I don't think he has the business skills to pull that off. You can either be great at creative production or great at business. He needs someone else to run the business. If he's in charge its a failure in the making.
Grantland will wither away and die eventually or become irrelevant. Simmons doesn't fit the hard mold at ESPN any more than a guy like Nate Silver. ESPN likes to pretend it has a big tent but it really doesn't. It also likes to pretend it's truly independent, but it is too invested and connected with the major sports leagues. ESPN's #1 goal is to preserve the status quo of being the sports coverage/news leader, which is a big reason I want it to fall hard. Just wishful thinking on my part.
Good news. Another blow to Espn and Grantland will die without Simmons. I hope he takes with him Lowe and go elsewhere.
Agreed, he's not a businessman, but that doesn't preclude him from starting his own thing. He'd have to bring in some investors with business acumen to handle that side of things. Yes, this would be a riskier play than going with a major corporation, but the potential payoff is huge and Simmons is one of the few people that could pull it off. If he was just a personality, I'd be worried, but I think with Grantland he proved he is good at finding talent and managing a creative platform. I think this vox article does a good job explaining Simmons' value http://www.vox.com/2015/5/8/8573303/bill-simmons-espn
If Ira Glass has enough clout to take This American Life out on its own, surely Bill Simmons could pull it off.
Will be interesting to see where he lands. He needed to leave a long time ago. Really hope he comes up with something without all the BS restrictions that ESPN placed on his content. I've never loved or hated Simmons, but have been a big fan of Grantland.
Here we go <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/harryjharryj">@harryjharryj</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/ResponsibleROME">@ResponsibleROME</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons">@BillSimmons</a> come home Bill. Come home.</p>— shane smith (@shanesmith30) <a href="https://twitter.com/shanesmith30/status/596705925391589378">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You're an idiot and I say that w/no due respect. A Boston homer douche-of that you are 100% correct. To call him a racist is so out of line and absurd that I have to wonder what you smoked this morning. You really think those are all the best writers on GL? SMH people really are sleeping on Jonathan Abrams, Katie Baker and Molly Lambert. Add those 3 to your list and it would officially be a done deal for GLand.
Yahoo is calling his name. Woj for the breaking news. Bill for the entertainment, and ideas, and then if they can lure Lowe over for analysis... they will have the best big 3 in basketball media. A good idea would be for a company like Yahoo to start up a streaming network or networks similar to Netflix with different on-demand channels for sports, news, politics, pop culture etc. Bill seems like the right asset to launch that type of service. I also wouldn't be shocked if there is negotiations for the other party (Yahoo in this case I guess) to purchase Grantland at a discount. Without Simmons at the helm I seriously doubt Grantland has a chance at surviving two more years. I doubt most people even realized ESPN had a stake in the website at all. ESPN wants no part in pop culture, and the other stuff that comes with Grantland. Grantland has a show/pod dedicated to Game of Thrones. That's Disney promoting HBO essentially. A good business decision for ESPN/Disney would be to tack on Grantland with whomever is hiring Bill in order to get your investment back + some.
I detested his "body language" bullsh that he loves spewing about different players on different teams but what irritated me more about him over the past year was his obsession with Roger Goodell. We got the damn point. Goodell lost the confidence of fans(as if that really matters) and was wrong in almost every decision he made. Goodell's a putz blah blah blah. We got the damn point. Nope, wasn't enough. His obsession with Goodell of late and his ever present Boston homerism.
Not one mention of Fox sports by ANYONE on here. Amazing. I'd put my wager on Fox Sports(depending on if ESPN have a clause in his contract forbidding him going to Fox Sports after his contract runs out/if he got fired, etc for a set period of time). He has a number of friends at Fox, pretty convenient base close to his LA home, Fox have the money to throw around just like ESPN does.
True, we all ignored Fox. Do they even have a written presence when it comes to the NBA? I know Woj makes TV appearances for them but doesn't have his own show.
Fox would be interesting, but ultimately you are talking about a guy who is very much liberal although he does a good job of avoiding politics. Bill wants and is going to demand that he has more involvement in other facets of media such as pop culture, tv, etc. How he can get involved with other areas without staring right in the face a sister company that has "News" in their title I don't know. I just have a hard time seeing Bill go to Fox because I think he wants to be a little more than just a sports writer. The guy wants ownership of what he does, and I don't see him getting along with anyone over at Fox.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">ESPNers: Bill Simmons found out he was fired on Twitter <a href="http://t.co/G3A803RuWU">http://t.co/G3A803RuWU</a></p>— Deadspin (@Deadspin) <a href="https://twitter.com/Deadspin/status/596725775925178368">May 8, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Baker writes about NHL and none of the writers he mentioned write about that sport. Abrams has been pretty good but his pieces are more for entertainment value than analysis...which is what Goldsberry do and what Lowe used to do most of the time. So in terms of "sleeping" I don't think anyone is sleeping because Barnwell and Mays is the football section of Grantland, Lowe and Goldsberry is the basketball section, etc. Tack on Jonah Keri for baseball and without them, Grantland would have to do a massive overhaul in those three sports.
Yahoo already has that. It's called Yahoo Screen and it's free. It's the service that airs new episodes of cancelled NBC sitcom Community.
He can definitely be annoying but he also has principles/actually believes what he says Skip and SAS are the lowest of the low in terms of "journalism." They are totally uninformed, make up crap, and act like they are better than everyone else
