Bill Simmons Questions ESPN's Support of Grantland

Is there a writer/personality ESPN has thrown more support behind than Simmons?

 

Some people are always going to be miserable.

 

Rick Reilly and Chris Berman? Although Berman was probably instrumental in ESPN's rise to power, Reilly was getting a hefty sum at one point and probably didn't deliver any return on the investment. I'm admittedly more of a Simmons fan than not, but I don't get the feeling that ESPN has been wasting money on him.

 

Bill Simmons is a poor man's Keith Olbermann.

 

Reilly was really the only other name that came to mind for me, but there isn't anything they did for Reilly that they haven't done and then some for Simmons - Front-page location, TV show appearances, etc.

 

Adulation is a helluva drug.

 

There aren't many people who are good at big ideas in their field. Simmons is one of them. Grantland is a good idea. It is, however, no more than an occasional read for high-intensity sports fans, because life's too short to make it a daily media dive -- at least that's how I find it. ESPN has given Grantland probably more support than its market status warrants. Simmons is too good a business thinker not to know that, but as noted by others, he seems incapable of feeling satisfaction in the work environment.

 

Grantland is a great idea. 30 for 30 is a great idea. Bill's an idea guy, can't have enough guys like Bill Simmons.

But man does he love conflict. And I say that as someone who is very much like Bill in that regard.

 

it's not the case with all successful people, but it certainly is the case with some that the reason they are so successful is that what they have is never enough, and so they want more, more, more. and they often perceive themselves as being slighted or disrespected, when most everyone else would see them as abundantly blessed.

judging from that interview, simmons may be one of those people.

 

Simmons was and always will be the spoiled little prep-school shit who cries if he doesn't get his way.

 

He's a narcissist. Some prominent people are -- they're so insistent on their just due to address their own insecurity, and they project it so successfully onto others, that folks just kind of bend around them for the sake of what their talent can produce. It's a passive kind of greed, really, and less narcissistic people aren't always wise to it.

Over time, it's corrosive to an entire work culture, because it engenders (needless) loyalty in some and long-suffering irritability in others. And it's not about being a nice person or not a nice person, either. I know lots of "great guy" narcissists. But, unless you're consistent in the friendship/working relationship, it sooner or later reverts back to the central matter of their self-esteem.

 

I can't believe I'm saying this, but ESPN has gotten a lot more out of Simmons than they got out of Reilly.