He definitely is difficult to work with unless he is running everything. He is much better suited in this role than he was at ESPN because he he was popular and had the views and page hits but didn’t respect authority as much. That’s likely because of him being an only child. As far as the Rewatcheables go he, Sean and Chris are the best mix of that for most movies they do, imo. That’s easily my favorite pairing but he’s had Austin K on in the beginning and Wesley, Concepcion, Shea, Jemele and Van Latham on a lot as of late. He had definitely added more podcasts as of late that are more diverse. Don’t think it was intentional.
also the BS subreddit has done a full 180 on Bill and are now defending him to the death, the tiki torch contingent of his audience is circling the wagons
Are we surprised that bill is an entitled asshole? The stories were amusing to read but entirely expected imo.
agreed but it was interesting to see a more ESPN centric read on grantland and bill within that frame vs i've largely only ever heard bills side of all that
So the reason Bill sold the company to Spotify was because of their HR department? Silly me for thinking it was the $250 million
Don Cheadle Pod with Bill is good. Glad he clarified the “Open Mic” night comment and read his actual response to the NYT writer.
Bill not knowing Michael Cooper was one of the fun lakers from the 80s during the Rob Lowe interview was kinda weird. I knew that and I don’t claim to be an 80s basketball encyclopedia.
He shouldn’t have been on the Pod with Bill after what went down. Should have been Jason or Shea or Wesley. That was tone deaf. I’m sure Ryen was paid an amount when he was hired we as a public don’t know but the internal staff does. He has an audience and is very well rated on his podcast. Don’t think Bill regrets hiring him and shouldn’t but those two werent the hosts needed on that Pod.
its just what Bill does. He zeroes in on whatever niche he finds market share to exploit, and runs it into the ground. Going all in on all thing everything NBA to just becoming 'the' podcast network. He invested heavily in luring a big name over from ESPN, no doubt he was about to run that cash cow into the ground. Problem is it clouds him from everything else going on around.
Honestly came off losing respect for Henry Abbott more so than Simmons after reading that. Kind of incredible that he would write something like that imo.
Counting Cousin Sal as a "guest" for a weekly segment during the NFL season that predates the Ringer doesn't seem fair
House has been his friend for like 30 years and, for better or worse, he's always going to be in Bill's orbit Klosterman was also a frequent guest predating the Ringer Maybe I'm missing the point here
Agreed. Weekly segment for like 15 years and imo the best podcast out of all I listen to I’ve listened to every single one. The addition of parent corner was amazing
So after reading the thing Allegedly Bill is a selfish pain in the ass to be around in the workplace and he maxed out all the leeway ESPN gave him. I'm guessing we all know at least one person who sucks in a similar way. I didn't really see the connection between that and whatever racial issues the Ringer is having now, though.
I agree. He loves Wesley, Shea and Jason. He’s had numerous pods with all of them on. He admits he could have done better and has made recent steps to rectify that by hiring Van Latham, Jemelle and Bakari. The Wire Pod started before the George Floyd death with Jemele and Van Latham.
Possible hot take semi-related to that piece I liked him on the NBA shows even though his voice is.... not great
Henry Abbot has some pent up anger about Bill that he had been holding back. He felt like now was the best time to release his takedown of BS with the least amount of backlash due to the negative publicity already out there. It’s an extremely pussy move and, yes, it had no link to the lack of minority hire narrative that is currently plaguing The Ringer. It was simply a hit piece that had been written in HA’s mind years ago and he finally found the perfect time to release it. I still can’t believe he wrote it.
i think a lot of this stems from The Ringer having an all white group of executive editors. And might just be me, but it seems like since the union stuff went down Simmons kind of doubled down on his inner circle...which is all white
He said I don’t remember cinco de mayo as a kid and now people want to take vacation for it or something like that. Obviously it was more prominent in Texas for me than Massachusetts for him. Not realizing it’s a thing because of where he lived doesn’t mean it wasn’t a thing though, which is essentially what he said.
I’ve been in FL my whole life and I don’t remember it being a thing until I got to college in ‘99. It probably was just wasn’t something I was really aware of. I definitely get it being big in Texas.
What was Bills take on Cam and the Patriots? I know he talked it about it some, but can’t remember if he was pro-, or anti-, Cam.
Bill has semi-slandered “the decision” for years. now it looks like he’s butt hurt bc he didn’t get the doc. Next pod gonna be saucy