bill simmons IS bill simmons IN the book of BASKETBALL

the ringer trending toward celeb podcasts is a disappointing and predictable development with the spotify purchase

btw can someone explain to me, a non-podcast listener, how this has become so huge and lucrative? like i understand rogan or whomever, i guess, but there are only so many hours in a day to listen/pay attention to hour-long sound files and their ads. idgi

is it just venture capital

podcasts are very popular and usually very cheap to produce but yeah prob just vc

it was possible until recently to do pretty well with an independent podcast that had a decent listener base using ads alone. i think reduction in commuting time this year plus some consolidation of the ad market for podcasts is changing that. my favorite basketball pod recently went from ad-supported to a subscription model, which i could see happening with a lot of pods not backed by a major company.

Yah my pod listening is down to like one per week or two where I used to listen daily

what do y'all actually pay for?

i pay for the athletic, and a non-commenting defector account, and am about to cancel my sling.tv subscription because there are no sporps

right now i pay for the athletic and the aforementioned subscription to dunc’d on.

not sure i’ll stick with the athletic tbh. i like it but i don’t love it.

I pay for Athletic, that's about it

Netwerk had the only Ringer podcast I still listened to so I'm down to zero on that front.

This fucking baby https://t.co/0Mdul4O0RJ pic.twitter.com/ta99MMAqeT

— Barry Petchesky (@barry) November 19, 2020

Oh no, he unfollowed someone. This is so stupid.

its stupid but not in the way you think

he never mentions writers who left the company (like netw3rk and robert mays). they wrote gracious "thank you" posts too, but no response from him.

i mean how soon does he just drop the written/web component of the ringer and make it the celebrity podcast network that he and spotify want it to be?

yeah

there arent enough celeb pods already huh

until every celebrity has a pod our work is not done

are any of those celebrity pods actually successful?

a lot of celeb pods are huge

he never mentions writers who left the company (like netw3rk and robert mays). they wrote gracious "thank you" posts too, but no response from him.

― Wayne Grotski (symsymsym), Thursday, November 19, 2020 5:49 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

he quit twitter when the “this isn’t open mic” story happened.

or doesn't talk about them on his pods, make a statement...they become persona non grata

he'd kill a GM who managed personnel as sullenly as he does

"I think, from people we talked to and stuff we’ve read, the shooting kind of set the tone for how the city thinks about stuff. Even, when we were at Game 3: Great crowd, they fall behind, and the whole crowd got tense. It was like, 'Oh no, something bad's gonna happen.' And I think it starts from that shooting. And it's just that mindset they have."

I am happy to report that I have stopped listening to Bill Simmons' podcast. I am sorry to report that I now listen to Ryen's podcast.

a lateral move

the first step is recognizing that pods are bad

i, on the other hand, have just started faithfully listening to Bill's podcast in the past six months. it is full of insane and inane statements, and it makes me laugh.

post some funny things he said

he isn’t even semi-coherent on basketball anymore.

I would not listen to the bill simmons podcast and I’m only dimly aware of who he is (a man who wrote for some websites?) but I suspect I would enjoy a podcast that just makes fun of his podcast

I still dig his podcast.

I suspect I would enjoy a podcast that just makes fun of his podcast

this has to exist somewhere

it's this: https://www.reddit.com/r/billsimmons/

^ this also makes me laugh, it has very much evolved from a subreddit about Simmons' various media doings to a subreddit about making fun of Bill

also, xp, lagoon, Russillo makes me laugh more than Bill, and anything that made me laugh won't translate here, but for example, last night Bill couldn't pronounce Ntilikina and Ryen called him on it - even said he hears from people about Bill's inability to pronounce stuff (which i was kinda surprised he said) - and like 5 minutes later, Bill, with great timing, called him Frankie Nicotine. it was pretty funny.

his takes and theories and whatnot are just bizarre, though, no doubt about it. his basketball brain has been turned to mush by his obsession with lists and rankings and pantheons and trades and whatnot. oh, and by the millions and millions of dollars he has.

im willing to have my basketball acumen eroded by millions of dollars if anyone is offering

rusillo frequently needles simmons over his history of saying he knows something about basketball bcuz of experience he has playing pick up basketball in college with joe house

the podcast has kinda become 2 hours of Russillo walking a tightrope between making fun of Bill and showing restraint. this is part of what's funny ... to me, at least. but i am definitely a latecomer on this.

i still love those two together idc.

i switched from Bill to Ryen awhile ago due to overexposure to Bill's personality and friends. a real facebook to instagram move, sticking it to nobody. when I think about the total time spent listening to Bill talk to his Dad on the phone about Tatum settling for too many jump shots or hearing Joe House say anything, it makes me ill.

i never listen to anything with house on

the podcast has kinda become 2 hours of Russillo walking a tightrope between making fun of Bill and showing restraint. this is part of what's funny ... to me, at least. but i am definitely a latecomer on this.

― alpine static, Monday, May 24, 2021 5:46 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's a weird dynamic since i don't think bill always realizes that russillo is going to react honestly to what he's saying. it serves to expose how bad bill has gotten over the past year. today he said with sincerity that the celtics should play pritchard over walker. russillo just hit it with a brick wall "no" and then bill starting backtracking to oh well they should at least split time.

i used to be able to see where bill was coming from with nba takes even if i didn't agree but he's just gone off a cliff. i wonder if not going to a work environment and probably only talking to his dad and house and occasionally his cohosts has made some of his dumber tendencies shine through.

Bill is even doing the whole "ask a leading question about something ridiculous that i believe" and after he gets a hard "no" from Ryen he's like "yeah, me neither"

it's like 25% sweet and 75% embarrassing

Ryen and I share some friends and stories about him are bizarre yet endearing. I know there’s some issues (e.g. the breaking and entering thing) but I like him and love that he’s finding some success. He knows a lot about balling without coming across as an asshole so he’s a perfect foil for Simmons.

Bill Simmons: and uh they have garv-garvilo

Ryen Russilo: Gavrilo

BS: Gavriol Prin-

RR: Gavrilo Princip

BS: Right...so i like him a lot as an irrational confidence guy

RR: sure

— Handsome B. Charming (@Richard57941301) November 16, 2021

hahah

“When I was in the first grade, I thought that I was Black.” - Bill Simmons pic.twitter.com/cJUFOuT8Ya

— Real Hooper Pilled Trill (@TrillBroDude) January 22, 2022

idk if that's particularly unusual but I sure as hell would never tell anyone about that

Jeez, at first I thought that was a recent quote and not from his book that was published twelve years ago.

from a recent podcast:

Bill: "I tried to figure out who was the best 2 guard for every year since Bill Russell came into the league."

Ryen (noticeably appalled): "What is wrong with you?"

Bill: "I don't know. It didn't take that long."

Ryen: "OK, go through all 50."

lol. pretty amazing how bill made such a lucrative career out of just transcribing the stupid bar debates that go on in his head (and now as podcaster he doesn't even have to transcribe them!)

was his stated premise from the beginning, can only tip your cap