, and many pundits said that he was basically going to put his services on the open market and that ESPN just couldn't pay him enough.

That seemed to be confirmed last week, when Skipper told the New York Times, "I decided today that we are not going to renew Bill Simmons’s contract. We have been in negotiations, and it was clear it was time to move on." The actual final straw is allegedly Simmons accusing Goodell of a lack of "testicular fortitude". Simmons is a well-known fan of professional wrestling, and the phrase was often used in the 1990s by WWE star Mick "Mankind" Foley.

Simmons has been uncharacteristically quiet since the announcement (his Twitter-ing dropping from an average of six a day to zero), and Grantland has not mentioned the pending departure of its editor-in-chief at all (making it perhaps the only sports site on the entire Internet not to front-page the news).
posted by Etrigan (78 comments total) 26 users marked this as a favorite
 
Great post! I know little about Bill Simmons outside of the existence of Grantland, and this is a nice catcher-upper.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:25 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Could someone explain, for a person who doesn't follow sports at all, why Simmons would be suspended for saying critical things about Roger Goodell? As a pundit/commentator/pontificator, is he required to treat major figures in sports gently?
posted by jayder at 10:27 AM on May 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


So the rub was that Simmons was asking for a raise? Or the same (vast) amount of money?
posted by sacre_bleu at 10:27 AM on May 10, 2015


jayder: ESPN makes a huge amount of money from its contract with the NFL (and makes the NFL a huge amount of money by promoting it). It doesn't want to piss off one of its golden geese.
posted by asterix at 10:31 AM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


ESPN pays the NFL around 15 billion dollars for the right to air Monday Night Football, which earns them an obscene amount of money. If ESPN pisses off the commissioner, he takes that contract and walks it over to Fox or NBC.
posted by muddgirl at 10:32 AM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Yeah, ESPN is incredibly scared of making the NFL look bad. They need the NFL more than the NFL needs them. See also "Playmakers."
posted by Drinky Die at 10:34 AM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Oh, ok. Wow.
posted by jayder at 10:34 AM on May 10, 2015


What a great post, thanks. I guess I'm not surprised that ESPN thought they could buy the credibility of someone like Simmons while simultaneously muzzling him from being too critical of people like Goodell lest he anger their powerful partners. Making a move like this signals to me that they have little interest in remaining credible, when it comes down to it - they'd rather be uncritical mouthpieces for corporate sports, not actual outside commentators. Which really shouldn't surprise me.
posted by dialetheia at 10:34 AM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


Ugh, I hate ESPN.
posted by ReeMonster at 10:35 AM on May 10, 2015 [7 favorites]


I'm sure there's a phrase akin to 'regulatory capture' for what happens when a journalism outfit becomes dependent on the subjects it reports on, but I can't dredge it out of my head.

Anyway, that's a large part of what's going on here--it sounds like money is the ultimate reason, but not wanting to piss off the NFL made it an easy decision to not pay Simmons.
posted by Ickster at 10:36 AM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


So the rub was that Simmons was asking for a raise? Or the same (vast) amount of money?

If it was just money, they would have just waited until his contract expired in September. Instead they fired him out of the blue, with no notice whatsoever, and thus prevented him from using ESPN as a bargaining chip in any future negotiations. It was a really shitty move. The explanations I've heard about Skipper being furious about his a) appearing on the Dan Patrick show at all without permission, and b) saying even more critical stuff about Goodell while he was there, ring true to me.
posted by dialetheia at 10:37 AM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


Once again...
American Football: fantastic spectator sport, if we could seriously ratchet up the safety equipment and make a few minor changes to the rules.

NFL: a cesspit of crooks, liars, and egomaniacs raking in stacks of cash with one hand and legally shielding rapists, spousal abusers, and felons with the other...and who will NEVER EVER EVER permit the sort of safety-conscious rule changes necessary to make the activity they oversee even halfway ethical.

I love football, and I would do almost anything to see it free of the NFL.
posted by Ryvar at 10:41 AM on May 10, 2015 [20 favorites]


Sure, hate on ESPN, they're the lily-livered, yellow-bellied, brown-nosing sacks of suck up, but hate on the NFL even more... the power it wields, the continued lack of holding its players to account, the make excuses.

Blame our culture for letting this be the status quo.

ESPN is more like a symptom, than it is the cause (not to deny that it is *part*) of the problem.
posted by symbioid at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2015


I have this sense that ESPN and the NFL both are going to live to regret this. Perhaps not in a financial way but in a "now we're both being revealed to be idiots" way. Well, even more revealed as idiots than they were previously.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:42 AM on May 10, 2015


I don't know if I'd call ESPN journalism. They don't exist to shed any sort of light or do investigative reporting. They are an entertainment company that shows sports. Once we accept that, their behavior makes a lot more sense.

The problem is that they pretend they are a journalism/news company instead of just one for entertainment purposes.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:43 AM on May 10, 2015 [14 favorites]


I'm sure there's a phrase akin to 'regulatory capture' for what happens when a journalism outfit becomes dependent on the subjects it reports on

Well, except that expecting sports "journalism" to be journalism in any real sense is making a category error. There's never been much of an investigative tradition in the field (at least in the US); it's pretty much always been stenography. (This was one of the reasons Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" was such a sensation when it first came out.)
posted by asterix at 10:43 AM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


So what happens to Grantland?
posted by chavenet at 10:44 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


I am so sad. I love Grantland, and its writers, and the chemistry between its writers, and I agree with the common refrain that "Simmons has been the worst part about Grantland for a long time, and I mean that as a compliment." If he managed Grantland like Jason Whitlock is managing The Undefeated ("Black Grantland"), then we'd be getting weekly articles on The Karate Kid and Teen Wolf. It's a credit to Simmons that he hired writers who don't share his tastes and has given them the freedom to write about things that he knows nothing about.

This was basically a stunning PR victory for ESPN, but based on what I've heard from the negotiations, Simmons was probably not shocked by anything other than the timing/tenor of the announcement. Apparently he never gave them a number to work with. My guess is he was more interested in first negotiating Grantland's freedom of speech, which was a non-starter for ESPN. Plus, publisher David Cho's resignation last week makes me think that they've been planning something new, but who knows. I guess I just hope that most of the Grantlanders stick together and make a joint decision on whether to stay or go, because it would be so sad to see that group splinter up. I mean really, what's Jacoby without Juliet!!?

Oh but there's one silver lining: can you *imagine* how amazing Simmons' anti-ESPN columns will be now??? It's going to be glorious.
posted by acidic at 10:44 AM on May 10, 2015 [13 favorites]


How awful is the NFL? The Jets profited off taxpayers whenever they saluted the troops .
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:45 AM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


It should be noted there were 14 teams involved in that, not just the Jets.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:47 AM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


I wonder how often Skipper took Simmons aside and warned him what could happen. Cause $5 million is a lot of money, quite an investment in one editorial content provider. Except when you compare it to $15 billion.
posted by sacre_bleu at 10:49 AM on May 10, 2015


I don't know if I'd call ESPN journalism.

I think this (from the blue a few days ago) is a pretty great example of unexpectedly good journalism coming from ESPN:

Life, Death and Instagram Unfiltered
posted by paulcole at 10:49 AM on May 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


30 for 30 is one of my favorite things on Netflix right now. And I'm not even a sports person. I love the back-stories of athletes though and highlights on key moments in sports.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:49 AM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


(And a lot of that money was for actual advertising for the Guard. They should be paying for that. Dale Jr. certainly wasn't doing it for free either.)
posted by Drinky Die at 10:50 AM on May 10, 2015


ESPN is capable of journalism, but they have a huge blind spot for things happening right now. There will be a great 30 for 30 on the Ray Rice thing, once he and Goodell are both out of the sport. But not a second before.
posted by Etrigan at 10:51 AM on May 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


There will be a great 30 for 30 on the Ray Rice thing

30 for 30 was Simmons' idea too, right? Sigh. I don't even especially love him but between 30 for 30 and Grantland, he turns out to be responsible for the only stuff ESPN ever did that I ever liked.
posted by dialetheia at 10:57 AM on May 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


ESPN is capable of journalism, but they have a huge blind spot for things happening right now.

the same way they publish the outcomes of the games only after the season is over...
posted by ennui.bz at 11:00 AM on May 10, 2015


The explanations I've heard about Skipper being furious about his a) appearing on the Dan Patrick show at all without permission, and b) saying even more critical stuff about Goodell while he was there, ring true to me.

Except he had permission -- he's on a book tour.

The person who was fired for appearing on a show without permission was the other legendary thorn in the side of ESPN, Keith Olbermann.

The other issue, of course, is he's becoming a name. ESPN hates when thier people become big. They don't want stars. They want people that they can swap in and out at will. Names make demands. They remember all too well what happened when Dan Patrick and Kieth Olbermann became The Big Show, and they don't want that to happen again.

The only reason Simmons lasted this long was Skipper was protecting him. Suddenly, Skipper decided not to -- and cut him off at the knees.

This has been coming to a head for lots of reasons. Simmons thinks he doesn't need ESPN -- he has Grantland and 30 for 30, or in particular, he's proven he can do such things. The real start of the war was when 30 for 30 was flat out told to back off from the joint venture they had with Frontline about the NFL concussion issue. Apparently, Simmons was *livid* with that decision.

So what happens to Grantland?

Nobody knows, but the editorial independence they've had is almost certainly dead. What I'm hoping is that Simmons is staying quiet because he wants to walk Grantland-as-a-whole, either as a new site or to a new outfit.

But yeah, the most interesting thing will be the fact that he'll be able to unload on ESPN. Those columns will be epic. They may not be the smartest thing to do, but you know he won't pull any punches, and come September, there's not a thing ESPN will be able to do about it.
posted by eriko at 11:15 AM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


The Jets profited off taxpayers whenever they saluted the troops

This is news to you? BTW, it's not just the Jets. Every single team. Every single sport.
posted by eriko at 11:17 AM on May 10, 2015


Except he had permission -- he's on a book tour.

Well, this is how Deadspin reported it at the time, but maybe this isn't accurate.

Why ESPN Fired Bill Simmons:
Skipper, according to multiple sources, really was angered beyond all reason by Simmons’s appearance on The Dan Patrick Show yesterday; employees are barred from going on the former ESPNer’s show without obtaining prior permission. Miller, more plugged into Bristol than just about anyone else, called it “the tipping point.”
posted by dialetheia at 11:32 AM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


I hate ESPN, but as an insomniac, I loved ESPN2. World's Strongest Log Dragger? Fun viewing at 3:30 AM.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:39 AM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


Now is the time Bill. Free Darko Dot Com reboot.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:40 AM on May 10, 2015 [8 favorites]


ESPN seems to own the Grantland and 30 for 30 IP, whatever Simmons does next will have to be rebuilt from scratch, although possibly with a lot of the same people if he can take some of them with him out the door. But who knows what Bill Barnwell and the others have in their contracts, it probably won't be easy to pick up the whole Grantland staff and jump ship under a new name.

30 for 30 was not created by Simmons, although be all accounts he took on a guiding role. ESPN should retain full control of it, and FOX or NBC haven't really shown interest in producing actual sports journalism features on the same scale, at least not to date.

Also, what Simmons seems to care about most these days is being on TV for the NBA, even though practically no one watches the vanity Grantland NBA show.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:41 AM on May 10, 2015


I do think him/Grantland going to Vice would be pretty epic. Simultaneously boosts both sides strategically. But the fact that Shane is so openly courting him probably means Bill won't seriously consider it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:42 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


While the NFL stuff was a great way to needle ESPN, it seems like the real issue may have been the NBA coverage, which Simmons was really invested in and which the Bristol people didn't agree with him on.
posted by selfnoise at 11:42 AM on May 10, 2015


Hopefully he can keep Grantland, though if not, he can create it elsewhere. I'd really love to see a collaboration with Nate Silver as well. Just, you know, let ESPN keep coddling worthless hacks like Colin Cowherd while Simmons, Patrick, Olbermann and all the rest of the actual talent goes where they can do something worthwhile.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:42 AM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


The saddest thing is the end of him and Jalen as a team probably. Bill's on screen presence isn't great, but combined with Rose, them just chatting, is scintillating.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:44 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Except he had permission -- he's on a book tour.

How is he on a book tour? The appearance was this week; he doesn't have a new book out right now.
posted by acidic at 11:47 AM on May 10, 2015


Free Darko Dot Com reboot.

You know about The Classical, right?
posted by asterix at 11:47 AM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Except he had permission -- he's on a book tour.

I don't actually follow Simmons that closely, but I feel like I would have heard about it if he'd had a new book coming out. Grantland seems to have been taking up all his time.

And the question of whether he had permission is very much up in the air, with numerous unnamed sources tripping over themselves to say that he did have permission, didn't have permission, had permission from the wrong person, had permission but was told to tread lightly, etc. etc.
posted by Etrigan at 11:58 AM on May 10, 2015


i can't wait until goodell falls off his golden perch and we get the tell alls.
posted by nadawi at 12:01 PM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


You're missing the best theory!

He fell on his sword to distract from the looming Brady suspension, deflategate, Cheatriots, etc. It's totally absurd, which makes it even more perfect -- it's exactly the type of conspiracy theory that Bill would write about if it were any team except the Patriots.
posted by yeahwhatever at 12:27 PM on May 10, 2015 [5 favorites]


(And a lot of that money was for actual advertising for the Guard. They should be paying for that. Dale Jr. certainly wasn't doing it for free either.)

To me, there's an enormous difference between advertising and some of the things going on here. Giving a soldier and his buddies tickets to the game, putting them up in a box, showing them on the jumbotron, and inviting the crowd to applaud their service is not merely advertising. It certainly takes on a different character when money changes hands.
posted by zachlipton at 12:57 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]




Corinth: I don't think that is the link you intended.
posted by Gin and Comics at 1:17 PM on May 10, 2015


Keep reading. It's exactly the link Corinth intended.
posted by Etrigan at 1:23 PM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]




Simmons wrote a pretty extensive letter from the editor about the process that led to that story.
posted by zachlipton at 1:35 PM on May 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


The only thing I have enjoyed by Simmons on Grantland in a long time is the mailbag which is not exactly his original content. The people at ESPN who make the decisions are people I feel a huge class-hate toward, but I don't see how they lose anything by firing Simmons. If I'm counting their beans I don't value him at 5 million a year or anything close to it.
posted by bukvich at 2:07 PM on May 10, 2015 [2 favorites]


$5 million/year is, of course absurd, but in ESPN terms, that's 0.26% of a year of Monday Night Football. That makes it sound eminently reasonable.

Of course, the right solution to the money problem would be to give Simmons more responsibility and control at ESPN so as to get their moneys worth, but that obviously was never going to happen.
posted by zachlipton at 2:51 PM on May 10, 2015


jayder: "Could someone explain, for a person who doesn't follow sports at all, why Simmons would be suspended for saying critical things about Roger Goodell? As a pundit/commentator/pontificator, is he required to treat major figures in sports gently?"

In its early days, EPSN managed to come up as a tiny media company fighting against the major networks, Sports Illustrated, and major metro dailies who all had massively bigger market share by trading slick, friendly, well-produced, softball coverage for access. They'd take the overflow games that networks weren't putting on-air, produce them really well, and produce some interesting human-interest stories about the players that read like Sports Illustrated features, except that if it appeared on ESPN (or in their excerable magazine), it was all fed to them by the player's PR flacks and given a friendly spin by ESPN, whereas Sports Illustrated (and the major metro daily papers) would do some actual reporting and frequently dug into uglier stuff.

ESPN has never had the "wall" between editorial and advertising that journalistic outfits try to create, and it has always gotten its reporters access via friendly coverage. It's not so much a journalism company covering a sports company, but one corporation doing glossy PR for another corporation, who provides interesting product. That's why Grantland was a peculiar fit for the company from the beginning, and why ESPN basically never breaks interesting sports stories. (But really they don't even make a pretense -- "SportsCenter" is unabashedly a roundup of big stories, not first reporting.)

Anyway, imagine ESPN as being like Nintendo Power magazine back in the 1980s. It'll be glossy and slick and have great insider information you can't get elsewhere, but it has all that because it's functionally an arm of Nintendo. ESPN isn't quite that dependent, but it's just not in the organization's DNA to bite the hand that feeds it, and interesting sports commentators rarely stay there long.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:58 PM on May 10, 2015 [13 favorites]


Lots of people dislike Simmons for lots of reasons, but I always enjoyed his conversational writing style. The mailbags were always fun. I think my favorite piece of his was, “A Visit to the 2014 National Sports Collectors Convention.” [Previously.]

In conclusion, Goodell Delenda Est.
posted by ob1quixote at 3:19 PM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


The "30 for 30" short films have included "The Cowboys and the Indian" (about a programmer whom the Dallas Cowboys brought in to improve their drafting process) and "The Queen of Code" (about pioneering programmer Grace Hopper; the film does not mention sports at all and I am unclear why ESPN Films did this, but hey, cool, a Hopper biography). So I'm glad Simmons helped cause those to happen.
posted by brainwane at 3:30 PM on May 10, 2015 [3 favorites]


This bit of cross culture pollination is a bit Simmons-esque but I think Simmons is a lot like Judd Apatow. Apatow never made it as a standup or a comic in his own right, but he is good at producing and grooming talent. Same with Simmons. The line about him being the worst part of Grantland is so true AND such a compliment. He's done a really incredible job of creating a little empire within an empire, and much of that has to do with scouting and development talent.

As for what he does next, how about starting something like the 'Netflix Sports Channel'?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 3:40 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


There are two interesting through-lines of Simmons + ESPN, which leads to my theory of what went down.

1) Simmons regularly harped on the idea of, "We're ESPN, so we should have XYZ, because we're big enough to afford it, and we shouldn't settle for anything less." This was an argument for world-class quality in all things, from the nature of coverage (e.g. an entity as big as ESPN should be able to criticize anyone it wants to), to small-ball things (e.g. his second-to-last podcast with call-in guests Jimmy Kimmel and Cousin Sal started with Simmons' complaint that the studio could not manage to set up a three-way phone call, resulting in the two guests using their personal cell phones to manage the logistics of the call).

2) Simmons often wrote about top-shelf athletes having goals above and beyond the game. According to Simmons, a guy like LeBron James shouldn't think of himself as a just a basketball player. He has global influence. He should be doing everything. Steve Jobs was a computer guy that almost single-handedly changed the entire music business. LeBron should have those kinds of lofty goals, too.

An example of both is Jimmy Kimmel, who could be construed as Simmons' entertainment role model. Kimmel outgrew The Man Show, focused on quality and realizing personal ambition, and now he's one of the acknowledged leaders in late-night television. It's not beyond the ken to imagine that Kimmel has his sights on Johnny-Carson-esque leadership of all of ABC, and therefore, Disney itself.

Which brings me back to Simmons.

I don't think he wanted a new contract.

I think he wanted to run ESPN itself, top-to-bottom. He wasn't negotiating with Skipper. He wanted to be Skipper.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:07 PM on May 10, 2015 [6 favorites]


ESPN isn't quite that dependent, but it's just not in the organization's DNA to bite the hand that feeds it, and interesting sports commentators rarely stay there long

ESPN.com has always experimented with trying to produce some real, authentic commentary and/or analysis (I mean, they gave Hunter Thompson a regular column on Page 2, among other oddities), but then continually tucks them away on the website as if ashamed to admit that they exist (I mean, Page 2 was literally named Page 2, and got harder to access as time went on). They want to have it both ways, and then are continually shocked to find out that there is 'gambling in this establishment'.

In less widely-reported news, they also just canned Gregg Easterbrook, who may be a 'haughty dipshit' (see link), but was also one of the few people in the ESPN world routinely critical of the NFL. By the end of his run, they were putting the link to his articles up on the front page for something like an hour, then disappearing them completely unless you searched.

Their recent website redesign didn't push Grantland or 538 any farther up the screen, either. I think maybe it made their banners/front page space slightly larger, but they're still well off the bottom when you load it up.
posted by Dr.Enormous at 4:53 PM on May 10, 2015 [1 favorite]


Anyway, imagine ESPN as being like Nintendo Power magazine back in the 1980s.

Basically this is about ethics in sports journalism.
posted by Joey Michaels at 4:58 PM on May 10, 2015 [9 favorites]


I think a Baker/Browne/Pierce triumvirate would do a pretty good job with things. I also think it is very unlikely to happen.
posted by box at 6:57 PM on May 10, 2015


The useful phrase that I picked up from a lot of the gamergate madness is "enthusiast press." The enthusiast press needs a tight relationship with the industry they cover and is very wary of doing anything to upset it.

That includes most sports, game, and tech journalism as well as a fair amount of business and political coverage as well.
posted by wemayfreeze at 9:57 PM on May 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


"I think a Baker/Browne/Pierce triumvirate would do a pretty good job with things."

But here's the thing, why would anyone talented enough to do a good job with Grantland want to work for ESPN now? ESPN has shown (again) that it values it's profits and smooth relationship with its partners (NFL, MLB, NCAA, NBA, et. al.) above anything as trifling as good journalism or integrity.

This is, perhaps, a nice opportunity for Simmons to try to start something like a anti-enthusiast press outlet where writers can print their actual views without fear of upsetting the marketing department. He now has enough money (three years at five million plus book money, at least) to not need an income stream for himself for a good long while.

He's got freedom, a strong brand name and the goodwill of almost everyone he'd want to work with. Let's hope he doesn't squander it.
posted by oddman at 6:45 AM on May 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


But here's the thing, why would anyone talented enough to do a good job with Grantland want to work for ESPN now?

The usual? Money, and eyeballs on their copy? Say what you want about ESPN, they at least pay their writers.
posted by touchstone033 at 7:03 AM on May 11, 2015


Esterbrook could have been their Peter King - clued-in and readable NFL writer with scattershot interests and trains of thought peppered throughout.

On the one hand, the scandal-of-the-day issues Sports Talk Radio and big city tabloid sports pages get all worked up over are pretty tedious and irrelevant. On the other hand, there is a middle-ground between muck-racking soap-operatics and the bland, interchangeable Op-Ed generator programs ESPN seems to favor these days.

Esterbrook is going to make a mountain of money for whoever signs him up, and ESPN will realize its dream of being known only as a place to find score recaps, game highlights and idle pre-game speculation from former athletes, just like the ten gazillion other online sports outlets.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:16 AM on May 11, 2015


Money, and eyeballs on their copy? Say what you want about ESPN, they at least pay their writers

Well sure, but we aren't talking about people who simply want a job writing about sports. We're talking about people tasked to come in and guide a prestige website to continued success, and more importantly a particular kind of success. Grantland isn't buzzfeed. The writer's at Grantland want more than page views, they want the freedom to do what they think of as a good job. ESPN has just shown then that no matter how good a job you do (and almost everyone in this thread and elsewhere is in agreement that Simmons did a really good job), if you're unwilling to be a sycophant in the vein of Skip Bayless, then you are going to face censure from the ESPN brass.

If you are the kind of writer who can continue Simmon's success at Grantland (as the editor), you are very likely the same kind of person to bristle at the very constraints that led to Simmons' dismissal.
posted by oddman at 7:28 AM on May 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Deadspin: Bill Simmons Is A Shitty Writer
posted by Chrysostom at 9:49 AM on May 11, 2015


The only ESPN content I consume these days is that which is generated by or overseen by Bill Simmons, so I'll just see myself out.
posted by snottydick at 10:11 AM on May 11, 2015


Deadspin: Bill Simmons Is A Shitty Writer

I find these kind of articles vulgar and infuriating. Not that everything written about Simmons needs to be worshipful and fawning, but if the author really had such a low opinion of Simmons' writing, one wonders why he didn't write this column years ago, rather than timing it to drop right when Simmons name was all over the news, making this column not only appear to be intentionally kicking someone while he is down, but also a desperate, cynical attempt at clickbait.
posted by The Gooch at 11:12 AM on May 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


but if the author really had such a low opinion of Simmons' writing, one wonders why he didn't write this column years ago

Deadspin has had a one-sided feud with Simmons for a long time. For example, Here's an unflattering review of Simmon's book from way back in 2009. Or you can trawl the extensive Bill Simmons tag.
posted by muddgirl at 11:17 AM on May 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


Kavitha Davidson's piece explains why Bill Simmons' writing never spoke to me as a fan, Average Jane Won't Miss ESPN's Average Joe
posted by gladly at 11:23 AM on May 11, 2015 [4 favorites]


If you are the kind of writer who can continue Simmon's success at Grantland (as the editor), you are very likely the same kind of person to bristle at the very constraints that led to Simmons' dismissal.

I'm not sure this is true. Grantland copy is very different from Simmons' persona as writer/podcaster. I can't think of any story I've read on that site that comes close to attacking ESPN's sacred cows, let alone in the same, screechy, talk-show-host way Bill did.

(Please don't interpret that as me defending ESPN's relationship with the NFL and its business interests dictating message and content.)

Grantland content has a lot of freedom in form, but not in ideas. Most of the sports columns are your standard stuff -- season previews, player profiles, op-ed pieces on team-building -- but with a twist: compelling voice, inclusion of analytics, nontraditional form.

Simmons contribution as editor was to use his own column's success as a web-based form to leverage more and better "new" forms into ESPN. Now that it's here and an established part of the network, I can't see why it couldn't go on unabated with other editors. Unless ESPN doesn't see it as profitable enough, or something.
posted by touchstone033 at 6:46 PM on May 11, 2015


Don't know much about Bill Simmons' writing, but the 30 for 30 series is some of the best sports filmmaking I've ever seen. It's as riveting as Bull Durham, The Natural, or He's Got Game, but it's non-fiction. A good example is "Broke" where the filmmakers get athletes to be extraordinarily candid about their failings.
posted by prepmonkey at 7:13 AM on May 12, 2015 [1 favorite]


Now that they've got that sweet sweet Verizon money, maybe it's time for a homecoming to AOL?
posted by Rock Steady at 8:44 AM on May 12, 2015


i've been reading that they are likely planning to sell off the media holdings, so i don't imagine they'll be picking up more.
posted by nadawi at 8:51 AM on May 12, 2015


I'm not sure how exactly, but this is going to end up with Simmons at Netflix.
posted by Etrigan at 8:53 AM on May 12, 2015 [3 favorites]


My favorite '30 for 30' is 'June 17, 1994.'
posted by box at 10:42 AM on May 12, 2015


The Two Escobars was riveting for sports fans and non-sports fans alike. Catching Hell about the Bartman Incident had excellent production values.
posted by mmascolino at 11:59 AM on May 12, 2015


There have been some great 30 for 30 features, but my favorites are two of the shorts, Judging Jewell and Holy Grail.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:00 PM on May 12, 2015


Slate: How Bill Simmons Changed Sportswriting
posted by box at 4:27 PM on May 12, 2015


Deadspin: How To Employ Bill Simmons
posted by reenum at 5:51 PM on May 12, 2015


« Older Coming through!   |   Select Thine Weapon Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments