Bill Simmons, trending.

Other than not loving the Magary piece, I agree with you on all of this. He changed the game twice in less than 20 years. Unlike most of us, he saw up around the bend instead of right in front of him. And now everyone is trying to catch up and match his success when, as you noted, there are now a billion BLOGGGGGGS all written by people wanting to be the next Sports Guy and 10 billion podcasts produced by people all wanting ot be the next Simmons. No one is hitting the lottery like this again. I'm in your age bracket (46) and the next podcast I'm not on that I listen to will be the first (and I'm not on a lot of podcasts). I like my cable TV and the places where I read my news and that is that.

I'm rambling. The problem w/Simmons is he won't stop bitching and moaning, and once he got anywhere close to the mountaintop, began acting like the very people who kept him from making it big in Boston. Which, as Alma notes, is not all that surprising. It would just be nice to get a shred of self-awareness from the guy, once in a great while.

 

He tried, ached, for years to be a columnist in Boston and couldn’t get into their circle, admittedly, with his lack of experience at the time.

That clearly fueled his motivation in the 20 years since. I admire that.

Many of us still have slights from when we got passed over for opportunities. Simmons merely did something about it when he had the chance.

 

The defining sentence about Bill Simmons.

 

Aye. We call this entitlement. It's one of the reasons for the late struggle.

And nobody has ever acted more entitled in this business than Bill Simmons.

 

What are his writers making? $60k (or even $50K) to churn out stories about Survivor or the best philly cheesesteaks outside of philly isn't a bad get. I dunno if they get benefits or not.

 

I won’t deny that he burned through all of his equity at ESPN. He just wasn’t worth it anymore to the bosses. Like Olbermann. Like Whitlock.

For anyone who calls Simmons entitled, you have to stick that label on every Mizzou, Syracuse and Medill grad in our field. They get to start their careers on third base.

I’ve long said that our industry has the real lack of diversity... in economics. It pays so little to start that most of the people who make it have access to a financial safety net, if need be. Affluent parents.

It shows in the newscasts. Stories about iPhones, designer donuts and Starbucks when most of the audience works in manufacturing and doesn’t give a damn.

 

Plenty of successful people are fueled by their resentments.

Simmons seems to be one of them.

 

In my anecdotal experience this is accurate. Many young journalists live surprisingly well for the surprisingly little they make. The parents float them.

 

We need to get rid of unpaid internships.

We need to actively recruit minority undergrads into paid apprenticeship programs at newspapers and TV networks and content providers of every kind. And not just from the prestige J-schools.

That's why it's disappointing to see big new-media hitters like Simmons whiff on diversity.

 

Why did Bill Simmons deserve an NBA studio job? Who thought that would be a good idea and why did that person think he was qualified to be one?

I'll hang up and listen.

 

I think unpaid internships are fewer and farther in between. (I think.)

 

He didn't, and he was terrible at it.

How does Marty Smith have a job? The guy looks and acts like he's right out of a millennial photoshoot parody.

But ESPN no longer has the best talent, really, in any area, save perhaps Scott Van Pelt. (Who I find smug, but I'm told is just wonderful at what he does.) The best football folks work for NFL Network. The best basketball analysts work for TNT. G0lf? No, that's NBC/Golf Channel. ESPN's repeated booth gaffes with Monday Night Football is kind of a running joke, at this point.

ESPN has a very good tennis studio show with Chris McKendry and John McEnroe as an analyst. That's good. And Outside The Lines does good work. And Wright Thompson is on retainer. But the network just isn't the giant it used to be, and Simmons' legacy is part of why. The place is full of puffy iconoclasts who are beholden to long-held worldviews and positions - or they're Twitter-bullied into staying in one position - that it's kind of a bore.