WTF?!?! Bill Simmons & ESPN to Part Ways, signs deal w/ HBO Any Given Wednesday, The Ringer blog
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Simmons the most talented ever at ESPN?
Might be the funniest thing I've read all week.
Might be the funniest thing I've read all week.
Good question. Only thing i recall before him was PTI a time of two.
After ESPN And Bill Simmons Divorce, What Is The Future for Grantland.com?
At the outset of the union between Bill Simmons’ new Grantland.com and ESPN in 2011, Nicholas Hall wrote a column in The Atlantic.com predicting its inevitable breakup. The business model didn’t make much sense — a “site within a site” paying big bucks to brand name writers providing similar content to the main site. More damning, Simmon’s “rebellious teenager” personality would bristle against the boundaries of his ESPN managers as well as grow tired of the responsibilities of being a manager himself. Hall needs to get into the forecasting business.
example, are well aware of ESPN and some of their on-air personalities and tapped into pop culture but have little clue as to who Bill Simmons is.
This speaks to the ongoing paradox that is Bill Simmons. He is sports analytics geek, hip pop culture guy, and obnoxious frat boy rolled into one. His Grantland reflects these varied interests and dimensions. Simmons seems to grasp for “the most interesting man in the world” role, but his core audience derives from avid, really avid, sports fans.
Even for such avid sports readers, the Simmons and Grantland paradox continues. His style, and that of some of his writers, combine very thoughtful insights on the sports that they cover with a genuine clever comic flair, seemingly written for the thinking fan. On the other side, the material is so peppered with incredibly crude, over-privileged, frat boy, “Harold and Kumar” stuff that some of these thinking fans are turned off, while, at the same time, the long, long articles hardly seem to be the fare that would keep the Harold and Kumar crowd interested.
From the start, Simmons’ rebellious teen side created friction with ESPN. These tensions flowed out last fall when Simmons when on a rant calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar and then openly challenging his ESPN bosses to do something about his behavior. They did by suspending him, leading to ridiculous sympathy and support among some in the media who couldn’t make the simplest distinctions between journalistic integrity and petulant, self-obsessed grandstanding. (On the other hand, some in the media are big critics of Simmons because he doesn’t maintain adequate “journalistic distance.”)
While ESPN executives deny that the fall episode sparked the divorce — “it’s a business decision” — it could not of helped either side’s willingness to compromise in negotiations over a new deal. Nonetheless, the business considerations were the driving force. Personalities and bad behavior seem to matter little in entertainment and media if millions and billions can be gained. As the Atlantic column noted, itsnot clear the value-added from Grantland in terms of additional viewership on ESPN’s site.
On the flip side, Grantland certainly benefited, at least initially, from its tie-in with ESPN. Millions of viewers who went to ESPN’s site for scores or news about current sports events were invited to click through to Simmons’ site.
What’s next for Grantland? There is speculation that the site may setup a deal with another major media presence such as Fox or Yahoo!. It’s not clear why the “site within a site” model or Simmons’ personality would work any better there, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
The other option is for Grantland to stand on its own legs. Looking at Alexa and FreeWebsiteReport, Grantland is about the 1500th most popular website in the world and around 400th in the U.S. with daily views in the 700,000+ range which translates into an annual value of about $1.7 million If those values are anywhere near accurate Grantland’ is a small, niche player.
Digging deeper into the viewership and search data, the real value is in Bill Simmons name, not Grantland. That makes one wonder about whether Simmons is really long for Grantland himself. He is a valuable name to have on a website or television, but not so much Grantland. More than once he has expressed little interest in actually managing the site’s content.
At the outset of the union between Bill Simmons’ new Grantland.com and ESPN in 2011, Nicholas Hall wrote a column in The Atlantic.com predicting its inevitable breakup. The business model didn’t make much sense — a “site within a site” paying big bucks to brand name writers providing similar content to the main site. More damning, Simmon’s “rebellious teenager” personality would bristle against the boundaries of his ESPN managers as well as grow tired of the responsibilities of being a manager himself. Hall needs to get into the forecasting business.
example, are well aware of ESPN and some of their on-air personalities and tapped into pop culture but have little clue as to who Bill Simmons is.
This speaks to the ongoing paradox that is Bill Simmons. He is sports analytics geek, hip pop culture guy, and obnoxious frat boy rolled into one. His Grantland reflects these varied interests and dimensions. Simmons seems to grasp for “the most interesting man in the world” role, but his core audience derives from avid, really avid, sports fans.
Even for such avid sports readers, the Simmons and Grantland paradox continues. His style, and that of some of his writers, combine very thoughtful insights on the sports that they cover with a genuine clever comic flair, seemingly written for the thinking fan. On the other side, the material is so peppered with incredibly crude, over-privileged, frat boy, “Harold and Kumar” stuff that some of these thinking fans are turned off, while, at the same time, the long, long articles hardly seem to be the fare that would keep the Harold and Kumar crowd interested.
From the start, Simmons’ rebellious teen side created friction with ESPN. These tensions flowed out last fall when Simmons when on a rant calling NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar and then openly challenging his ESPN bosses to do something about his behavior. They did by suspending him, leading to ridiculous sympathy and support among some in the media who couldn’t make the simplest distinctions between journalistic integrity and petulant, self-obsessed grandstanding. (On the other hand, some in the media are big critics of Simmons because he doesn’t maintain adequate “journalistic distance.”)
While ESPN executives deny that the fall episode sparked the divorce — “it’s a business decision” — it could not of helped either side’s willingness to compromise in negotiations over a new deal. Nonetheless, the business considerations were the driving force. Personalities and bad behavior seem to matter little in entertainment and media if millions and billions can be gained. As the Atlantic column noted, itsnot clear the value-added from Grantland in terms of additional viewership on ESPN’s site.
On the flip side, Grantland certainly benefited, at least initially, from its tie-in with ESPN. Millions of viewers who went to ESPN’s site for scores or news about current sports events were invited to click through to Simmons’ site.
What’s next for Grantland? There is speculation that the site may setup a deal with another major media presence such as Fox or Yahoo!. It’s not clear why the “site within a site” model or Simmons’ personality would work any better there, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
The other option is for Grantland to stand on its own legs. Looking at Alexa and FreeWebsiteReport, Grantland is about the 1500th most popular website in the world and around 400th in the U.S. with daily views in the 700,000+ range which translates into an annual value of about $1.7 million If those values are anywhere near accurate Grantland’ is a small, niche player.
Grantland Publisher David Cho Is Leaving, Too
Bill Simmons isn’t the only one leaving Grantland and ESPN.
David Cho, who has been publisher of the sports + pop culture site since Simmons started it in 2011, gave his notice to ESPN last week, according to a person familiar with the site. ESPN announced this morning that it was not renewing Simmons’ contract, which was set to expire this fall.
In March, I spoke to Simmons about his future at ESPN, and the future of Grantland. Here’s the part that has resonance today:
“We just talked about all the things you’re doing. Do you think you could go off by yourself, or some place other than ESPN, and recreate all of this?
I don’t like the word “recreate.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Grantland has been the most important thing I’ve done now for five years. Everything I’ve done for the last five years has been geared toward the site. I think it’s a business. The frustrating thing is you have to keep growing to have a business. You can’t just say “Okay — we’re good, after three years — we don’t need more people.”
I just think Grantland’s at a crucial point now where we’re doing the site that we have now really, really well. And that’s been the case now for about 14 months. So now the question is, what does that mean to ESPN? I don’t know. I don’t know that it’s a me decision — it’s what does ESPN want from this site? Because if they just want it to say the same, it’s going to stagnate a little bit.
It sounds like you’re asking ESPN to give you more resources.
I’m not doing anything. I haven’t asked for anything.
But when you do — it sounds like what you’re going ask them to do is to invest more in your property, and you.
I wouldn’t say that. That’s a decision that has to come from them. They just have to think about what the goals of the company are. The reality is they make billions of dollars with TV rights. It’s always good to dabble in different things. But sometimes when you dabble in different things, they turn into something. I think you have a responsibility at that point to decide “Alright — something happened here. This is a really good thing. Now what do we do?” That’s not my decision.
But you’ve made some suggestions, presumably, to [ESPN head] John Skipper and those folks.
No, I haven’t, actually. I haven’t had a lot of contact with those people since last September.
That was the Goodell thing. Does that experience influence your decision?
I don’t know. What I care about is the people I work with. Those are the people who know how much time we’ve put into everything. And we’ve never had … we’ve always been understaffed, always. We’ve had to pick certain people who are just overachieving, people that care about the product that we have. And, you know — at some point you want to have the right number of people, you want to start adding verticals and certain things. And if you’re not prepared to do that, I don’t know what’s left.
So that conversation has to happen first. And then you have to have a conversation afterward about me, and what I want to do. I still feel like I have five years left, where I can work at this pace. In five years I’m going to be 50, and I don’t know how hard I’m going to be able to work. I know how hard I work now. I don’t know if it’s going to be sustainable.
I think they take it for granted. Not just how hard I work, but how hard everybody works.”
Bill Simmons isn’t the only one leaving Grantland and ESPN.
David Cho, who has been publisher of the sports + pop culture site since Simmons started it in 2011, gave his notice to ESPN last week, according to a person familiar with the site. ESPN announced this morning that it was not renewing Simmons’ contract, which was set to expire this fall.
In March, I spoke to Simmons about his future at ESPN, and the future of Grantland. Here’s the part that has resonance today:
“We just talked about all the things you’re doing. Do you think you could go off by yourself, or some place other than ESPN, and recreate all of this?
I don’t like the word “recreate.” That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Grantland has been the most important thing I’ve done now for five years. Everything I’ve done for the last five years has been geared toward the site. I think it’s a business. The frustrating thing is you have to keep growing to have a business. You can’t just say “Okay — we’re good, after three years — we don’t need more people.”
I just think Grantland’s at a crucial point now where we’re doing the site that we have now really, really well. And that’s been the case now for about 14 months. So now the question is, what does that mean to ESPN? I don’t know. I don’t know that it’s a me decision — it’s what does ESPN want from this site? Because if they just want it to say the same, it’s going to stagnate a little bit.
It sounds like you’re asking ESPN to give you more resources.
I’m not doing anything. I haven’t asked for anything.
But when you do — it sounds like what you’re going ask them to do is to invest more in your property, and you.
I wouldn’t say that. That’s a decision that has to come from them. They just have to think about what the goals of the company are. The reality is they make billions of dollars with TV rights. It’s always good to dabble in different things. But sometimes when you dabble in different things, they turn into something. I think you have a responsibility at that point to decide “Alright — something happened here. This is a really good thing. Now what do we do?” That’s not my decision.
But you’ve made some suggestions, presumably, to [ESPN head] John Skipper and those folks.
No, I haven’t, actually. I haven’t had a lot of contact with those people since last September.
That was the Goodell thing. Does that experience influence your decision?
I don’t know. What I care about is the people I work with. Those are the people who know how much time we’ve put into everything. And we’ve never had … we’ve always been understaffed, always. We’ve had to pick certain people who are just overachieving, people that care about the product that we have. And, you know — at some point you want to have the right number of people, you want to start adding verticals and certain things. And if you’re not prepared to do that, I don’t know what’s left.
So that conversation has to happen first. And then you have to have a conversation afterward about me, and what I want to do. I still feel like I have five years left, where I can work at this pace. In five years I’m going to be 50, and I don’t know how hard I’m going to be able to work. I know how hard I work now. I don’t know if it’s going to be sustainable.
I think they take it for granted. Not just how hard I work, but how hard everybody works.”
Love him or hate him...you read him.
Simmons practically invited a damn style of sports writing with his 1,000 essays and pop references which is in the DNA of all the sports sites to come after deadspin etc.
He DRAGGED ESPN into the Internets kicking and screaming and 30 for 30?
nuff said.
This is a very smart man and honestly no matter how contentious I think the perfect place for him WAS ESPN and wouldn't be surprised if he returned in some capacity one day.
And DO NOT be surprised how loyal the grantland staff he pretty much hand selected will be to him.
no matter the views grantland has become a trusted brand and you can't undersell that.
It aint easy.
but like MB detailed perfectly he has a ton of options as long as that company is willing to open the vault. He will go RIGHT at ESPN's throat too.
Which something all these upstarts sports entities need to be doing anyway.
If he has a podcast I'll listen, a show I'll watch, a book I'll read and if he starts a site I'll check it out.
And trust he has a loyal fanbase (and haters) who will do the same.
The great thing is he never leaned on ESPN personalities anyway...so the whole ESPN only appears on ESPN thing won't effect him.
If he is able to go to FOX, NBC or CBS (with free rein) AND do something on a premium channel like HBO like a sports documentary series and produce a sports show similar to Real Sports?
Its over.
and Bill if you reading this I want my 5%.
Simmons practically invited a damn style of sports writing with his 1,000 essays and pop references which is in the DNA of all the sports sites to come after deadspin etc.
He DRAGGED ESPN into the Internets kicking and screaming and 30 for 30?
nuff said.
This is a very smart man and honestly no matter how contentious I think the perfect place for him WAS ESPN and wouldn't be surprised if he returned in some capacity one day.
And DO NOT be surprised how loyal the grantland staff he pretty much hand selected will be to him.
no matter the views grantland has become a trusted brand and you can't undersell that.
It aint easy.
but like MB detailed perfectly he has a ton of options as long as that company is willing to open the vault. He will go RIGHT at ESPN's throat too.
Which something all these upstarts sports entities need to be doing anyway.
If he has a podcast I'll listen, a show I'll watch, a book I'll read and if he starts a site I'll check it out.
And trust he has a loyal fanbase (and haters) who will do the same.
The great thing is he never leaned on ESPN personalities anyway...so the whole ESPN only appears on ESPN thing won't effect him.
If he is able to go to FOX, NBC or CBS (with free rein) AND do something on a premium channel like HBO like a sports documentary series and produce a sports show similar to Real Sports?
Its over.
and Bill if you reading this I want my 5%.
^^^^ on point as always!
Shane Smith Offers Bill Simmons New Home at Vice
Bill Simmons is welcome to join Vice Media after just losing his home at ESPN. Vice co-founder Shane Smith tweeted multiple times at the popular ESPN personality, asking Simmons to move to his company.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons">@BillSimmons</a> you are a beautiful baby boy and we love you very much. Come to VICE we make you happy for oncet in our misery lives.</p>— shane smith (@shanesmith30) <a href="https://twitter.com/shanesmith30/status/596706820812611584">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
After Twitter users suggested that Simmons join the Vice team, Smith replied encouraging Simmons to consider his company. Vice has recently annouced its plans for expansion with a slew of 20 new tv shows for it's upcoming 24-hour cable network.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/shane-smith-offers-bill-simmons-794458
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Just heard <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons">@BillSimmons</a> is leaving <a href="https://twitter.com/espn">@ESPN</a>.
He did a good job on <a href="https://twitter.com/WWE">@WWE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RAW?src=hash">#RAW</a>.Maybe he's got a future ringside? <a href="http://t.co/Q4yyAH4b94">pic.twitter.com/Q4yyAH4b94</a></p>— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWEUniverse/status/596698962591100930">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
He did a good job on <a href="https://twitter.com/WWE">@WWE</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RAW?src=hash">#RAW</a>.Maybe he's got a future ringside? <a href="http://t.co/Q4yyAH4b94">pic.twitter.com/Q4yyAH4b94</a></p>— WWE Universe (@WWEUniverse) <a href="https://twitter.com/WWEUniverse/status/596698962591100930">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Nah. Jalen used to say that shit to HIM all the time. "Dont get fired Bill".
Nah. Jalen used to say that shit to HIM all the time. "Dont get fired Bill".
True, especially after he got suspended. I have a feeling Jalen is in for a change at ESPN. To me, he is not great on TV nor radio. He, Jacoby and Bill have good chemistry but many ESPNers dont like that Jalen went from First Take fill in to having two shows and a podcast, and they attribute it to his connection with Simmons.
Interesting. Jalen is the last interesting sportscaster on the network.
I'd actually like his podcast on TV like Dan lebetard does politically incorrect.
I stopped watching ESPN a few years ago because of their agenda! I use to log at least 2 hours a day and I just got tired of the BS. Their fear of the black athlete was disturbing to me! How many times do you think black athletes need an aside to be scolded and told how to act? Give me a break! Who needs an employer that feels the need to fire you because you question certain ideas? I am not down with that corporate BS!
yeah, they are the Fox News of Sports...
i understand
For me I stopped watching as much once Disney bought them for many of the same reasons you bring up.
I find Bayless and Stephen A to be the most annoying fools on tv...
I no longer give them a moment.
I find Bayless and Stephen A to be the most annoying fools on tv...
I no longer give them a moment.
^^^^
ESPN has went into radio silence lockdown mode.
I want to see who will be the FIRST to break?
sidebar: while Michelle Beadle was going in on Floyd calling him the anti Christ did she conveniently forget that her co-host boxing guru Max Kellerman got suspended by ESPN when he admitted he hit his now wife?
I want to see who will be the FIRST to break?
sidebar: while Michelle Beadle was going in on Floyd calling him the anti Christ did she conveniently forget that her co-host boxing guru Max Kellerman got suspended by ESPN when he admitted he hit his now wife?
Fuck ESPN. Shit is become so damn corporate and politically correct. Simmons needs to do his own shit.
I find Bayless and Stephen A to be the most annoying fools on tv...
I no longer give them a moment.
Agreed. I recorded First Take for years but I'm guessing 6 months ago I canceled the scheduled recording and haven't looked back since. Skip purposely spews BS and Stephen A is just on some BS. Couldn't take watching it anymore
I gotta check their latest ratings
Inside the Shocking, Abrupt Divorce of Bill Simmons and ESPN
The co-author of the definitive history of ESPN, Those Guys Have All the Fun, reports on how the network and its biggest star met their bitter end.
by
James Andrew Miller
The union of Bill Simmons—columnist, commentator, on-air personality, and human hot button—and ESPN, the sports media colossus he’s called home for almost 15 years, was no ordinary marriage. It was instead a bizarre, fabled partnership, with triumphs and setbacks and a seemingly endless stream of gossip and drama, both inside ESPN’s corporate campus at Bristol, Connecticut, and on the Internet. It was arguably one of the most important affiliations ESPN had ever entered into with a single individual; Simmons parlayed an online column and rabid fan base into a fiefdom that included the Web site Grantland, the 30 for 30 documentary series, and a starring role as an on-air NBA commentator. And now, it’s over.
Simmons’s contract with ESPN expires later this year. The network’s president John Skipper made it official on Friday when he told Richard Sandomir of The New York Times, “I’ve decided that I’m not going to renew his contract. We’ve been talking to Bill, and it was clear that we weren’t going to get to the terms, so we were better off focusing on transition.”
How about that for a shocking finale—not only to Simmons’s employment with ESPN but also to his relationship with Skipper, the man Simmons once considered the best guardian of his interests at the network, if not in the world? When Skipper was head of content for ESPN under then-president George Bodenheimer, he and Simmons forged a bond that was critical in Simmons’s decision to remain at ESPN the last time negotiations were hammered out in 2010. That contract, worth around $5 million per year, made Simmons the highest paid piece of talent in the network’s history up to that moment.
Later, when Skipper got Bodenheimer’s job and became ESPN president in 2011, the executive dug much deeper into the business side of the company and deeper into duties other than being Simmons’s protector. Simmons was left largely to fend for himself amongst the ground troops in Bristol, and neither he nor they were pleased with the arrangement. Many in Bristol believed Simmons, who ran his mini empire a continent away in Los Angeles, had a heightened sense of entitlement, and operated as if certain rules simply did not apply to him. They resented the fact that he sought, and sometimes got, larger roles in decision making and policy making than talent typically did.
Problems and tensions were clear to many throughout 2014. Then all hell broke loose in the fall when, at the height of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal, Simmons called N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell a liar during a segment on his podcast. ESPN suspended him.
The suspension was supposed to include a two-week dock in pay, but when he looked at his paychecks afterward, Simmons could hardly help noticing that the checks were for the usual amount. He interpreted this as ESPN holding out an olive branch; the public censure had been just for show, Simmons thought; there was no financial penalty after all.
That might have smoothed things out between Simmons and management—but on December 19, Simmons opened his pay envelope and was not pleased. Two weeks’ worth of salary wasn’t there: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Simmons—here’s your lump of coal.” Simmons had had enough. The chances of him staying at ESPN from that point onward became less and less probable.
Even so, Simmons was curious to see what would happen when ESPN started seriously talking about a new deal. There was one broad conversation. Simmons made a point of not putting forth any specific requests—a pre-emptive strike against ESPN trying to say later, “We were unwilling to meet his demands so we didn’t renew him.” But no dollar amounts were specified, and no actual back-and-forth negotiations went on.
Minus any set of definitive demands from the Simmons team, ESPN negotiators didn’t have much to say no to. Both sides retreated, then ESPN never re-engaged. There were two or three months of silence during which Simmons became increasingly bothered by three key factors:
He was hearing more and more that Skipper’s people in management were badmouthing him;
Management hadn’t added to the head count at Grantland since May of 2014, and;
It was clear to many that Bristol was trying to bury the idea that Simmons had been some kind of magical auteur behind everything classy at ESPN. Bristol was no longer putting him forward for features about the 30 for 30 documentary series, despite the fact that he had been one of the chief architects and a major driving force behind the venture. In fact, Simmons and ESPN exec Connor Schell had written what proved to be a vital memorandum trying to save the project after its first round of documentaries concluded.
Simmons believed he had valuable instincts about what was best for ESPN content—certainly for his ESPN content—and he wanted a spot and a voice at the table. This worked fine for such high-profile company projects as Grantland, the stylish and much-discussed Web site that Simmons helped create, and it worked fine, too, for the highly acclaimed 30 for 30, into which Simmons had considerable input. On those two projects, bosses recognized his contributions and gave him prominent roles and unusual autonomy.
When it came to coverage of the N.B.A., however, everything heated up, including Simmons. Before long, you had a mighty Bristol quagmire. Simmons and the N.B.A. production team rarely saw eye-to-eye. On NBA Countdown viewers could tell that Simmons felt more comfortable, for instance, with Michelle Beadle as co-host than with Sage Steele; it showed on the air. He also seemed frustrated by what he considered the inadequate amount of time devoted to halftime and other ancillary shows, and objected to slotting pre- and post-game coverage directly opposite big playoff games on other networks. To him, that was intentionally scuttling ESPN shows—suicidal programming.
You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see that things were looking bleak for the team of Bill Simmons and ESPN. When Simmons appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday, he once again attacked Goodell, saying with a certain formality that Goodell lacks “testicular fortitude.”
Simmons has always believed that he can only do his job well if he is free to speak his mind on any subject, even if it’s directed at Goodell. (In 2011, the N.F.L. sold broadcast rights for Monday Night Football to ESPN in a deal spanning through 2021 and costing $15.2 billion.) The appearance with Patrick, however, proved a tipping point. Skipper decided to cut his losses now, and announce Simmons’s departure, four months before his contract was up in September.
ESPN will still own intellectual properties like Grantland and the wildly popular podcast, the B.S. Report. One executive was even heard starting to plan who else might host the B.S. Report. Maybe the executive thinks that “B.S.” stands for something other than “Bill Simmons.”
Simmons, meanwhile, has already had multiple offers and will no doubt wind up having more autonomy and, possibly, a bigger paycheck wherever he lands in his post-Bristol existence.
In the end, one could say with minimal originality, but considerable accuracy, that Bill Simmons simply flew too close to the sun. He miscalculated how much value ESPN put on him and on his unique abilities and talents. He might also have forgotten a cardinal company rule that remains sacred whether it’s ESPN’s Old Guard talking or its new one: nobody, but nobody, can be bigger than those four initials.
The co-author of the definitive history of ESPN, Those Guys Have All the Fun, reports on how the network and its biggest star met their bitter end.
by
James Andrew Miller
The union of Bill Simmons—columnist, commentator, on-air personality, and human hot button—and ESPN, the sports media colossus he’s called home for almost 15 years, was no ordinary marriage. It was instead a bizarre, fabled partnership, with triumphs and setbacks and a seemingly endless stream of gossip and drama, both inside ESPN’s corporate campus at Bristol, Connecticut, and on the Internet. It was arguably one of the most important affiliations ESPN had ever entered into with a single individual; Simmons parlayed an online column and rabid fan base into a fiefdom that included the Web site Grantland, the 30 for 30 documentary series, and a starring role as an on-air NBA commentator. And now, it’s over.
Simmons’s contract with ESPN expires later this year. The network’s president John Skipper made it official on Friday when he told Richard Sandomir of The New York Times, “I’ve decided that I’m not going to renew his contract. We’ve been talking to Bill, and it was clear that we weren’t going to get to the terms, so we were better off focusing on transition.”
How about that for a shocking finale—not only to Simmons’s employment with ESPN but also to his relationship with Skipper, the man Simmons once considered the best guardian of his interests at the network, if not in the world? When Skipper was head of content for ESPN under then-president George Bodenheimer, he and Simmons forged a bond that was critical in Simmons’s decision to remain at ESPN the last time negotiations were hammered out in 2010. That contract, worth around $5 million per year, made Simmons the highest paid piece of talent in the network’s history up to that moment.
Later, when Skipper got Bodenheimer’s job and became ESPN president in 2011, the executive dug much deeper into the business side of the company and deeper into duties other than being Simmons’s protector. Simmons was left largely to fend for himself amongst the ground troops in Bristol, and neither he nor they were pleased with the arrangement. Many in Bristol believed Simmons, who ran his mini empire a continent away in Los Angeles, had a heightened sense of entitlement, and operated as if certain rules simply did not apply to him. They resented the fact that he sought, and sometimes got, larger roles in decision making and policy making than talent typically did.
Problems and tensions were clear to many throughout 2014. Then all hell broke loose in the fall when, at the height of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal, Simmons called N.F.L. commissioner Roger Goodell a liar during a segment on his podcast. ESPN suspended him.
The suspension was supposed to include a two-week dock in pay, but when he looked at his paychecks afterward, Simmons could hardly help noticing that the checks were for the usual amount. He interpreted this as ESPN holding out an olive branch; the public censure had been just for show, Simmons thought; there was no financial penalty after all.
That might have smoothed things out between Simmons and management—but on December 19, Simmons opened his pay envelope and was not pleased. Two weeks’ worth of salary wasn’t there: “Merry Christmas, Mr. Simmons—here’s your lump of coal.” Simmons had had enough. The chances of him staying at ESPN from that point onward became less and less probable.
Even so, Simmons was curious to see what would happen when ESPN started seriously talking about a new deal. There was one broad conversation. Simmons made a point of not putting forth any specific requests—a pre-emptive strike against ESPN trying to say later, “We were unwilling to meet his demands so we didn’t renew him.” But no dollar amounts were specified, and no actual back-and-forth negotiations went on.
Minus any set of definitive demands from the Simmons team, ESPN negotiators didn’t have much to say no to. Both sides retreated, then ESPN never re-engaged. There were two or three months of silence during which Simmons became increasingly bothered by three key factors:
He was hearing more and more that Skipper’s people in management were badmouthing him;
Management hadn’t added to the head count at Grantland since May of 2014, and;
It was clear to many that Bristol was trying to bury the idea that Simmons had been some kind of magical auteur behind everything classy at ESPN. Bristol was no longer putting him forward for features about the 30 for 30 documentary series, despite the fact that he had been one of the chief architects and a major driving force behind the venture. In fact, Simmons and ESPN exec Connor Schell had written what proved to be a vital memorandum trying to save the project after its first round of documentaries concluded.
Simmons believed he had valuable instincts about what was best for ESPN content—certainly for his ESPN content—and he wanted a spot and a voice at the table. This worked fine for such high-profile company projects as Grantland, the stylish and much-discussed Web site that Simmons helped create, and it worked fine, too, for the highly acclaimed 30 for 30, into which Simmons had considerable input. On those two projects, bosses recognized his contributions and gave him prominent roles and unusual autonomy.
When it came to coverage of the N.B.A., however, everything heated up, including Simmons. Before long, you had a mighty Bristol quagmire. Simmons and the N.B.A. production team rarely saw eye-to-eye. On NBA Countdown viewers could tell that Simmons felt more comfortable, for instance, with Michelle Beadle as co-host than with Sage Steele; it showed on the air. He also seemed frustrated by what he considered the inadequate amount of time devoted to halftime and other ancillary shows, and objected to slotting pre- and post-game coverage directly opposite big playoff games on other networks. To him, that was intentionally scuttling ESPN shows—suicidal programming.
You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see that things were looking bleak for the team of Bill Simmons and ESPN. When Simmons appeared on the Dan Patrick Show on Thursday, he once again attacked Goodell, saying with a certain formality that Goodell lacks “testicular fortitude.”
Simmons has always believed that he can only do his job well if he is free to speak his mind on any subject, even if it’s directed at Goodell. (In 2011, the N.F.L. sold broadcast rights for Monday Night Football to ESPN in a deal spanning through 2021 and costing $15.2 billion.) The appearance with Patrick, however, proved a tipping point. Skipper decided to cut his losses now, and announce Simmons’s departure, four months before his contract was up in September.
ESPN will still own intellectual properties like Grantland and the wildly popular podcast, the B.S. Report. One executive was even heard starting to plan who else might host the B.S. Report. Maybe the executive thinks that “B.S.” stands for something other than “Bill Simmons.”
Simmons, meanwhile, has already had multiple offers and will no doubt wind up having more autonomy and, possibly, a bigger paycheck wherever he lands in his post-Bristol existence.
In the end, one could say with minimal originality, but considerable accuracy, that Bill Simmons simply flew too close to the sun. He miscalculated how much value ESPN put on him and on his unique abilities and talents. He might also have forgotten a cardinal company rule that remains sacred whether it’s ESPN’s Old Guard talking or its new one: nobody, but nobody, can be bigger than those four initials.
On the other hand, it could be said that Bristol forgot a kind of cardinal rule itself: in an era where fans can get not just scores but highlights, and a ton more, on their smart phones, distinctive and original content is the way to engage and hold onto an audience plopped in front of big 99-inch screens. That content often comes with a big price tag—and with a requirement that the people with unique abilities and talent who create it be treated like the stars you’ve paid for.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/05/inside-shocking-abrupt-divorce-bill-simmons-and-espn
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2015/05/11/bill-simmons-to-twitter/
Bill Simmons to Twitter?
Since Friday’s news broke that ESPN won’t be re-signing Bill Simmons in September, there’s been lots of speculation about where he will go next.
I argued why he should join Yahoo YHOO -1.07% – although I guessed that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had probably not ever heard of Simmons and so was unlikely to make a play for him.
Re/Code’s Peter Kafka – who interviewed Simmons in March and may have unwittingly been used by Simmons to plant the public seed that he wasn’t making any financial demands on ESPN in these negotiations – tweeted me Friday to say:
“seems simple: he’s either going somewhere w/tv or he will do his own thing.”
And later:
“anything in the middle – like Yahoo, vice, etc – makes no sense.” (Vice’s Shane Smith later sent a series of public tweets to Simmons trying to recruit him to Vice.)
I think Peter is probably right. If I was his agent – Jimmy “Baby Doll” Dixon – I think I would be arguing for the former — except I’d say he should do it as an “and” and not an “or.” Call it the “Re/Code” model. You start your own website with the financial backing of a number of big media and web tycoons as well as media partners. Bill can build his new version of Grantland there with all the long-form stuff he desires, plus he has a media partner where he can do all the TV he wants. In the case of Re/Code, NBC Universal is a partner and Re/Code shares office space with CNBC in San Francisco and its writers appear regularly on the business channel.
With Simmons, the most logical media partner would be Turner and probably corporate sister HBO Sports.
The reasons:
- Turner has the NBA contract for the forseeable future, including digital rights with that.
- Turner has the #1 NBA show with Inside the NBA. ESPN’s competitive show – Countdown – has been lacking and dysfunctional for years. Simmons was on there to help reinvigorate it. He got on famously with co-hosts Doug Collins and Jalen Rose but famously clashed with host Sage Steele a year ago who then got the support of ESPN higher-ups who pushed Simmons off the show. After last Friday’s decision by ESPN head John Skipper not to renew Simmons’ contract, Simmons no doubt wants Game-of-Thrones style revenge on the Worldwide Leader in Sports. He could join Inside the NBA and help it continue to outshine Countdown.
- Turner doesn’t have NFL rights the way Fox and CBS CBS -1.89% do; so, Simmons can fire at will at the NFL and commissioner Roger Goddell without fear of biting the corporate hand that feeds them.
- Simmons can re-create 30 for 30 – his excellent sports documentary series on HBO Sports.
- Simmons could do stuff in addition to his own new site for Turner’s Bleacher Report.
However, Turner – even though it’s the best media fit for Simmons outside of ESPN – isn’t perfect. Inside the NBA is based in Atlanta. Simmons lives in LA with kids and where he’s happy. It’s hard to see him regularly hopping a flight to Atlanta to do that show (especially nightly from April to June during the playoffs).
There’s another problem with this plan: Would the financial backers want to get with Simmons on Grantland 2.0? It’s being used by ESPN PR now in the press to suggest that Grantland barely covers its costs to run. It’s also been speculated about Re/Code — and many tech blogs – that the only way it makes money is through running pricey tech conferences which the media partner NBC Universal gets exclusives on covering. Now, sports in America has a much wider following than tech. So maybe ad rates for a Grantland 2.0 could be very profitable despite what ESPN says. On the other hand, maybe Simmons doesn’t want this headache of dealing with the stress of building up a new site with financial backers watching over his shoulder.
So, where does that leave Simmons?
What about Twitter as an alternative to a Grantland 2.0 with a media TV partner?
The other day, MG Siegler speculated about why Twitter and Simmons make sense:
Yes, it would be totally unconventional. Not to mention expensive. But sports news and personalities has long been a strong suit of Twitter. A move to hire Simmons would only make it more so.
Simmons has a seemingly odd relationship with Twitter. He gets it, but he also often gets himself in trouble using it. But that’s only because his usage is genuine. And as that platform continues to evolve, he may be able to help shape it. In-line podcasts. Real-time Periscopes. The only problematic thing may be his wheelhouse: writing extremely long columns. Hard to see how you do that on Twitter without some new ultra textshotting tool.
Call me crazy, but there’s something to this idea.
So, my add on to Siegler’s comments are that:
- Joining Twitter and Turner is going to be a lot less work for Bill than doing Turner and Grantland 2.0 with backers.
- Simmons’ tweets, in-line podcasts, and Periscopes all work as a match with Twitter
- In this scenario, Simmons stays based in LA and has two steady (likely healthy) pay-checks
- This would be a bold move for Twitter which is always looking for ways to drive increased user growth and give unique reasons to go to the service.
- Former top Fox exec and now digital investor Peter Chernin is on Twitter’s board and likely to be able to advise Simmons on the pluses and minuses of working with Twitter versus doing a Grantland 2.0.
- For long-form writing, Simmons could do it via Bleacher Report and/or Mediuam backed by Twitter co-founder and director Ev Williams
And there’s also this. Simmons is friends with Twitter’s Nathan Hubbard, former CEO of TicketMaster and now head of Commerce for Twitter. Simmons attended last night’s Clippers game with Hubbard. Hubbard Periscoped Simmons a few weeks ago during Game 1 at Staples versus the Spurs.
Will it happen that Simmons goes to Turner and Twitter? I don’t know, but I agree with Kafka that it’s going to be tough for Simmons to banish himself from TV given his personal brand is now at an all-time high.
I still think Yahoo could make just as much a compelling offer to Simmons as Twitter could, but I’m just not convinced that Yahoo’s Mayer really understands who Simmons is. I mean, we’re not talking about her pet projects Katie Couric, Bobbi Brown and Joe Zee here. At Yahoo, Marissa Mayer is the only person who makes decisions. If she doesn’t see the value of Simmons, it won’t happen.
I know a lot of people who I really respect who really believe Simmons is a prima donna and won’t be happy wherever he goes. I will say this: I think it was a lose-lose for Simmons and ESPN to split. I think they’ll ultimately both regret it. ESPN is an amazing brand shining a great spotlight on all its talent. Simmons was a unique voice, who brought a lot of relevance back to the ESPN mother ship.
Whatever comes next for Simmons won’t be as easy as it has been. It will have trade-offs. But it should also be tremendously exciting.
[Update: an earlier version of this post showed a photo of Simmons and someone else at the Clippers game last night that I said was Hubbard. Twitter Communications says it wasn't Hubbard. However, Hubbard was at the game near Simmons and is friends with Simmons.]
Bill Simmons to Twitter?
Since Friday’s news broke that ESPN won’t be re-signing Bill Simmons in September, there’s been lots of speculation about where he will go next.
I argued why he should join Yahoo YHOO -1.07% – although I guessed that Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer had probably not ever heard of Simmons and so was unlikely to make a play for him.
Re/Code’s Peter Kafka – who interviewed Simmons in March and may have unwittingly been used by Simmons to plant the public seed that he wasn’t making any financial demands on ESPN in these negotiations – tweeted me Friday to say:
“seems simple: he’s either going somewhere w/tv or he will do his own thing.”
And later:
“anything in the middle – like Yahoo, vice, etc – makes no sense.” (Vice’s Shane Smith later sent a series of public tweets to Simmons trying to recruit him to Vice.)
I think Peter is probably right. If I was his agent – Jimmy “Baby Doll” Dixon – I think I would be arguing for the former — except I’d say he should do it as an “and” and not an “or.” Call it the “Re/Code” model. You start your own website with the financial backing of a number of big media and web tycoons as well as media partners. Bill can build his new version of Grantland there with all the long-form stuff he desires, plus he has a media partner where he can do all the TV he wants. In the case of Re/Code, NBC Universal is a partner and Re/Code shares office space with CNBC in San Francisco and its writers appear regularly on the business channel.
With Simmons, the most logical media partner would be Turner and probably corporate sister HBO Sports.
The reasons:
- Turner has the NBA contract for the forseeable future, including digital rights with that.
- Turner has the #1 NBA show with Inside the NBA. ESPN’s competitive show – Countdown – has been lacking and dysfunctional for years. Simmons was on there to help reinvigorate it. He got on famously with co-hosts Doug Collins and Jalen Rose but famously clashed with host Sage Steele a year ago who then got the support of ESPN higher-ups who pushed Simmons off the show. After last Friday’s decision by ESPN head John Skipper not to renew Simmons’ contract, Simmons no doubt wants Game-of-Thrones style revenge on the Worldwide Leader in Sports. He could join Inside the NBA and help it continue to outshine Countdown.
- Turner doesn’t have NFL rights the way Fox and CBS CBS -1.89% do; so, Simmons can fire at will at the NFL and commissioner Roger Goddell without fear of biting the corporate hand that feeds them.
- Simmons can re-create 30 for 30 – his excellent sports documentary series on HBO Sports.
- Simmons could do stuff in addition to his own new site for Turner’s Bleacher Report.
However, Turner – even though it’s the best media fit for Simmons outside of ESPN – isn’t perfect. Inside the NBA is based in Atlanta. Simmons lives in LA with kids and where he’s happy. It’s hard to see him regularly hopping a flight to Atlanta to do that show (especially nightly from April to June during the playoffs).
There’s another problem with this plan: Would the financial backers want to get with Simmons on Grantland 2.0? It’s being used by ESPN PR now in the press to suggest that Grantland barely covers its costs to run. It’s also been speculated about Re/Code — and many tech blogs – that the only way it makes money is through running pricey tech conferences which the media partner NBC Universal gets exclusives on covering. Now, sports in America has a much wider following than tech. So maybe ad rates for a Grantland 2.0 could be very profitable despite what ESPN says. On the other hand, maybe Simmons doesn’t want this headache of dealing with the stress of building up a new site with financial backers watching over his shoulder.
So, where does that leave Simmons?
What about Twitter as an alternative to a Grantland 2.0 with a media TV partner?
The other day, MG Siegler speculated about why Twitter and Simmons make sense:
Yes, it would be totally unconventional. Not to mention expensive. But sports news and personalities has long been a strong suit of Twitter. A move to hire Simmons would only make it more so.
Simmons has a seemingly odd relationship with Twitter. He gets it, but he also often gets himself in trouble using it. But that’s only because his usage is genuine. And as that platform continues to evolve, he may be able to help shape it. In-line podcasts. Real-time Periscopes. The only problematic thing may be his wheelhouse: writing extremely long columns. Hard to see how you do that on Twitter without some new ultra textshotting tool.
Call me crazy, but there’s something to this idea.
So, my add on to Siegler’s comments are that:
- Joining Twitter and Turner is going to be a lot less work for Bill than doing Turner and Grantland 2.0 with backers.
- Simmons’ tweets, in-line podcasts, and Periscopes all work as a match with Twitter
- In this scenario, Simmons stays based in LA and has two steady (likely healthy) pay-checks
- This would be a bold move for Twitter which is always looking for ways to drive increased user growth and give unique reasons to go to the service.
- Former top Fox exec and now digital investor Peter Chernin is on Twitter’s board and likely to be able to advise Simmons on the pluses and minuses of working with Twitter versus doing a Grantland 2.0.
- For long-form writing, Simmons could do it via Bleacher Report and/or Mediuam backed by Twitter co-founder and director Ev Williams
And there’s also this. Simmons is friends with Twitter’s Nathan Hubbard, former CEO of TicketMaster and now head of Commerce for Twitter. Simmons attended last night’s Clippers game with Hubbard. Hubbard Periscoped Simmons a few weeks ago during Game 1 at Staples versus the Spurs.
Will it happen that Simmons goes to Turner and Twitter? I don’t know, but I agree with Kafka that it’s going to be tough for Simmons to banish himself from TV given his personal brand is now at an all-time high.
I still think Yahoo could make just as much a compelling offer to Simmons as Twitter could, but I’m just not convinced that Yahoo’s Mayer really understands who Simmons is. I mean, we’re not talking about her pet projects Katie Couric, Bobbi Brown and Joe Zee here. At Yahoo, Marissa Mayer is the only person who makes decisions. If she doesn’t see the value of Simmons, it won’t happen.
I know a lot of people who I really respect who really believe Simmons is a prima donna and won’t be happy wherever he goes. I will say this: I think it was a lose-lose for Simmons and ESPN to split. I think they’ll ultimately both regret it. ESPN is an amazing brand shining a great spotlight on all its talent. Simmons was a unique voice, who brought a lot of relevance back to the ESPN mother ship.
Whatever comes next for Simmons won’t be as easy as it has been. It will have trade-offs. But it should also be tremendously exciting.
[Update: an earlier version of this post showed a photo of Simmons and someone else at the Clippers game last night that I said was Hubbard. Twitter Communications says it wasn't Hubbard. However, Hubbard was at the game near Simmons and is friends with Simmons.]
Bill Simmons Appeared on TNT Sports Sunday Night
With Bill Simmons‘ abrupt and unexpected firing from ESPN on Friday has come speculation about where he will end up next? Will the Grantland.com founder move his operation to Vice? Will he strike out on his own? Or will he end up at one of the two most obvious behemoths: Fox Sports or Turner Sports, which encompasses HBO Sports, CNN, TNT and TBS.
If prognosticators were looking for signs they were right there on your television Sunday night when TNT’s broadcast of the Rockets vs. Clippers semifinals Game 4 briefly showed Simmons seated in the stands looking slightly disgruntled in a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas t-shirt. As Uproxx’s Andy Isaac pointed out, like Simmons, that book’s author Hunter S. Thompson also wrote a column for ESPN.com’s Page 2 section, for whatever that’s worth.
Others on Twitter shared images of Simmons at the game and speculated that he might be headed to Turner Sports after all:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Very awkward, lingering shot of <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons">@BillSimmons</a> at the Clippers game. Don’t think that was an accident. <a href="http://t.co/7jAZIvROUY">pic.twitter.com/7jAZIvROUY</a></p>— Jeremy Michael Cohen (@jeremymcohen) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremymcohen/status/597595865344135168">May 11, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-simmons-appeared-on-tnt-sports-sunday-night/
With Bill Simmons‘ abrupt and unexpected firing from ESPN on Friday has come speculation about where he will end up next? Will the Grantland.com founder move his operation to Vice? Will he strike out on his own? Or will he end up at one of the two most obvious behemoths: Fox Sports or Turner Sports, which encompasses HBO Sports, CNN, TNT and TBS.
If prognosticators were looking for signs they were right there on your television Sunday night when TNT’s broadcast of the Rockets vs. Clippers semifinals Game 4 briefly showed Simmons seated in the stands looking slightly disgruntled in a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas t-shirt. As Uproxx’s Andy Isaac pointed out, like Simmons, that book’s author Hunter S. Thompson also wrote a column for ESPN.com’s Page 2 section, for whatever that’s worth.
Others on Twitter shared images of Simmons at the game and speculated that he might be headed to Turner Sports after all:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Very awkward, lingering shot of <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons">@BillSimmons</a> at the Clippers game. Don’t think that was an accident. <a href="http://t.co/7jAZIvROUY">pic.twitter.com/7jAZIvROUY</a></p>— Jeremy Michael Cohen (@jeremymcohen) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeremymcohen/status/597595865344135168">May 11, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-simmons-appeared-on-tnt-sports-sunday-night/
* bill was READY to go...
Keith Olbermann Has Some Strong Words for Bill Simmons (Update)
It’s been an interesting 24 hours for MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. He let his sense of humor see the light of day on last night’s Daily Show Chatroulette satire, and now he’s already got another notch in the belt of being more down to earth than evidence sometimes suggests.
The target this time is ESPN’s Bill Simmons – a.k.a. The Sports Guy – and his far-reaching Tiger-Woods’s-Comeback-is-Like-Muhammed-Ali’s column that went up on Wednesday on ESPN.com. Update: Simmons responds!
Keith’s response was posted on hist Major League Baseball-supported blog:
Holy crap, this has me giddy. Every now and then, a part of me briefly remembers that the Sportscenter I grew up watching before school featured Mr. Olbermann as the head honcho. Pit him against Simmons and that camp of online thinkers and the Malcom Gladwell love affair? This is already a war I really would love to see. It’s almost enough to get me to watch Countdown on a Friday night.
H/t to Deadspin on the Olbermann post.
> Update: Simmons just tweeted this. Wow – game on.
Keith Olbermann Fires Back At Bill Simmons, Simmons’ Editor Responds
After Friday’s new media showdown between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (via his MLB blog) and ESPN’s Bill Simmons (via his Twitter feed), all was quiet over the weekend.
Then yesterday afternoon, Olbermann fired back, and Simmons’ editor responded to Mediaite.
Olbermann’s latest personal-attack-at-the-end-of-a-baseball-related-blog-post continued to press that a Simmons Tiger Woods column was worthy of the “dumbest sportswriting award of 2010.” But then he went personal:
So the implication by Olbermann is that Simmons’ (whose contract is up at the end of the year) “bosses” emailed Olbermann and told him they may not want him to work at ESPN anymore. There’s no way to tell if this is true, but considering the rough break Olbermann had when he left ESPN, this would certainly be surprising.
Simmons took the high road on Twitter this time (“This was not why I got into writing,”) but ESPN.com Editor-In-Chief Rob King (one of Simmons’ “bosses”) responded to Mediaite:
Olbermann has been off the air on MSNBC for nearly two weeks, so this is only playing off on the web, where it won’t get as much attention (according to the MLB blog, he’s been caring for his ailing father who “continues to fight his illness”). But how much longer will an political commentary news host take to a baseball blog (run by Major League Baseball) to personally attack an ESPN writer?
Finally, how’s this for irony – if Page Six’s Neel Shah‘s Twitter feed is to be believed, Simmons sat two seats away from Olbermann’s Nemesis #1 Bill O’Reilly at last night’s New York Knicks game. According to Simmons’ Twitter, he was at the game. Wonder if O’Reilly had any words of wisdom…
Keith Olbermann Has Some Strong Words for Bill Simmons (Update)
It’s been an interesting 24 hours for MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. He let his sense of humor see the light of day on last night’s Daily Show Chatroulette satire, and now he’s already got another notch in the belt of being more down to earth than evidence sometimes suggests.
The target this time is ESPN’s Bill Simmons – a.k.a. The Sports Guy – and his far-reaching Tiger-Woods’s-Comeback-is-Like-Muhammed-Ali’s column that went up on Wednesday on ESPN.com. Update: Simmons responds!
Keith’s response was posted on hist Major League Baseball-supported blog:
I promised no politics here and I stick to it. But I never said anything about never mentioning other sports, although I think I’ll start that rule about a paragraph from now. If you’d like to read the most poorly-informed conclusion I’ve come across in sports media this year, you have your link. Proceed with caution. In short, it is the contention that the comeback of Tiger Woods will be more difficult than the one Muhammad Ali faced in the 1960′s. If the writer can let me know when Woods is punitively drafted by the military even though he is about eight years older than almost all the other draftees, I’ll begin to take him seriously. In the interim I am again left to marvel how somebody can rise to a fairly prominent media position with no discernible insight or talent, save for an apparent ability to mix up a vast bowl of word salad very quickly.
Holy crap, this has me giddy. Every now and then, a part of me briefly remembers that the Sportscenter I grew up watching before school featured Mr. Olbermann as the head honcho. Pit him against Simmons and that camp of online thinkers and the Malcom Gladwell love affair? This is already a war I really would love to see. It’s almost enough to get me to watch Countdown on a Friday night.
H/t to Deadspin on the Olbermann post.
> Update: Simmons just tweeted this. Wow – game on.
KO, please know the feeling is mutual. You’re my worst case scenario for my career in 12 yrs: a pious, unlikable blowhard who lives alone.
I’m furious that my Tiger column distracted America from a detailed and only mildly creepy case for Johnny Orsino’s Hall of Fame candidacy.
I’m furious that my Tiger column distracted America from a detailed and only mildly creepy case for Johnny Orsino’s Hall of Fame candidacy.
Keith Olbermann Fires Back At Bill Simmons, Simmons’ Editor Responds
After Friday’s new media showdown between MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann (via his MLB blog) and ESPN’s Bill Simmons (via his Twitter feed), all was quiet over the weekend.
Then yesterday afternoon, Olbermann fired back, and Simmons’ editor responded to Mediaite.
Olbermann’s latest personal-attack-at-the-end-of-a-baseball-related-blog-post continued to press that a Simmons Tiger Woods column was worthy of the “dumbest sportswriting award of 2010.” But then he went personal:
I was stunned to receive several emails from some of Mr. Simmons’ bosses there, thanking me for pointing out the absurdity of, and the embarrassment to ESPN provided by, the Woods/Ali comparison.
About five years ago, I guess, somebody said Tony Kornheiser was the most uncontrollable, unmanageable talent in the history of ESPN. I was, of course, crushed (although I believe I got honorable mention). When ESPN bosses are writing me for helping them about somebody they claim has now lapped Tony and myself, I am left to conclude only that if Mr. Simmons does leave ESPN, it may not be entirely of his own choosing.
About five years ago, I guess, somebody said Tony Kornheiser was the most uncontrollable, unmanageable talent in the history of ESPN. I was, of course, crushed (although I believe I got honorable mention). When ESPN bosses are writing me for helping them about somebody they claim has now lapped Tony and myself, I am left to conclude only that if Mr. Simmons does leave ESPN, it may not be entirely of his own choosing.
So the implication by Olbermann is that Simmons’ (whose contract is up at the end of the year) “bosses” emailed Olbermann and told him they may not want him to work at ESPN anymore. There’s no way to tell if this is true, but considering the rough break Olbermann had when he left ESPN, this would certainly be surprising.
Simmons took the high road on Twitter this time (“This was not why I got into writing,”) but ESPN.com Editor-In-Chief Rob King (one of Simmons’ “bosses”) responded to Mediaite:
To be clear, John Skipper, John Kosner and I are the three people at ESPN responsible for determining how this all plays out. We believe Bill’s a uniquely gifted writer and thinker who makes us great and meaningful to sports fans. And we hope to keep him as a central part of what we do for a long time to come.
Olbermann has been off the air on MSNBC for nearly two weeks, so this is only playing off on the web, where it won’t get as much attention (according to the MLB blog, he’s been caring for his ailing father who “continues to fight his illness”). But how much longer will an political commentary news host take to a baseball blog (run by Major League Baseball) to personally attack an ESPN writer?
Finally, how’s this for irony – if Page Six’s Neel Shah‘s Twitter feed is to be believed, Simmons sat two seats away from Olbermann’s Nemesis #1 Bill O’Reilly at last night’s New York Knicks game. According to Simmons’ Twitter, he was at the game. Wonder if O’Reilly had any words of wisdom…
So if Simmons is behind Grantland and 30 for 30......he single handedly was the only reason to watch that Bspn shit.
^^^^
Bill's got a deal lined up somewhere else I believe.
ESPN Confirms It Straight Up Blindsided Bill Simmons (And It Wasn't About The Money)
ESPN President John Skipper has confirmed that Bill Simmons basically found out he got de facto fired through Twitter, The New York Times or maybe by text message if a friend was able to whip out a phone fast enough on Friday to text him.
Skipper told reporters on Tuesday, albeit in a roundabout sort of way, that the company gave Simmons no official word that they had decided not to renew his contract before he released the coldest statement we’ve seen in some time:
I decided today that we are not going to renew Bill Simmons’ contract. We have been in negotiations and it was clear it was time to move on. ESPN’s relationship with Bill has been mutually beneficial – he has produced great content for us for many years and ESPN has provided him many new opportunities to spread his wings. We wish Bill continued success as he plans his next chapter.
"The narrative that you read is accurate," Skipper said on Tuesday when asked about whether he just let that statement fly before notifying Simmons. "I know I kind of dodged that, but I am going to."
Publicly embarrassing Simmons just once more wasn’t enough for Skipper either. The president, a former Simmons defender, also burned his former buddy one more time on Tuesday, saying it wasn’t about the money, after some speculated the decision had to do with Simmons wanting much more than what is reportedly a $5 million salary.
Instead, it was about something related to Simmons himself.
"Look, we're a big company. If it was just dollars and cents, we would have figured something out," Skipper said. "It's about ultimately what he wants to do, what value that creates, what we could do together and deciding if it was going to be a match, and we decided it wouldn't be."
ESPN is a monstrously large media network beneath the even larger and more powerful company known as Disney, a powerhouse that pulls in billions of dollars in profit every quarter. More importantly, ESPN is a titan of a television company, a force in the sports industry and a much more profitable product than a low-trafficked but well-regarded website. Oh, like Simmons’ Grantland.
As such, it’s very possible Simmons overestimated his value within that environment and underestimated the issues that were reportedly arising as a result of one employee periodically acting above the rules in such a well-oiled machine of a company.
Either way, the confirmation of his public firing puts Simmons’ silence, minus a few defiant Patriots-related tweets, into perspective. After more than a decade at the company where he made his name, he was out just like that.
Simmons appears to have been left speechless, just like the rest of us.
ESPN President John Skipper has confirmed that Bill Simmons basically found out he got de facto fired through Twitter, The New York Times or maybe by text message if a friend was able to whip out a phone fast enough on Friday to text him.
Skipper told reporters on Tuesday, albeit in a roundabout sort of way, that the company gave Simmons no official word that they had decided not to renew his contract before he released the coldest statement we’ve seen in some time:
I decided today that we are not going to renew Bill Simmons’ contract. We have been in negotiations and it was clear it was time to move on. ESPN’s relationship with Bill has been mutually beneficial – he has produced great content for us for many years and ESPN has provided him many new opportunities to spread his wings. We wish Bill continued success as he plans his next chapter.
Publicly embarrassing Simmons just once more wasn’t enough for Skipper either. The president, a former Simmons defender, also burned his former buddy one more time on Tuesday, saying it wasn’t about the money, after some speculated the decision had to do with Simmons wanting much more than what is reportedly a $5 million salary.
Instead, it was about something related to Simmons himself.
"Look, we're a big company. If it was just dollars and cents, we would have figured something out," Skipper said. "It's about ultimately what he wants to do, what value that creates, what we could do together and deciding if it was going to be a match, and we decided it wouldn't be."
ESPN is a monstrously large media network beneath the even larger and more powerful company known as Disney, a powerhouse that pulls in billions of dollars in profit every quarter. More importantly, ESPN is a titan of a television company, a force in the sports industry and a much more profitable product than a low-trafficked but well-regarded website. Oh, like Simmons’ Grantland.
As such, it’s very possible Simmons overestimated his value within that environment and underestimated the issues that were reportedly arising as a result of one employee periodically acting above the rules in such a well-oiled machine of a company.
Either way, the confirmation of his public firing puts Simmons’ silence, minus a few defiant Patriots-related tweets, into perspective. After more than a decade at the company where he made his name, he was out just like that.
Simmons appears to have been left speechless, just like the rest of us.
How To Employ Bill Simmons
Bill Simmons’s ESPN legacy is much bigger than his byline. Over the last six years, he has conceived of the acclaimed documentary series 30 for 30 and launched ESPN’s high-quality sports and entertainment offshoot, Grantland. Soon he won’t have either. But he’ll always have the thing he’s best at (and no, that’s not his writing), and what might just be his only truly marketable skill.
ESPN president John Skipper announced Friday that he decided not to renew Simmons’s contract, which expires at the end of September. “[Grantland] long ago went from being a Bill Simmons site to one that can stand on its own,” Skipper told the New York Times, ostensibly explaining why Grantland will continue post-Simmons but also letting slip why he felt comfortable ending contract talks nearly five months earlier than he had to.
Simmons had a great idea with 30 for 30 and showed a strong eye for talent and management—one only has to look so far as ESPN’s Black Grantland to understand that putting together a great staff, even with a basically unlimited budget, is far from easy. But the last few years have proven that Simmons isn’t actually the multiplatform media mogul he thinks he is. Rather, he is a successful writer and podcaster that was able to wrap his hands around the golden ticket: the full weight and backing of the largest sports media conglomerate on earth.
Two months ago at SXSW, Simmons gave a revealing interview to Re/code that included this exchange:
Grantland looks like it’s getting more and more ambitious — you guys are doing a lot more video, you’re producing movies, and you have a TV show on ESPN now.
It’s weird that nobody gives us credit for this. I think we have the best multimedia site right now. I don’t even know who we’re competing with. I don’t mean to be conceited — we just do the most things.
As editor-in-chief of ESPN’s largest and best-promoted vanity site it should be imperative that Simmons understands the media landscape, but this is tone-deaf. The only way he could possibly believe that nobody gives Grantland any credit is if he is entirely ensconced in his own self-referential bubble.
Earlier this year Grantland was nominated for three National Magazine Awards, arguably the most prestigious media awards after the Pulitzers. The only publications nominated for more are the cream of the media crop, and none are online-only: New York Magazine, Bon Appetit, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Grantland’s nominations were for feature writing, columns and commentary, and video; just the sort of multimedia for which Simmons claims Grantland doesn’t receive any credit. Last year the 30 for 30 Shorts series—which appear on Grantland—took home a primetime Emmy. Grantland has been nominated for Sports Emmys, Webby Awards, and EPPY Awards, and won a handful.
But far more telling than any industry award, Grantland’s continued existence is proof enough that ESPN suits are giving it credit for high-quality work, because they certainly aren’t keeping it alive for its revenue or traffic.
Grantland revenue numbers are hard to come by, but every discussion I have had with ESPNers about them centers around not whether Grantland is losing money, but how much. “Grantland is an artistic success, but it is not close to making money” an “ESPN insider” told Sports Illustrated. ESPN public relations staffers have unsurprisingly declined to speak to Grantland’s revenue in the past, instead redirecting the conversation and trumpeting Grantland’s atomizable content that pops up everywhere within ESPN’s empire. In other words, they put forth a non-revenue argument for Grantland’s continued existence.
Unlike dollar figures, we do have good traffic data. These are February and March 2015 unique visitor numbers from comScore for Grantland and a few of its competitors—this is my classification of competitors, as Simmons said he isn’t sure who he is competing with:
comScore numbers are far from perfect, but they’re an industry standard used by advertisers and provide the best basis for comparison between different websites. And this is with Grantland receiving the powerful traffic firehose from prime placement on ESPN.com, one of the 100 most visited websites in the world. Grantland is doing excellent work; readers haven’t rewarded that with proportionate patronage. ESPN executives can’t help but believe that the Bill Simmons brand alone isn’t enough to build an audience that justifies his cost.
Grantland’s traffic is rough enough when put in context, but it is downright startling that the website is still in business when you consider its expenses. Grantland’s contributors page lists 55 names: 24 staff writers, 14 editors, and 17 contributors, most of whom write fairly often. Another 12 editors not listed as contributors show up on Grantland’s masthead. That’s 50 editorial staffers, plus a deep pool of regular contributors.
By contrast, Deadspin has a masthead of 17, depending upon exactly how you count, with a few regular contributors. The A.V. Club masthead lists 32 people, 14 of whom are not staffers but “contributing writers.” SB Nation has a masthead of only four, but that obscures the difference between the paid staffers and the poorly paid editors/contributors at the more than 300 individual team sites. A back-of-the-envelope tally of SB Nation’s equivalent of full-time editorial staffers sees them with more than the A.V. Club and fewer than Grantland. (SB Nation declined to provide hard numbers.)
Grantland has an editorial budget that provides for both quantity as well as quality—few online outlets have the cash to lure reigning Pulitzer Prize winners—and spent it freely, with the average Grantland staffer being very well-compensated by industry standards. When you factor in that Simmons himself is reportedly paid as much as $5 million annually, you begin to wonder how the site lasted this long without major cutbacks.
Simmons obviously doesn’t see it that way. “It’s a pivotal time for the site,” he told Re/code. “At some point we’ve got to either start growing, or we have to figure out what’s going to happen.” The growth Simmons desired was in headcount. “You can’t just say ‘Okay — we’re good, after three years — we don’t need more people.’” According to James Andrew Miller, Simmons hasn’t increased his staff size since May 2014. The site is a bit larger—a number of contributors became staffers and had their roles formalized over the last year—but the point stands. Grantland didn’t expand in the past year the way it did during its first three.
But as frustrating as it must have been for his higher-ups to say no to potential hires, Simmons drifted into the realm of delusion when he told Re/code that “we’ve always been understaffed, always.” That alone would be justification for not renewing his contract. If Grantland was truly understaffed, given the height of the masthead and the salaries paid out, Bill Simmons and his top lieutenants did a dreadful job of utilizing the talent they assembled.
Still, if Bill Simmons’s biggest failure had been that Grantland was a loss leader that won the company unquantifiable prestige, he’d still be part of ESPN. But as another brainchild of the guy brought in to succeed on every possible platform, The Grantland Basketball Hour has struggled on draw TV viewers:
Compared to the shows that lead into and out of The Grantland Basketball Hour, as well as to the shows that appeared in the same time slot the weeks before and after, the ratings are comparable at best, and in most cases significantly worse. There have only been eight shows and the erratic scheduling does it no favors, but this is how Simmons asked to be judged when he left NBA Countdown after losing the battle to mold it to his liking. He has creative control over a show that appears on ESPN in primetime, and at best, its ratings are indistinguishable from replacement-level ESPN programming. Simmons’s supposedly enormous podcast and mailbag audience—yup, those are his readers—haven’t followed him to TV. Or if they have, they’re the only ones watching.
After two years on NBA Countdown and one on The Grantland Basketball Hour, it is safe to say that Bill Simmons does not have a great TV presence. The things that make him an entertaining writer—long-winded analogies, off-color comments, self-referentialism—don’t work on TV. On NBA Countdown in particular, he clearly chafed at being unable to control the direction of the show, once famously complaining that Sage Steele waited too long to throw to him. He forced Michael Wilbon out, leading Magic Johnson to leave ESPN. The Grantland Basketball Hour is sometimes different, in a good way, but to a non-Grantland devotee just flipping through the channels, watching it feels like barging in on an unfamiliar conversation. And the best parts always involve people who aren’t Simmons.
Pouty Bill Simmons Wishes Somebody Would Let Him Talk
Bill Simmons is, still, an NBA panelist for ESPN. You wouldn't know it from tonight's…
Read more
This isn’t to say that Simmons cannot develop into a great TV presence, just that in three years he hasn’t. This might not be entirely his fault—perhaps the NBA Countdown producers should have been more receptive to his ideas—but it is true, and something that potential suitors must be aware of. And if Simmons isn’t a TV draw, and if his website is losing money, why in the world would ESPN pay him even more money?
Where Bill Simmons did succeed, and where he might be smart to focus his energies in the future, is in podcasts. His B.S. Report is currently the second highest-ranked podcast on the iTunes sports and entertainment charts, and his basketball-only podcast, Bill Don’t Lie, is third. Two other Grantland podcasts are in the top 10.
In the Re/code interview, he complained about ESPN not building him a sponsored podcast studio:
Here, his understanding of content and economics finally align. As much backing and support as ESPN may have given him for podcasts, it should have given him even more. Direct-response advertisers work particularly well for podcasts, but shouldn’t someone have been able to sell the B.S. Report to advertisers well enough so that Simmons didn’t have to read off ads for scams like Stamps.com? I mean, podcasts are where he was actually making ESPN money.
In March, Simmons provided a potential clue about his future, tweeting out an article about good friend Adam Corolla’s independent podcasting company. According to Carolla and his CFO, The Adam Carolla Show earned $4.4 million in revenue last year, with $2 million in profit. Again: a free, daily podcast hosted by Adam Carolla netted $2 million in profit last year. You don’t think Simmons, with a diehard audience large enough to support a low-expense enterprise like podcasting, could earn similar cash if he struck out on his own? It is his one speciality in which he is a genuine force. It would also give him one of the few things he seems to crave more than money: creative freedom.
You can’t spend 15 minutes on the internet without stumbling across a thinkpiece proclaiming this the Age of the Podcast. Serial became a bonafide cultural phenomenon, and Slate has bet its future on them. Compared to TV the money involved with podcasts is still small potatoes, but they’re poised to emerge as revenue generating machines—and are nimble enough to turn profits easier than can television shows, which require exponentially larger production budgets.
The mechanics of podcast listening—you have to seek out and actively subscribe—favor those, like Simmons, who are better at building devoted audiences than entertaining large fleeting ones. This means most B.S. Report listeners are frequent ones, and thus understand and appreciate the in-jokes and references. He books quality guests and lets them talk at length about interesting things, and while sometimes he forces them to nod along in fake agreement at some asinine theory, Simmons also asks good questions and makes them feel comfortable enough to open up and share stories they otherwise would not have. It works well.
Bill Simmons has been podcasting longer than almost any other major media figure—remember that ESPN nixed then-candidate Barack Obama’s appearance on the B.S. Report—and is genuinely very good at it.
Somebody—Turner, Fox Sports, Vox, a venture capital firm—is going to give Bill Simmons a dumptruck full of money, and if they are planning on him doing anything other than podcasting full time, they might as well just burn it. Bill Simmons shouldn’t be on TV, and more saliently, hasn’t done anything to prove that he is worth TV money, which is unrealistically inflating budgets even at online-only outlets under the same corporate umbrellas as broadcasters.
Paying Bill Simmons TV money—and the reported $6 million he was seeking from ESPN is TV money, at the term’s most pejorative—is a risky proposition that presumes he has television talent that for some reason never surfaced during his three years on television, and that his petulance won’t get in the way of him finding it. Instead, a smart media company would bring him on as a guy who can do one thing very well (podcasting), and can do another well enough to draw an audience (writing)—and not as the one-man panacea he expects to be paid like. ESPN was tired of hemorrhaging money to Simmons; why should it be different anywhere else?
http://deadspin.com/how-to-employ-bill-simmons-1703224603
Bill Simmons’s ESPN legacy is much bigger than his byline. Over the last six years, he has conceived of the acclaimed documentary series 30 for 30 and launched ESPN’s high-quality sports and entertainment offshoot, Grantland. Soon he won’t have either. But he’ll always have the thing he’s best at (and no, that’s not his writing), and what might just be his only truly marketable skill.
ESPN president John Skipper announced Friday that he decided not to renew Simmons’s contract, which expires at the end of September. “[Grantland] long ago went from being a Bill Simmons site to one that can stand on its own,” Skipper told the New York Times, ostensibly explaining why Grantland will continue post-Simmons but also letting slip why he felt comfortable ending contract talks nearly five months earlier than he had to.
Simmons had a great idea with 30 for 30 and showed a strong eye for talent and management—one only has to look so far as ESPN’s Black Grantland to understand that putting together a great staff, even with a basically unlimited budget, is far from easy. But the last few years have proven that Simmons isn’t actually the multiplatform media mogul he thinks he is. Rather, he is a successful writer and podcaster that was able to wrap his hands around the golden ticket: the full weight and backing of the largest sports media conglomerate on earth.
Two months ago at SXSW, Simmons gave a revealing interview to Re/code that included this exchange:
Grantland looks like it’s getting more and more ambitious — you guys are doing a lot more video, you’re producing movies, and you have a TV show on ESPN now.
It’s weird that nobody gives us credit for this. I think we have the best multimedia site right now. I don’t even know who we’re competing with. I don’t mean to be conceited — we just do the most things.
As editor-in-chief of ESPN’s largest and best-promoted vanity site it should be imperative that Simmons understands the media landscape, but this is tone-deaf. The only way he could possibly believe that nobody gives Grantland any credit is if he is entirely ensconced in his own self-referential bubble.
Earlier this year Grantland was nominated for three National Magazine Awards, arguably the most prestigious media awards after the Pulitzers. The only publications nominated for more are the cream of the media crop, and none are online-only: New York Magazine, Bon Appetit, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, and Virginia Quarterly Review. Grantland’s nominations were for feature writing, columns and commentary, and video; just the sort of multimedia for which Simmons claims Grantland doesn’t receive any credit. Last year the 30 for 30 Shorts series—which appear on Grantland—took home a primetime Emmy. Grantland has been nominated for Sports Emmys, Webby Awards, and EPPY Awards, and won a handful.
But far more telling than any industry award, Grantland’s continued existence is proof enough that ESPN suits are giving it credit for high-quality work, because they certainly aren’t keeping it alive for its revenue or traffic.
Grantland revenue numbers are hard to come by, but every discussion I have had with ESPNers about them centers around not whether Grantland is losing money, but how much. “Grantland is an artistic success, but it is not close to making money” an “ESPN insider” told Sports Illustrated. ESPN public relations staffers have unsurprisingly declined to speak to Grantland’s revenue in the past, instead redirecting the conversation and trumpeting Grantland’s atomizable content that pops up everywhere within ESPN’s empire. In other words, they put forth a non-revenue argument for Grantland’s continued existence.
Unlike dollar figures, we do have good traffic data. These are February and March 2015 unique visitor numbers from comScore for Grantland and a few of its competitors—this is my classification of competitors, as Simmons said he isn’t sure who he is competing with:
comScore numbers are far from perfect, but they’re an industry standard used by advertisers and provide the best basis for comparison between different websites. And this is with Grantland receiving the powerful traffic firehose from prime placement on ESPN.com, one of the 100 most visited websites in the world. Grantland is doing excellent work; readers haven’t rewarded that with proportionate patronage. ESPN executives can’t help but believe that the Bill Simmons brand alone isn’t enough to build an audience that justifies his cost.
Grantland’s traffic is rough enough when put in context, but it is downright startling that the website is still in business when you consider its expenses. Grantland’s contributors page lists 55 names: 24 staff writers, 14 editors, and 17 contributors, most of whom write fairly often. Another 12 editors not listed as contributors show up on Grantland’s masthead. That’s 50 editorial staffers, plus a deep pool of regular contributors.
By contrast, Deadspin has a masthead of 17, depending upon exactly how you count, with a few regular contributors. The A.V. Club masthead lists 32 people, 14 of whom are not staffers but “contributing writers.” SB Nation has a masthead of only four, but that obscures the difference between the paid staffers and the poorly paid editors/contributors at the more than 300 individual team sites. A back-of-the-envelope tally of SB Nation’s equivalent of full-time editorial staffers sees them with more than the A.V. Club and fewer than Grantland. (SB Nation declined to provide hard numbers.)
Grantland has an editorial budget that provides for both quantity as well as quality—few online outlets have the cash to lure reigning Pulitzer Prize winners—and spent it freely, with the average Grantland staffer being very well-compensated by industry standards. When you factor in that Simmons himself is reportedly paid as much as $5 million annually, you begin to wonder how the site lasted this long without major cutbacks.
Simmons obviously doesn’t see it that way. “It’s a pivotal time for the site,” he told Re/code. “At some point we’ve got to either start growing, or we have to figure out what’s going to happen.” The growth Simmons desired was in headcount. “You can’t just say ‘Okay — we’re good, after three years — we don’t need more people.’” According to James Andrew Miller, Simmons hasn’t increased his staff size since May 2014. The site is a bit larger—a number of contributors became staffers and had their roles formalized over the last year—but the point stands. Grantland didn’t expand in the past year the way it did during its first three.
But as frustrating as it must have been for his higher-ups to say no to potential hires, Simmons drifted into the realm of delusion when he told Re/code that “we’ve always been understaffed, always.” That alone would be justification for not renewing his contract. If Grantland was truly understaffed, given the height of the masthead and the salaries paid out, Bill Simmons and his top lieutenants did a dreadful job of utilizing the talent they assembled.
Still, if Bill Simmons’s biggest failure had been that Grantland was a loss leader that won the company unquantifiable prestige, he’d still be part of ESPN. But as another brainchild of the guy brought in to succeed on every possible platform, The Grantland Basketball Hour has struggled on draw TV viewers:
Compared to the shows that lead into and out of The Grantland Basketball Hour, as well as to the shows that appeared in the same time slot the weeks before and after, the ratings are comparable at best, and in most cases significantly worse. There have only been eight shows and the erratic scheduling does it no favors, but this is how Simmons asked to be judged when he left NBA Countdown after losing the battle to mold it to his liking. He has creative control over a show that appears on ESPN in primetime, and at best, its ratings are indistinguishable from replacement-level ESPN programming. Simmons’s supposedly enormous podcast and mailbag audience—yup, those are his readers—haven’t followed him to TV. Or if they have, they’re the only ones watching.
After two years on NBA Countdown and one on The Grantland Basketball Hour, it is safe to say that Bill Simmons does not have a great TV presence. The things that make him an entertaining writer—long-winded analogies, off-color comments, self-referentialism—don’t work on TV. On NBA Countdown in particular, he clearly chafed at being unable to control the direction of the show, once famously complaining that Sage Steele waited too long to throw to him. He forced Michael Wilbon out, leading Magic Johnson to leave ESPN. The Grantland Basketball Hour is sometimes different, in a good way, but to a non-Grantland devotee just flipping through the channels, watching it feels like barging in on an unfamiliar conversation. And the best parts always involve people who aren’t Simmons.
Pouty Bill Simmons Wishes Somebody Would Let Him Talk
Bill Simmons is, still, an NBA panelist for ESPN. You wouldn't know it from tonight's…
Read more
This isn’t to say that Simmons cannot develop into a great TV presence, just that in three years he hasn’t. This might not be entirely his fault—perhaps the NBA Countdown producers should have been more receptive to his ideas—but it is true, and something that potential suitors must be aware of. And if Simmons isn’t a TV draw, and if his website is losing money, why in the world would ESPN pay him even more money?
Where Bill Simmons did succeed, and where he might be smart to focus his energies in the future, is in podcasts. His B.S. Report is currently the second highest-ranked podcast on the iTunes sports and entertainment charts, and his basketball-only podcast, Bill Don’t Lie, is third. Two other Grantland podcasts are in the top 10.
In the Re/code interview, he complained about ESPN not building him a sponsored podcast studio:
You’ve been podcasting for a while, and the money part seems like it has frustrated you the whole time. At some point do you think about bailing on the idea?
No, because they pay me a salary. It’s not like I have a percentage of what my podcast gets.
I do think, as a competitive person, the fact that we don’t have a sponsored studio yet is just perplexing to me. We shoot like 15 hours of TV in there. But I also don’t know anything about ad sales, and it’s probably a much more complicated landscape than I’m giving it credit for. But to me, that’s a no-brainer.
No, because they pay me a salary. It’s not like I have a percentage of what my podcast gets.
I do think, as a competitive person, the fact that we don’t have a sponsored studio yet is just perplexing to me. We shoot like 15 hours of TV in there. But I also don’t know anything about ad sales, and it’s probably a much more complicated landscape than I’m giving it credit for. But to me, that’s a no-brainer.
Here, his understanding of content and economics finally align. As much backing and support as ESPN may have given him for podcasts, it should have given him even more. Direct-response advertisers work particularly well for podcasts, but shouldn’t someone have been able to sell the B.S. Report to advertisers well enough so that Simmons didn’t have to read off ads for scams like Stamps.com? I mean, podcasts are where he was actually making ESPN money.
In March, Simmons provided a potential clue about his future, tweeting out an article about good friend Adam Corolla’s independent podcasting company. According to Carolla and his CFO, The Adam Carolla Show earned $4.4 million in revenue last year, with $2 million in profit. Again: a free, daily podcast hosted by Adam Carolla netted $2 million in profit last year. You don’t think Simmons, with a diehard audience large enough to support a low-expense enterprise like podcasting, could earn similar cash if he struck out on his own? It is his one speciality in which he is a genuine force. It would also give him one of the few things he seems to crave more than money: creative freedom.
You can’t spend 15 minutes on the internet without stumbling across a thinkpiece proclaiming this the Age of the Podcast. Serial became a bonafide cultural phenomenon, and Slate has bet its future on them. Compared to TV the money involved with podcasts is still small potatoes, but they’re poised to emerge as revenue generating machines—and are nimble enough to turn profits easier than can television shows, which require exponentially larger production budgets.
The mechanics of podcast listening—you have to seek out and actively subscribe—favor those, like Simmons, who are better at building devoted audiences than entertaining large fleeting ones. This means most B.S. Report listeners are frequent ones, and thus understand and appreciate the in-jokes and references. He books quality guests and lets them talk at length about interesting things, and while sometimes he forces them to nod along in fake agreement at some asinine theory, Simmons also asks good questions and makes them feel comfortable enough to open up and share stories they otherwise would not have. It works well.
Bill Simmons has been podcasting longer than almost any other major media figure—remember that ESPN nixed then-candidate Barack Obama’s appearance on the B.S. Report—and is genuinely very good at it.
Somebody—Turner, Fox Sports, Vox, a venture capital firm—is going to give Bill Simmons a dumptruck full of money, and if they are planning on him doing anything other than podcasting full time, they might as well just burn it. Bill Simmons shouldn’t be on TV, and more saliently, hasn’t done anything to prove that he is worth TV money, which is unrealistically inflating budgets even at online-only outlets under the same corporate umbrellas as broadcasters.
Paying Bill Simmons TV money—and the reported $6 million he was seeking from ESPN is TV money, at the term’s most pejorative—is a risky proposition that presumes he has television talent that for some reason never surfaced during his three years on television, and that his petulance won’t get in the way of him finding it. Instead, a smart media company would bring him on as a guy who can do one thing very well (podcasting), and can do another well enough to draw an audience (writing)—and not as the one-man panacea he expects to be paid like. ESPN was tired of hemorrhaging money to Simmons; why should it be different anywhere else?
http://deadspin.com/how-to-employ-bill-simmons-1703224603
February March
SB Nation 21,009,000 20,298,000
Deadspin 11,943,000 8,809,000
Grantland 5,303,000 6,003,000
The A.V. Club 4,901,000 4,406,000
SB Nation 21,009,000 20,298,000
Deadspin 11,943,000 8,809,000
Grantland 5,303,000 6,003,000
The A.V. Club 4,901,000 4,406,000
Is Bill Simmons half black? I am confused by all the interest in his life on bgol.