Leaving the Twittersphere to speculate on what had gone down, he and his team immediately got busy lining up his next act. All rights reserved. In addition to his columns, which at their height attracted more than 1 million readers, he churned out two best-selling books (a memoir of Red Sox fandom and a lengthy treatise on basketball), co-created ESPN's acclaimed 30 for 30 documentary series, launched the popular B.S. Just eight months earlier, ESPN had suspended him for three weeks after he blasted Goodell for his mishandling of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. "Bill's such a passionate guy, and he viewed those execs as his mentors and champions.
And I just made it worse. Simmons paces the sidelines of his 11-year-old daughter's soccer game on an afternoon in mid-May, as his wife, known to Simmons' readers as the Sports Gal, and their younger son stand cheering nearby. "Part of me thought about leaving ESPN early, but I was like, 'No, I'm actually gonna take every [last] dollar they owe me,' " says Simmons of his messy 2015 exit. Instead, he saw in Simmons something that can't be as easily taught: "Both Bill and Jon Stewart have really strong points of view, and that supersedes everything," says Miller. A year removed, the emotions still are palpable. ", "If you listen to it, it's a joke," says Simmons today, his boyish, inquisitive nature matched by his hoodie-and-Converse attire. None of the proposals was as appealing as HBO's, however. It all just drives me f—ing crazy. ", "ESPN has now gotten rid of everybody who is a little off the beaten path. "I knew nothing, but I remember going, 'Man, this is fast,' because all of a sudden we were on the air, and Jimmy had a lot to prove," he says, and then he pauses. His family rented a place in Malibu, and while his two kids were off at camp, he'd wander the beach reflecting on all that had happened. One of the more colorful incidents occurred when ESPN killed the first podcast interview Simmons had lined up with Obama in 2008 — per company policy, candidate interviews were off-limits until after the nominating conventions — and then signed off on his rival, Rick Reilly, picking a fantasy football team with the then-presidential candidate for a column a few months later. (Twenty more Grantland alums since have joined Simmons' new company, which counts about 100 employees between the site and show.) Well, nobody has ever been good on that show. Copyright 2020 Nexstar Inc. All rights reserved. ESPN had decided it would get ahead of the story in an attempt to control the narrative. His longtime agent, who also reps Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart (whom he had meet with Simmons in September 2015), went into overdrive in spring 2015 lining up Simmons' next act. ", Any lack of TV polish didn't deter Stuart Miller, however, a longtime Simmons fan who's coming over to run Any Given Wednesday after more than a decade at The Daily Show. About Our Ads Now, Goodell was threatening to sideline Tom Brady, of Simmons' beloved New England Patriots, for allegedly conspiring to use underinflated footballs during a playoff game. "I started to feel like I was Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory," Simmons says with a chuckle. "It was like being in a super-unhappy marriage and then just meeting someone at the grocery story and being like, 'Oh, that girl's cool. Ask yourself this: 'Who would work there that you respect right now?' His social worker mom and school administrator dad split up by the time he was 9. Clearly, Simmons doesn't — and doesn't want others to, either. In that time, he also established close relationships with Skipper and his boss, Disney CEO Bob Iger, which ruffled feathers at the network's Bristol, Conn., headquarters, and built a fervent fan base that included, among others, President Obama, who was interviewed on his podcast in 2012. (ESPN declined comment for this story.). "It doesn't matter how many years you might have in front of a camera, if you have a great, strong take on things, which Bill obviously does, that's what matters.
To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe. Simmons' PR rep since 2009, Lewis Kay, had the less glamorous job of cleaning up the post-ESPN debris. To this day, Simmons isn't sure Skipper ever actually listened to the Patrick interview; he didn't need to, figures Simmons, because at that point the ESPN chief already had several underlings whispering in his ear, "Did you see what Simmons said about Goodell now?" "I go back to my Serge Ibaka reference point: He's not a household name, he's not Stephen Curry or LeBron James, yet it was a dazzling interview that only Bill can do.". "But he's an only child and there was also a bit of sharp elbows," he adds, "so a decent number of people thought he was a prick. It was March 2015, and Lombardo was eager to meet Simmons. '", Fortunately for Simmons, many of those early detractors would come around once his column for the college paper began gaining traction.
", In his office a week later, he spins through his wish list for Any Given Wednesday guests, awarding the top spot to Michelle Obama in part because girls' sports is a subject he'd love to dive into with her. It's key that all parts work in unison, says Weinberger: "We have a few creative meetings a week where if you were a martian who landed on the planet, you wouldn't know who works for the show, the site or the podcast. Two days later, his employer accepted the dare, suspending him for three weeks without pay. "I'm not blameless," he says now, acknowledging: "I acted like a brat a couple times, and there are things I could have handled better." Watch Queue Queue Simmons also launched a satirical newsletter, The Velvet Edge, to document all that was happening in the dorm and rarely went far without his video camera. I'd always make WNBA jokes and stuff like that. The Hollywood Reporter is part of MRC Media and Info, a division of MRC. ESPN insiders suggest Skipper simply had reached his breaking point — after all those years of empowering and defending Simmons internally, he no longer could tolerate the disrespect.
"Do you understand how dumb that is?" After graduation, Simmons moved back to Boston, earned a master's degree in journalism from Boston University and landed a low-level gig covering sports for the Herald. ALMOND, N.Y. (WETM) – The votes are in and our next 18 Sports Athlete of the Week had two big games for the Alfred-Almond girls soccer team.
"I read that, and I was like, 'Ugh, we're never gonna be the same.' THE SITE ", On June 22, his reign at HBO will formally begin with the launch of Any Given Wednesday with Bill Simmons. What I'm not good at is doing what [John] Oliver does.
Simmons willingly admits he didn't bother listening to the podcast before it went up and would have edited out the offending part if he had.
Some wanted to produce his next project; others simply wanted to invest in him. " By late May, Simmons was sitting with Lombardo and HBO chief executive Richard Plepler for dinner on the rooftop at the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills agreeing on the shape of his deal. "They're making them longer, which I don't agree with," he says. He never would get that chance. After spending more than a decade at The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Miller relocated to L.A. in early 2016 to run Simmons' talk show. Even then, he had a knack for making sports broadly accessible, elevating the fan's perspective to a fine art. The subject was radioactive, and Simmons knew it.
Simmons' TV experience includes two seasons on NBA Countdown, though he prefers to be judged for his time on ESPN's 'Pardon the Interruption,' where he was considerably more comfortable, In recent months, Lombardo has been urging Simmons to stop stressing over that guest list. Simmons, being Simmons, retaliated in kind, firing off an email that he was pulling out of the network's upcoming coverage of the NBA draft. Simmons' podcasts could become TV shows (The Watch already has spawned a Game of Thrones aftershow); and his ferocious stream of ideas for documentaries would be heard as the network looked to regain a foothold in sports. That there's a subset of the sports press that suggests the latter may never happen — that Simmons isn't cut out for TV — only appears to motivate him. Those piercing blue eyes look away, and suddenly the conversation no longer is about Jimmy. But Simmons had a hard time accepting that. "By the way they handled it, you would think I played grab-ass with some makeup assistant or something." But at that point, he felt he no longer had the ear of Skipper, whom he believes began distancing himself in fall 2013, when a widely read Deadspin story suggested Simmons had become the network's "shadow president.
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