BS and the Worldwide Leading Mouse

I’ve found Bill Simmons’ firing at ESPN a fascinating topic for a variety of reasons, so let’s talk about them here. 

First, a quick background for those who don’t know:  Bill Simmons is a sports columnist who was one of the first and arguably most successful of the modern bloggers in sports/pop culture media.  He started with a small blog on AOL back in the early 90’s, and ended up making around $5mil a year at the end of his 14 year career with ESPN that included becoming a cohost of NBA Countdown, and starting ESPN’s award winning 30 for 30 documentary series and spinoff Grantland.com, ESPN’s op-ed site for both sports and pop culture.  Both of those are by far the most successful ESPN programs (not including the actual games they show) the company has right now.  An extremely opinionated, extremely pro-Boston sports fan, the announcement that Simmons was being let go was not really a surprise—he’s had several public fights with ESPN in the last several years, culminating in a 3 week suspension last year.  What was a surprise was in the modern age of kiss ass, everybody-loves-everybody business world that we live in was how confrontational his dismissal was:  Simmons found out on twitter after ESPN informed the New York Times, and the phrasing of the dismissal from ESPN’s president was very aggressive (“I decided not to renew Bill’s contract” instead of “we’ve decided it is in the best interest of both parties…we wish him the best in his next endeavors” kind of thing). 

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that I’m a huge Simmons fan.  I love his work for the same reason I love Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket, and I think they’re favorite tag line applies to Simmons as well:  “We’re just a bunch of guys you’d like to hang out and have a beer with.”  Even though I’m not a fan of any Boston teams, as a fan I respected Simmons’ love of those teams, and loved the passion with which he writes about them and his favorite leagues.  He was one of the first to view sports as part of the entertainment/pop culture whole, and his writing about TV and movies is just as good if not better than any of his sports work.  His willingness—that’s not even a strong enough word, it’s almost zeal—to not pull punches when friends/coworkers/league personal made bad decisions was refreshing in a media world that doesn’t want to rock anyone’s boat.  In short, whether you were talking about the Celtics latest trade, how the latest season of Mad Men was progressing, or a guide to a Guy’s Trip to Vegas, Simmons articles did come across as the same conversations you would have with your friends at Happy Hour, and it became increasingly refreshing to read in a world of Rick Reilly and Peter King-type reporting that never criticizes anyone or anything that they might want to work with. 

So why did it go so wrong that the notoriously conservative Disney-owned ESPN vindictively cut ties with arguably it’s most successful employee of the 2000’s?  Why do so many people have such incredibly strong—on both sides of the equation—reactions to this story?  Something really crazy must have happened to end this marriage, right? 

In the end, no.  I think this is a comedy of errors that we’ve seen before, and will see again. 
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Any large company—especially a large media company—is invariably going to run into the same problem:  when it’s a startup, it’s hungry, it’s edgy, and it pushes the envelope.  As it gets bigger and more successful, though, it’s going to get more conservative:  its success is going to breed closer partnerships with the people it’s reporting on, which in turn will lead to less edginess and willing to criticize those people, even when they deserve it.  So it becomes a delicate tightrope with which to walk:  how much can we criticize the leagues that we are paying to show their games?  We’re the media, so we’re supposed to be nonbiased…but if more and more money is coming to the company from these partnerships, obviously we are then biased to want them and the partnership to succeed. 

This isn’t a new thing for any large company, and it isn’t a new thing for ESPN.  The once plucky company has seen many of their original stars either leave—Dan Patrick and Keith Olberman are good examples—or seen them eventually become neutered shadows of their former selves—Chris Berman is a good example there.  The catch is, in today’s online media world, you need edge to be successful, so you eventually reach a point where you say, “You know what, we need to get edgier, and we have more money than anyone else.  Who’s the biggest name out there right now…let’s go get them!  Then we can say to the world we’re still edgy!”  That’s exactly what ESPN did when it launched Page 2 back in the late 90’s as the network became super successful:  it signed dynamic writers like Simmons, Hunter S Thompson (I still can hardly believe he wrote for ESPN, and the first Thompson pieces I ever read were on ESPN), and Ralph Wiley, among others.  Of the characters to write on Page 2, Simmons eventually became the most successful. 

His impact at ESPN can’t be understated.  It was he that led ESPN to become a force in pop culture and not just sports.  It was he that forced ESPN to open their Los Angeles studios, which helped to combat the very real issue at ESPN of their East Coast bias.  He helped introduce ESPN to podcasting, and founded one of their most successful and well respected programs in 30 for 30.  With Grantland.com, he not only established a separate site—and the separate is important for the main ESPN brand—that they could profit from, but he also brought in other outstanding and outspoken writers like Zach Lowe, Andrew Sharp, and Mark Lisanti that probably never would have felt like they could creatively work with the Bristol crew at ESPN.  Finally, Nate Silver also would have never partnered with ESPN when founding fivethirtyeight.com if he hadn’t seen the creative freedom and success that Simmons had been able to establish at ESPN. 

Many people like to claim that Simmons gets too much credit or hasn’t been as successful as some think while at ESPN, but look at that above list, and think about it:  other than showing games and SportsCenter—the first which just takes money and the Disney name, and the second has become a soulless, ad filled shadow of its former self—can you think of any other exceptional content that ESPN has provided outside of that list?  With the exception of PTI (another show where ESPN has had issues with censoring the hosts), I can’t.  If you try to name something like First Take, OTL, or Sportsnation…then I just pity you.  When it comes to reporting, ESPN has lagged far behind its competitors in breaking stories (Did Lebron announce he was returning to Cleveland on ESPN?  When was the last time you can remember an ESPN reporter coming up with a sensational story or correctly predicting where a player was going to go before someone else did?  Did ESPN break the Ray Rice story?).  When simply looking at the facts, Simmons truly has been the most successful person at ESPN for about a decade.  Any argument to that is really just jealousy. 

So if he’s been so successful…then why did it go wrong? 
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The answer is simple:  because in the end, no matter what they say, any big company wants its employees to toe the line. 

A large media conglomerate like ESPN wants a public reputation for being edgy…but it doesn’t really want to BE edgy.  If it is, its partnerships with the NFL, NBA, and other leagues might be jeopardized, and as successful as Simmons has been, that is where the real money is made.  In so many ways, the story of Bill Simmons and ESPN is the same as Howard Stern and NBC and so many other controversial artists before him:  the company hires them because of their reputation, but they don’t really want them to act that way once they get here!  They want you to bring your audience with you, and then they want you to learn to behave the insert corporate name here way. 

That’s why you see so many failed corporate marriages like this, and why you will continue to see this in the future.  Big companies will still need the respectability that new, outspoken talent can bring.  In the end, though, the most profitable parts of their business will continue to be the corporate partnerships that they have entered into—and an artist can’t stay edgy and outspoken without rocking boats like that once in a while.  It’s inevitable that eventually the artist will go too far, and the marriage will end.  Again, we’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again. 

In some ways, the most impressive part of the Simmons/ESPN story is that it lasted as long as it did.  Say what you will about Simmons, he never sold out—he’s remained outspoken for his entire tenure at ESPN, even as he grew from a couple of times a week columnist to broadcasting host and running his own website.  For the two sides to last 14 years together with Simmons staying as vocal as he did is a testament not just to either party, but to how incredibly successful Simmons was, because in the end, it’s all about the bottom line.  As Jimmy Johnson once put it about disciplining a player that sleeps during team meetings:  “If it’s a 7^th round offensive lineman, I’d cut him.  If it’s Troy Aikman, I’d tell him to wake up.” 

As ironic as it sounds, I think in the end what ended the marriage was that ESPN made Simmons too public of a figure.  He should have never been on NBA Countdown or broadcasted games, for example.  As much as I love Simmons, that was not his best work, and it made him a public face of the company that leagues like the NFL could not ignore.  It’s one thing to know a columnist’s name—even one as successful as Simmons—but it’s another to SEE him actively involved with the biggest sports leagues on the planet on TV.  Once you’re there, you’re part of the machine, and you need to toe the line—something Simmons, I would say to his credit, was not willing to do. 

Thus, ESPN has decided that the juice is no longer worth the squeeze.  So…are they right? 
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One of the most fascinating parts of this story has been the public’s reaction to it.  As it has become so common in our culture, there’s very little middle ground:  people either think that a star got completely screwed, that ESPN is scum and shot themselves in the foot, and that this story is a huge deal, or that this was some overrated blowhard who got what was coming to him and that this isn’t a big deal. 

The truth, as always, is somewhere in the middle. 

Will Simmons leaving ESPN kill his career?  Hardly.  The beauty of being a web presence is that the web is everywhere; fans of Simmons simply have to start to type his name in Google and it will take them wherever he is, be it another major conglomerate or to his own multimedia home.  Like it or not, Simmons is a major player in the sports/pop culture community, and his fans will follow him—and he’ll continue to make money—wherever he goes.  As I mentioned earlier, he’s done a fantastic job of growing talent while at Grantland, so it will be easy for him to attract other writers to join him as A) he’s proven he can make money, B) he’s proven to care about giving them journalistic freedom, and C) he’s been more than willing to share the spotlight with his team.  Bill Simmons will continue to succeed, so yes, it’s always a story when a major player in any industry leaves their current home—especially under such acrimonious and thus entertaining circumstances. 

So that proves the “it’s not a big deal” faction wrong…but the” ESPN just screwed themselves and this is a HUGE story” crew also aren’t entirely correct.  ESPN is still far and away the major player in the sports world, and is a major part of arguably the most powerful company in the world, Disney.  They’ve still got partnerships with literally all of the major US sports and most of the sports in the world.  They still own the rights to 30 for 30, Grantland, all of the aforementioned Grantland writers who have helped make it a success—ironically, even though we are all calling this a firing for Simmons, he is still technically under contract for a few more months, meaning he still technically works for them until then (got to love the business world)—even the Simmons’ podcast that bears his name, the BS Report, belongs to ESPN.  So no, ESPN isn’t going to come crashing down over this.  Also, as I mentioned above, the ease with which you can find Simmons’ work online also makes it not that big of a deal.  He’ll continue to produce quality work, and you’ll just go to bs.com or foxsports.com instead of Grantland to get it.  So when the dust settles, the end results won’t have changed too much. 

To me, the biggest impact of this isn’t even to ESPN; it’s to Disney.  More and more, the supposedly family-friendly Mouse seems to be acting like the kind of corporate bully that Gordon Gecko—God I wish I could say that Wall Street was a Disney movie, but alas, it’s Fox—would approve of.  Not only do all of the Disney companies seem to want more and more absolute obedience from their employees—from not letting Disney Park employees wear their own underwear (yep, communal underwear; I couldn’t make that up), to jeopardizing the Marvel franchises by refusing to pay their stars, to clamping down on sports employees like Simmons and Tony Kornheiser—but they seem to be getting vindictive against those that they perceive to have wronged them.  Anyone who followed Simmons at all knew that most likely he was leaving ESPN; the writing was on the wall once he was suspended for three weeks, and anyone who had any doubt at all after that should have had that doubt answered when he did his “this is my career” BS Report on April 3rd that was a respectful but obvious goodbye to ESPN.  So while Simmons stayed professional and continued to do good work for ESPN publicly, ESPN and Disney has come out as both extremely petty and trying to rewrite history with their “I decided not to renew his contract” story and by releasing the story to the media before speaking to Simmons in person.  Again, Disney is one of the most powerful companies in the world, and they’re going to be fine.  But one of the few things the world can agree on is that no one likes a bully, and Disney’s behavior has become increasingly bully-ish the last few years.  A wise man—or mouse—would watch how they treat people (especially in public). 
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So where does that leave Simmons, and ESPN, and Disney, and most importantly, us?  In the end, we’ll all be fine.  Simmons is going to move on to newer and probably just as green pastures.  He won’t have quite the unparalled access of working for the Worldwide Leader, but he’ll have more creative control of his work which will lead to fewer headaches for him.  ESPN and Disney have lost one of their stars, but there are still plenty of talented people who would love to work for them, and though they’ve slightly damaged their reputations with how they’ve handled this, nothing major has gone wrong, and they’ll continue to print money.  As for us:  we’ve had a very entertaining story that’s not even done yet—remember, Simmons has yet to respond to any of this—and in the end, we’ll get several years of Simmons in FU Mode (to steal one of his favorite phrases) as he sets out proving ESPN wrong.  In the end, for us, it’s all just good, clean fun, because in our PC age you don’t see fights in public like this very often anymore.  We get to enjoy this without having to feel too guilty, because we know that in the end, both sides will still be on their feet when all is said and done. 

As I mentioned when I started this, I am a Bill Simmons fan.  So last but not least, what ESPN should have said to him:  thanks so much Bill for all of the great work you did at ESPN; you enriched our lives with what you did there.  I’m looking forward to what you do next, because I know you’ll continue your great work there as well. 

Good on you Billy!