A look at ESPN not renewing the contract of Bill Simmons and what's next for him.
On Friday, Bill Simmons was more-or-less fired by ESPN. His contract doesn’t end until September, but he’s essentially a lame duck writer for these next few months. Who knows, he might not write or produce anything after he was blindsided by ESPN President John Skipper’s announcement that his contract wouldn’t be renewed.
I’ll admit to souring on Simmons over the past couple of years. I was a huge fan when he first started, but the more popular he got, the less I enjoyed him. Maybe I’m like a fan of those bands that are really cool when they are “your band” and only playing local shows but then they get a mainstream hit and sell millions of records so you start despising them because they became “everyone’s band.” Maybe he’s the same writer he always was and it was I who changed.
Simmons was often times a polarizing figure for ESPN. He was the off-campus rebel who was still collecting a paycheck from them every week. It seemed like at least once a year, you would read a story about Simmons being fined or suspended by the company for some comment he made that wasn’t in line with their thinking. Yet they kept him on board because he brought in readers, viewers, and listeners. Simmons obviously had his backers in the company, Skipper being one of them, but he was a clearly a big headache for people. The decision not to renew his contract this time around should make two things clear: 1. No one is bigger than ESPN and 2. they got all they wanted out of Simmons.
30 For 30 is an Emmy winning series that Simmons created. It’s universally recognized as one of the best things on ESPN as it combines fandom with journalism, the latter of which ESPN has gotten away from over the years.
Then there’s Grantland, a website I visit on a daily basis. Simmons rounded up some of the top writers and put them under one roof to cover sports and pop culture. One day 411 will add the Super Secret Sports Section and we can turn this into the homeless man’s Grantland. Until then, I’m very interested to see what happens to the site now that Simmons is as good as gone. As Skipper mentioned in his exit comments, Grantland is now a site that can stand on it’s own without Simmons, but without him, like 30 For 30, it doesn’t exist.
Whether or not the Grantland boss has more ideas in the chamber remains to be seen, but he gave ESPN two major ideas that will continue to move forward without him. Skipper seems to be banking on the fact that Simmons has very little left and he might not be wrong given how stagnant Simmons’ writing has become over the years, with the exception of the Grantland launch.
In many ways, Simmons brought this upon himself. You can only bite the hand that feeds you so often before the hand pops you in the mouth. But Simmons was hired by ESPN after he wrote a scathing review of the 1999 ESPY’s, so it’s not like they didn’t know what they were getting into.
Reports say that Simmons’ use of “testicular fortitude” when describing NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and what he lacks was the straw that broke the camel’s back. While I have little doubt that Simmons once again taking shots at Goodell led to his contract not being renewed, singling out those words seems a bit petty. Simmons has used those words more times than I can count throughout the years in columns and podcasts with no apparent repercussions for doing so. Had he called Goodell “gutless,” I have a feeling that the punishment would’ve been the same.
Now the fun begins. What does Simmons do next?
In prior interviews he’s said, “It’d be a whole lot easier for me if I didn’t love Skipper and Walsh. If that dynamic was removed, it would be cut-and-dried, and I would leave” and “I am not afraid to leave. If it happens, I will kill myself trying to haunt them somewhere else.”
Obviously there’s no more love between him and Skipper and in September, he’ll be gone.
Simmons is a popular figure with a huge following, he’s not going have any trouble finding work, but he comes with baggage. Any company that picks him up knows that his axe against ESPN will be sharp and ready to swing. And it’s possible he doesn’t stop swinging until his fingers don’t work and his voice is gone. FOX and NBC are logical options, but with neither having the NBA right, Simmons would lose a major television wheelhouse. Bleacher Report and Turner seem like the most likely destination as Simmons can continue his writing online at BR and cover the NBA on TNT.
Then there’s a potential wild card: WWE. Dustin James mentioned this on twitter, and while I wasn’t a fan of Simmons’ work on WWE Raw pre-Wrestlemania, the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. WWE won’t mind him constantly taking shots at ESPN, especially during football season, and he can have his own show on WWE Network where he looks at WWE’s impact on sports and pop culture. It’s not likely, but it’s also not impossible.
As of this writing, Simmons has made no comments following Skipper announcing that The Sports Guy’s contract would be renewed. When he finally does this, it’ll be the sports media version of CM Punk breaking his silence.
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