Bill Simmons leaving ESPN.

Unbelievable. I didnt think they would just get rid of Grantland so fast. The FiveThirtyEight shit is ok, but it is usually just political nonsense from Nate Silver and friends, and ESPN cited that and some other shit "internet brand" called The Undefeated will take over the "role" of Grantland.

HBO has really diversified their platform with Simmons, and now to get Mays, Barnwell etc, they pretty much snatched a huge amount of ESPN's capital and quality sports entertainment talent in one fell swoop. I think it was more of a money thing in the end, proven by the massive cut ESPN has made to its work force recently. They are pretty much at the mercy of Disney and Disney demanded a cut. They decided to hit the rest button and just hope people continue to use their site and collect similar ad revenue.

Nothing too surprising. ESPN has evolved into a sports media/marketing cash machine, which precludes serious journalism and criticism. For as much bias and homerism Simmons shows, he'd still call out bullshit like how ESPN was reporting on serious issues effecting their cash cows and he had enough reach to make it matter. A symbiotic relationship has evolved between ESPN and the major sport leagues. No different from major news outlets and political parties.

A full fucking Daniel Bryan YES YES YES! Fuck you ESPN.

What's weird is in this Friday's Grantland NFL podcast, they still thought they were coming back to work next week. So ESPN didn't bother mentioning it to any minions until they were out the door. (You'd think Barnwell at least would rate better than that.)

Anyway, between ESPN and this, and SI's terrible redesign... I hope whomever hires Barnwell and Co. (I assume HBO or some branch of parent Time Warner) at least has a site that's readable on mobile AND desktop.

Gilgamel_sl said:

Really hope Zach Lowe ends up somewhere great. I heard he and Simmons had a falling out so I wouldn't expect him at HBO with him. He needs to be somewhere he can continue his podcast.

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really? hope that isn't true. they were tweeting at each other about Waiters island the other day.

Looks like he got Greenwald..aka all the cultural centerpieces

Bill Simmons Threatens to Hire Outside Ombudsman to Cover ESPN | The Big Lead

I sure hope Simmons goes out of his way to ridicule ESPN's retard brigade on a weekly basis.

This must happen now.

Caal_sl said:

Bill Simmons Threatens to Hire Outside Ombudsman to Cover ESPN | The Big Lead

I sure hope Simmons goes out of his way to ridicule ESPN's retard brigade on a weekly basis.

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It's amazing how a tongue in cheek joke gets this much ink. Dude was kidding. The very next podcast he talked about it and said it was a joke. ESPN people can't go on any non ESPN show period, Simmons mentioned that before going on Francesca months ago. It's been that way for awhile. I think Kornheiser and Wilbon are the only exceptions since PTI is ESPN adjacent.

Bill will just continue to grow, snipe the best talent and ESPN will be stuck with the likes of Mike & Mike, lol.