Joe Buck's show didn't last either. Cyclical sports news with a fluid guest panel is already redundant through ESPN and Fox Sports, and doesn't require enough research or creativity to reinforce HBO's brand offering. I never watched it but at least that initial promo reminded me of Denis Leary back in the early '90s.
In my opinion Jalen did all the heavy lifting for Grantland. Bill Simmons had that face like he loved hearing what Jalen had to say.
I don't know, but HBO is out there cancelling shows like Vinyl (which I never saw) - backed by Martin Scorsese. They act fast.
This sucks, I loved reading grantland and I loved his show. It was like the sports version of Real Time. I was informational, honest and revealing. He has such access to athletes and celebrities, like if anyone watched can you tell me if you've ever seen a more candid Ben Afleck interview or the Nas and KD segment or his round-table discussion with Seth Rogen and Ricky Williams, yeah Larry Wilmore and Bill Burr sucked but even game of thrones has two throw-away episodes every season. We as fans are being crapped on by having these types of shows taken away from us and replace by more Skip vs Stephen A formats. I hope somehow a show of this medium can survive because Rome on showtime was really good and very similar and got canceled, its really unfair to the people that are actually watching when something like this happens, but hey this is why everyone is dumping cable for netflix
It wasn't just Jalen. Simmons built a team of talent at Grantland that were all really pretty solid. And as a result, Simmons was solid too. The whole idea of the HBO show never made sense. Trying to hit the masses, and you go something exclusive like HBO. So, obviously next you say what about The Ringer? Yes, they've gotten some of the talent to move to The Ringer. But for whatever reason, it just doesn't resonate quite as much with me. For one, I abhore the branding. We get it Bill, you're from Boston, you love Celtic green. For two, sorry but you can't just organically recreate ESPN marketing machine. I'm not pushed to the Ringer very often. And it will take time anyway. Even people who would migrate ultimately (like me) will take time to do so regularly (like me... slowly consuming the Ringer, just not all over it). I didn't even give the HBO show a shot. It sounded completely uninteresting to me. If he was going to do one on one stuff, he could have done things like been on location (at athletes homes), or picked some unique story line ala 30 for 30. But even that would have been mostly meh. Now if he wanted to do a basketball show and have KD, Russ, Steph, Lebron, Kawhi on at the same time for 30 minutes... that's watchable. Even though I have access to HBO GO, I'd probably be more likely to watch Simmons exact same show on Netflix... don't ask me why.... But platform aside, I just think this type of information, honest and revealing sit down interviews with sports personalities aren't that exciting. Frankly they're not that exciting with most personalities. Larry King gave it up (and his replacement never got traction), Walters gave it up... I mean you still see it, just it's not as exciting to many people now as it might have been a decade plus ago. Instead you have these "Talking" shows - not my favorite either, but do feel a little more interactive. In the sports realm, the TNT stuff, even considering the obvious Rockets bashing, is just more entertaining. Or the NBA tv roundtable stuff.
He's had a dope ass guest list. I think its the "hbo" factor, a lot of people are cutting off their premium channels and going digital I think thats hurting them. Besides girls, game of thrones and Ballers no one gives a **** about hbo. I'm sure he lands on netflix and this exact show becomes a hit
Bill Simmons has been trash since he left ESPN. No discipline to write his NBA articles which was his bread and butter. Totally phones in his podcasts. One giant chuckle hut. Not surprised his TV show sank.
Guest list is ok. A little random. While potentially interesting, I don't see things like [Doug Baldwin, Joel McHale, Michael Rapaport] or [Caitlyn Jenner, J. J. Redick, Lamorne Morris] or [Abby Wambach, Charlamagne Tha God] drawing eyes... ESPECIALLY as you note on HBO. That's a bit selective but the guests seem to be more in that vein than consistently amazing. But overall you're probably right... distribution platform is the #1 issue here. He wouldn't have gotten paid, or the guest, but would have gotten the same viewership (probably, eventually) if he just distributed it himself (assuming same guests and production value). He's been consistently at 80k-280k viewers... neither side of that range is good.
I'm tired of Bill Simmons as a TV personality. He's a great writer and content creator. He should stick to that.
I heard that crappy show hit them in the coffers. Had to shorten the season of another successful show and their boxing budget for this year was also cut because of it.
The show was pretty bad. I was a huge Sports Guy fan but he has stopped writing, which was his strongest suit. He just isn't good on tv. He sucked doing NBA coverage and he was awkward at best on this show.
Him being good on TV was always a long shot.... and if seasoned TV vets like Costas and Buck can't pull it off, not sure why anybody expected a writer/podcaster to be able to do it. I honestly thought they would just try and do a "last week tonight", but with just sports. While Simmons has nowhere near the ability to carry a show like Oliver does, it would at least be more relevant content (and of course, it should have either been on a Monday or a Friday.... Wednesday is no-mans land for sports news). But at the very least, his HBO contract has allowed him to start-up and fund the Ringer. Sure, its not near what Grantland was... but Grantland not only had the ESPN machine backing it, but it had about 3-5 years of growing before it became robust with all sorts of content. The Ringer will probably get there eventually... especially with so many ex-Grantland staffers. This also will likely get him writing again (much needed), and will increase the frequency of the podcasts to more than just cousin Sal and House.
