bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/bill-simmons-would-be-nuts-to-leave-espn-2014-10

somehow i think he has the money to keep grantland running

except he doesnt own grantland

they say they want to keep it but idk

Grantland, the sports and entertainment site run by Simmons for ESPN, will be unaffected by his departure, Skipper said.

“It long ago went from being a Bill Simmons site to one that can stand on its own,” Skipper said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/sports/bill-simmons-and-espn-are-parting-ways.html

yeah one of the sources of friction was grantland. he wanted more resources for video, wanted to shield his writers from traffic/clickbait demands, they wanted sports buzzfeed.

hm, well as zach lowe and some others on that site still have a job, its aight...but if it really does turn into sports buzzfeed more or less that will suck

wld not be surprised if they fucked around with it for a while then gave up its a pretty odd not that great site that doesnt have that many readers

when someone is all i want to make something "good" but really has no specific vision

simmons to buzzfeed or bleacher report then? how about ~fusion~

i have not seen the traffic stats - how do you look that stuff up? honest question

i dont think theyre made publicly available thats just my impression

simmons to buzzfeed or bleacher report then? how about ~fusion~

― mookieproof, Friday, May 8, 2015 10:52 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah who knows does he want another grantland does he want an independent grantland does he just want to be a writer again does he want to be on tv what does bill simmons want

maybe vox media

i mean there are third party sites that estimate traffic but they are xtremely unreliable

tho i wonder if any of those companies that actually rely on web traffic wld given him a new grantland considering his anti traffic stance, maybe fusion is the wave they dont care and they have tv

but they r ~post text~ lol

find myself in the unanticipated position of realizing i quite like grantland and that even tho i didn't read his stuff it probably won't be as good without simmons if it does survive at all

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dHaMV_eXko

guess espn is all-in on whitlock now amirite

kinda doubt they care too much abt all these sites, theyre so minuscule compared to their tv business, theyre just messing around hoping to find some sort of hit

wonder whats gonna happen when nate silvers contract is up lol

hope he timed that for an election cycle when he should have no trouble finding other work

wonder whats gonna happen when nate silvers contract is up lol

― lag∞n, Friday, May 8, 2015 11:16 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha the worldwide leader is 100% about "fit" so my guess is peace out best of luck

I'm totally unsurprised by this and also weirdly interested to see what Simmons does

My best guess is someone will pony up a ton of cash for a regular weekly column just for the name (yahoo? Deadspin would be hilarious) and otherwise he might hole up and write another book? He kinda seems to hate that process tho

I bet someone else will give him a modest blank check to exec produce another 30 for 30 type series, maybe fox or nbc for their sports networks, best bet I would guess wld be Netflix. I imagine it would be much more occasional and more like the bigger movie type ones they did like the U and fab 5' so prob just a couple a year. He may not care enough to do it at all tho

i remember reading him being frustrated w/ espn's inability to monetize podcasts, that the internet was something they just paid very little attention to in general (and he understood why) but that he had seen you could make more money than what espn was doing w/ it so short of an espn competitor making a godfather offer i would not be surprised at all if w/ podcasts at least he went some route w/ carolla and kimmel. he's definitely seemed much more interested in doing video/tv type stuff though so nbc or fox could be possible, that would be much more difficult/risky to pull off independently. i wonder if espn will do any kind of blackout w/ him down the stretch the way they did w/ dan patrick.

i don't think simmons is gonna go to another media org. i bet he either takes vc money and builds out his own thing or does something with, like, hbo.

"media org" i mean news media org, esp website

i don't think he cares that much about writing anymore

ya sounds about right one of those weekly hbo civilized sports talk shows that no one watches, produce an occasional documentary, prob get bored and start blogging

yeah his writing has been pretty much about maintaining his brand for awhile. big lead speculates it pretty much came down to money and espn thinking if they devote this much money to keeping simmons then what are they gonna have to do to keep real revenue generators like (wait for it) skip bayless and colin cowherd?

it also seems like they just hate him and felt like showing him that he actually matters not at all to what they do which is true

like if hes gonna obnoxiously insult their corporate partners and them then whats the point espn is for showing the nfl not for bill simmons

i mean i doubt skip bayless or colin cowherd matter to them either

he shd go to the nytimes.com lol

cowherd generates serious revenue though, i'm not sure if he's dumb enough to think it's because he's great and he could just pick up and do that elsewhere. dan patrick had that remark about 'espn muscles' when cowherd attacked him.

espn makes its money from broadcasting sports fullstop

the personalities are replaceable

i mean im sure the ppl who run the divisions in which the personalities work wldnt look at it that way but ultimately the reason they can charge cable companies as much in carriage fees as all the the other networks combined is because they have live sports

It’s rumored that Simmons made $3 million per year. If that’s true, he was severely underpaid per his return on investment.

(However, I was just reminded that he earns royalties from 30 for 30.)

curious how ur calculating the simmons roi

curious how ur calculating the simmons roi

ad rates

the cost are like way more than his $3m a/year tho, also no one knows how many impressions/views/etc hes producing across all the platforms

the cost are like way more than his $3m a/year tho

Sure. However, the costs are insignificant. Moreover, they are spread across groups.

also no one knows how many impressions/views/etc hes producing across all the platforms

They (Grantland, podcasts, and television) are very estimable.

idk man i dont think its a coincidence that most ppl dont get simmons type money or their own fiefdoms and espn were fine with letting him walk, i mean how many of those views were simmons views and how many were espn views

Andrew Golis ‏@agolis 5m5 minutes ago
I'm calling it now: Bill Simmons, first Editor In Chief of Snapchat.

anon espn insider reactions http://deadspin.com/espners-bill-simmons-found-out-he-was-fired-on-twitter-1703112625

i dont think its a coincidence that most ppl dont get simmons type money or their own fiefdoms and espn were fine with letting him walk

Sure. A lot of people are underpaid. ESPN ad revenues were $3.9 billion in 2014. Money wasn’t the issue.

i agree that ultimately its small change to them but there does seem to be some dynamic of them rolling out the red carpet for him and he still wldnt be a team player, and obvs from a marxist perspective everyone at espn is prob underpaid

but from a capitalist perspective i kinda doubt he was

i agree that ultimately its small change to them but there does seem to be some dynamic of them rolling out the red carpet for him and he still wldnt be a team player, and obvs from a marxist perspective everyone at espn is prob underpaid

Fair. (And everyone is underpaid except John Skipper. He makes $5 million per year and an addition $10-15 million in stock!)

but from a capitalist perspective i kinda doubt he was

Really? You think he’ll make less than $3 million in his next position?