bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

just saw a billboard for this. lmao at "the sport of conversation". sounds like an alan partridge quote.

alltime unappealing tagline

i think it might actually be an alan partridge line

i didn't mind this but it seems like.... such a waste given everything you can do on HBO. it was basically no different than the stuff simmons was doing with jalen for grantland's youtube channel.

finally watched this, it was...fine?

letting affleck rant is def a trainwreck but also perversely fascinating to watch him go boston-bro on 100 thousand trillion

yea felt a lil manufactured to get buzz/go viral

its more of a celeb sin to have a puffy face of that degree

i caught a few minutes of this in passing the other night, felt like an hbo talk show, like costas' thing. i thought it worked better as tv than the grantland bball hour did. i've watched better things on hbo, i've watched worse things on hbo.

wish it was barkley's show instead

that dude already gets so much leeway to be a dickhead as it is

cuban is really refreshing to hear interviewed and in convo imo

yeah not a huge fan of either guy but the cubes/gladwell segment could have gone on for another 20 minutes and i would have been good. basically i'll check this out a day or two after it airs depending on the guests.

i walked thru a room showing cuban and gladwell and sped up my walking. caught hader and it was fun (fucking died at the deadline story) but it was mostly 'hey tell that story you told on the podcast that one time'. fun stuff but nothing new. also ever since it was pointed out i can't get past how he looks like ellen. it's like when someone pointed out fennel tastes like licorice, it took a while before i could eat spaghetti again.

otm ive def heard that lorne/serial killer bit but it is still hilarious and I condone pushing it to this larger audience

This show is very bad.

i couldnt believe he did a whole segment on ufc

Just like most things like this I'll pay attention a couple times every few months when he has someone interesting on.

Cancellation rumors ...

haha

Can they cancel The Ringer while they're at it? That site has published maybe two good articles so far.

bill had a good thing going w espn

talking head is a dumb egotist, news at 11

The Ringer has had several pretty good pieces, but they've all been too short, and they get punched down off the front age because shitty boring sports takes need more space.

It's nerds versus jocks. At Grantland the nerds usually won.

i like justin charity

wow bill wooooowwww
https://youtu.be/N8AcfZt7ZOE

lol all of those ideas are so half baked and bad

I feel like I can feel bill getting squirmy and needing to interject when a celeb tells a longer story or anecdote (cait jenner, Jonah hill), but to his credit, he doesn't

otoh its p embarrassing his trying to relate to ricky Williams and seth rogen abt smoking weed by a story where he got hi and went to see Austin powers 3

Tug of war only good idea in that...

the bad ideas should at least be amusing...

haven't seen anything since the Bosh one but apparently KD is on tomorrow.

Still hard to believe KD is on the Warriors with the Steph and Klay. I bet he's feeling happy, relaxed and excited.

wonder if he has any idea abt the impending avalanche of hate

Last week had worse ratings than two different airings of Caddyshack on the Golf Channel. Barely beat WEEDIQUETTE on Vice.

And three female guests in ten episodes.

Bill Simmons ‏@BillSimmons 8h8 hours ago
Long conversation with @KDTrey5 and @Nas on @AnyGivenWeds tonight - and we have @vincestaples talking sports, too. https://instagram.com/p/BKluTFhgr17/

vince staples segment was really bad. was kd part was p good. speed round at the end was p fun overall

whitlock!

https://twitter.com/TheTomasRios/status/779432658178899968

how does one man produce so much perfect content

lol i love how twitter drives successful journalists with better things to do completely insane

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/10/28/ratings-for-bill-simmonss-hbo-show-have-hit-rock-bottom

"what’s with all the Michael Rapaport?" lmao perfect

it's a god damn awful show. caught a bit of it the other night because the great one was on it and because the great one is such a wooden borefest he had bill burr sitting next to him. still managed to be stilted and not particularly funny.

I like Billy but the first episode with Ben Affleck was enough for me

it's a really dead show, idk why. i think it made sense in theory... like he's good at podcasts, let's put him and some guests in a room and not try and overthink it. but when i watch it i can't get over the fact that he GOT HIS OWN SHOW on fucking HBO and it's more or less completely identical in tone and look from the youtube videos he was making for grantland. idk i just feel like there was so much more opportunity there.

given the contract HBO gave him i feel like maybe they'll give this one more shot since it can't be that expensive to produce, and i think they can expand out the format a bit. i think one good option would be to produce documentary-style segments a la the 30 for 30 shorts they used to do. just something to break up the "stale simmons essay with old cultural references" + "stilted interviews with random guests" monotony.

it really comes off as if he didn't put any thought into it at all

i have to think there's a lot of people like me who still listen to his podcasts at the gym and maybe even click on ringer links here and there, but when it comes to the show he could have jesus christ himself as a recurring guest and there's still no way i'm watching a 30-minute talkshow about sports.

tv requires so much more attention than pods

What percent of people who make podcasts think "I should be on TV?"

well bill simmons has been on TV plenty and there's an established history of sportswriters becoming successful TV hosts (on espn at least)

but yeah

yeah sports writer --> sports radio --> tv model is a million years old now

but simmons is obv a different beast than, say, tony kornheiser