Bill Simmons' new site

Why do people think Barnwell has anything to say?
If you are going to try and stake out a place as a data guy, your football analysis should probably come out of the four-foot end of the swimming pool.
He's not funny and isn't much of a stylist, so there's nothing he does particularly well.
Simmons carting him from job to job is like Brian Schottenheimer continuing to pop up in the coaching ranks.

 

True. But people also like reading it. I don't. But someone does.

There's just as much good writing today as there ever has been, but much more bad writing that sees the light of day and, more to the point, more bad writing that's seen as good writing because the person writing it seems like a cool person.

Any person who fancies himself or herself some sort of enlightened, committed liberal and then also hate watches The Bachelor strikes me as the kind smug, fairly privileged human being I don't care to know. Because that show is the shithole of the earth from just about every angle imaginable.

 

And there is certain peer pressure not only to call bad writing good, but to say the person doing it is cool, Alma.

 

That's a good question. I don't know.

The mailbags are a bulletproof format. His longer, ponderous stuff hasn't aged well, but that hasn't been his draw for years, has it? I could be totally wrong on that. I've tried and can't get through those anymore. (Five thousand words on "What if Boogie Went To _______ And Shook Up The NBA" and by the time I've read it he's been traded to New Orleans and the entire column is dated forever).

The podcasts are brilliantly self-sustaining. The betting lines, his cast of characters , bring on Klosterman or Gladwell every three months, mix in a few celebrity interviews. It runs like clockwork. He's good at cultivating conversations and he's not going to lose that ability any time soon. I do wonder how much it hurt to lose the Favreau, Lovett, and Vietor political podcasts. I thought his podcast network was going to have a much bigger footprint when Keepin' It 1600 blew up.

 

Agreed.

Writers of all kinds are a lonely lot, and I think the urge to promote mediocrity often comes from a good place, which is the desire to widen the circle of people who can be part of the group.

And I wouldn't necessarily describe it as "bad" writing. Some of the thinking behind it might be - and online editors must be awfully non-confrontational and disinterested to allow some of it - but I wouldn't say the writing itself is typically bad.

There's just too much of it. And it isn't exemplary work. Years ago, you wanted a mass audience to read your writing, you had to have access to a printing institution that would allow it, and that institution typically had gatekeepers (editors) whose primary question often was "is this necessary?" (And, yes, those institutions were also prejudiced against women and minorities and "neuro-divergent" types, etc) But it was a great question, because, I find, the answer to that question is often "no, it isn't."

Most of what I read is, in other words, just stuff somebody wrote about the stuff everybody else wrote about, which makes it much less interesting to me, in part because I can only appreciate so many sources on "the stuff."

 

I've stumbled across a couple TV think pieces this week. Whomever said it was a mile wide and an inch deep was spot-on. Nothing like 20-somethings whose knowledge of TV goes back a decade trying to provide context. People have wondered why Jonathan Banks hasn't been a star for decades, sports.

 

You fortysomethings and your TV.

 

Please read my column "Rabbit Ears"

 

My issue with Simmons' podcast is they're not always done with enough lead time.

For example, he'll do a two-hour "Super Duper NBA Draft Spectacular" that posts at 5 p.m. Eastern on Draft Day. There's no way to get through it before the event begins, at which point it's completely obsolete.

Those should be posted on the night before or early the next morning, so that you can listen to half on your commute in to work and the other half on your commute home.

 

To use a simile bill could appreciate, his departure from ESPN is likely to end up like the Mike and the mad dog breakup. Both sides will be ok, but nothing close to what they were together.

 

I just watched "Courtside at the NBA Finals" on HBO. This is a highly edited program whose theme is"let us make Bill Simmons look cool and relevant." It was actually entertaining.

 

Have to take your word for it. Watching Simmons talk about a sporting event that is old news -- even if it wasn't at the time -- seems like a formula they've tried before. At this point, he is stealing money.