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ESPN created a bro-monster. Of course the NFL-pocalypse turned Bill Simmons against them ESPN created a bro-monster. Of course the NFL-pocalypse turned Bill Simmons against them
(about 2 hours later)
You know the NFL’s current publicity crisis has entered the last stage of a credibility extinction when it starts consuming other empires. On Wednesday evening, ESPN announced that it is suspending its most popular columnist and star of his own cartoon Bill Simmons for three weeks for saying what everyone else paying any attention already thought: that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is a liar. From the standpoint of both an amusing train wreck and ethical journalism, this is what happens when enormous brands collide in a marketplace of mutual dependency.You know the NFL’s current publicity crisis has entered the last stage of a credibility extinction when it starts consuming other empires. On Wednesday evening, ESPN announced that it is suspending its most popular columnist and star of his own cartoon Bill Simmons for three weeks for saying what everyone else paying any attention already thought: that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is a liar. From the standpoint of both an amusing train wreck and ethical journalism, this is what happens when enormous brands collide in a marketplace of mutual dependency.
The infractions seem simple enough. On Monday’s edition of his insanely popular BS Report podcast, Simmons went into a little rant on Goodell’s statements about the NFL’s supposed lack of access to and ignorance of a security-cam tape showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knock out his then-girlfriend Janay:The infractions seem simple enough. On Monday’s edition of his insanely popular BS Report podcast, Simmons went into a little rant on Goodell’s statements about the NFL’s supposed lack of access to and ignorance of a security-cam tape showing Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice knock out his then-girlfriend Janay:
Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just saying it. He is lying. I think that dude is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test that guy would fail. For all these people to pretend they didn’t know is such fucking bullshit. It really is – it’s such fucking bullshit. And for him to go in that press conference and pretend otherwise, I was so insulted. I really was.Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just saying it. He is lying. I think that dude is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test that guy would fail. For all these people to pretend they didn’t know is such fucking bullshit. It really is – it’s such fucking bullshit. And for him to go in that press conference and pretend otherwise, I was so insulted. I really was.
Later, Simmons seemed to be daring ESPN to punish him for explicitly calling out Goodell, adding, “I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I’m in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell. ... The commissioner’s a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast.”Later, Simmons seemed to be daring ESPN to punish him for explicitly calling out Goodell, adding, “I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I’m in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell. ... The commissioner’s a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast.”
Simmons has a history of criticizing his employer, but his statements essentially rephrase what ESPN printed as recently as Friday from its own Pulitzer Prize winning reporting team at its own Outside the Lines – the broadcast version of which has been methodically impeaching the NFL’s credibility and Goodell’s wholly implausible evasions for going on two weeks now. Meanwhile, ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann has moved from bombastically demanding that Goodell resign to bombastically demanding he be fired. Simmons’s characterization is just another on a continuum, from dry adult reporting, to charismatic polemic, to the bro id impatience of “Yo, fuck this clown.”Simmons has a history of criticizing his employer, but his statements essentially rephrase what ESPN printed as recently as Friday from its own Pulitzer Prize winning reporting team at its own Outside the Lines – the broadcast version of which has been methodically impeaching the NFL’s credibility and Goodell’s wholly implausible evasions for going on two weeks now. Meanwhile, ESPN anchor Keith Olbermann has moved from bombastically demanding that Goodell resign to bombastically demanding he be fired. Simmons’s characterization is just another on a continuum, from dry adult reporting, to charismatic polemic, to the bro id impatience of “Yo, fuck this clown.”
That bro id thing is important to understand. Because Simmons really is an empire at ESPN. The mass appeal of his one-of-the-dudes voice led to his becoming one of the $50bn Disney goliath’s highest paid online writers and gave him wide creative latitude, even at a multimedia empire beholden to broadcast billions. Simmons dreamed up the acclaimed “30 for 30” documentary series. Then he launched Grantland, which, despite the low expectations of some internet wiseasses (myself included), expanded well beyond Simmons’s own solipsistic, fratty voice of “press WINDOW LOCK on your car and fart really loud in the middle of an argument over which 90210 starlet was the most bangable” into a well-paid home for a broad range of great sportswriting. ESPN even puts Bill Simmons on TV next to people who, you know, played basketball for a living.That bro id thing is important to understand. Because Simmons really is an empire at ESPN. The mass appeal of his one-of-the-dudes voice led to his becoming one of the $50bn Disney goliath’s highest paid online writers and gave him wide creative latitude, even at a multimedia empire beholden to broadcast billions. Simmons dreamed up the acclaimed “30 for 30” documentary series. Then he launched Grantland, which, despite the low expectations of some internet wiseasses (myself included), expanded well beyond Simmons’s own solipsistic, fratty voice of “press WINDOW LOCK on your car and fart really loud in the middle of an argument over which 90210 starlet was the most bangable” into a well-paid home for a broad range of great sportswriting. ESPN even puts Bill Simmons on TV next to people who, you know, played basketball for a living.
But Simmons was, is and seemingly ever shall be the voice of That Guy, and since he owns that white, male, 18-and-up, high-five, we’re-crushing-it-bro market, he has the attention of a huge number of eyeballs and wallets that help ESPN pay for the NFL, which makes ESPN even more money. That market also buys NFL jerseys, tickets and satellite packages, making the property ESPN invests in that much more desirable. Which means Simmons has always been rather insulated from the consequences.But Simmons was, is and seemingly ever shall be the voice of That Guy, and since he owns that white, male, 18-and-up, high-five, we’re-crushing-it-bro market, he has the attention of a huge number of eyeballs and wallets that help ESPN pay for the NFL, which makes ESPN even more money. That market also buys NFL jerseys, tickets and satellite packages, making the property ESPN invests in that much more desirable. Which means Simmons has always been rather insulated from the consequences.
Less “name” writers probably would have been canned for correctly pointing out that his own network’s ratings winner, First Take with co-host Stephen A Smith, is about as socially beneficial and appealing as dysentery. Despite the toxic misogyny in Simmons’s bestseller – including scenes like a weekend in Vegas where Bill and crew giddily reference a pornographic film in which a starlet cries out while simultaneously being sodomized and having her head shoved down a flushing toilet – the attitude seemed to be, “Well, Bill’s gonna Bill.” Simmons even largely got a pass after an article on Grantland, of which he is ostensibly the editor-in-chief, outed a trans woman who later committed suicide. He’s complained about people editing his columns; he’s complained about people editing his podcast; his star has only soared higher. ESPN even gave Bill Simmons his own new show because Bill Simmons never loses. Less “name” writers probably would have been canned for correctly pointing out that his own network’s ratings winner, First Take with co-host Stephen A Smith, is about as socially beneficial and appealing as dysentery. Despite the toxic misogyny in Simmons’s bestseller and columns – including scenes like a weekend in Vegas where Bill and crew giddily reference a pornographic film in which a starlet cries out while simultaneously being sodomized and having her head shoved down a flushing toilet – the attitude seemed to be, “Well, Bill’s gonna Bill.” Simmons even largely got a pass after an article on Grantland, of which he is ostensibly the editor-in-chief, outed a trans woman who later committed suicide. He’s complained about people editing his columns; he’s complained about people editing his podcast; his star has only soared higher. ESPN even gave Bill Simmons his own new show because Bill Simmons never loses.
In perspective, silencing Simmons for three weeks now is still nine weeks less than ESPN Monday Night Football host Mike Tirico got for serial accusations of sexual harassment of fellow employees, but it’s two weeks more than the Goodell-defending Smith got for suggesting that women needed to take responsibility and not provoke men into beating the shit out of them.In perspective, silencing Simmons for three weeks now is still nine weeks less than ESPN Monday Night Football host Mike Tirico got for serial accusations of sexual harassment of fellow employees, but it’s two weeks more than the Goodell-defending Smith got for suggesting that women needed to take responsibility and not provoke men into beating the shit out of them.
But it’s also one more week of suspension than the NFL initially gave Ray Rice for cold-cocking his fiancée. That’s important, too, because the NFL and ESPN are two companies that enrich themselves on the same assets, and each has little interest in devaluing the other’s investment.But it’s also one more week of suspension than the NFL initially gave Ray Rice for cold-cocking his fiancée. That’s important, too, because the NFL and ESPN are two companies that enrich themselves on the same assets, and each has little interest in devaluing the other’s investment.
Granted, it was ESPN – and not the NFL – that just suspended Simmons, but what should worry you is that that may be a distinction without a difference. ESPN spends $1.9bn per year to air the NFL, and that means the most significant sports news network also doubles as a major marketing and broadcast wing of the NFL. They paid a lot for that; the NFL is essentially an ESPN property.Granted, it was ESPN – and not the NFL – that just suspended Simmons, but what should worry you is that that may be a distinction without a difference. ESPN spends $1.9bn per year to air the NFL, and that means the most significant sports news network also doubles as a major marketing and broadcast wing of the NFL. They paid a lot for that; the NFL is essentially an ESPN property.
Journalism ethicists have long wondered how ESPN can credibly report on sports it spends billions purchasing the rights to – the World Cup, the NFL, MLB, NCAA football, etc. It’s a problem you can see every time someone like NFL reporter Adam Schefter asks a question, like he did in the early days of the Ray Rice scandal, about whether the NFL was “lenient enough” in punishing him. It’s something you see in so many retired stars, whose checkered pasts disappear from the conversation the moment they sit behind an ESPN desk next to someone like Bill Simmons. On Sunday, you can listen to ESPN’s Ray Lewis, who was indicted for double murder and pled down to misdemeanor obstruction of justice in exchange for his testimony, tell the world he’s nothing like Ray Rice and that “some things you can cover up ... some things you can’t”.Journalism ethicists have long wondered how ESPN can credibly report on sports it spends billions purchasing the rights to – the World Cup, the NFL, MLB, NCAA football, etc. It’s a problem you can see every time someone like NFL reporter Adam Schefter asks a question, like he did in the early days of the Ray Rice scandal, about whether the NFL was “lenient enough” in punishing him. It’s something you see in so many retired stars, whose checkered pasts disappear from the conversation the moment they sit behind an ESPN desk next to someone like Bill Simmons. On Sunday, you can listen to ESPN’s Ray Lewis, who was indicted for double murder and pled down to misdemeanor obstruction of justice in exchange for his testimony, tell the world he’s nothing like Ray Rice and that “some things you can cover up ... some things you can’t”.
So it’s hard to take seriously ESPN’s word about anything when it says things like it did in its Wednesday night statement about Simmons:So it’s hard to take seriously ESPN’s word about anything when it says things like it did in its Wednesday night statement about Simmons:
Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards.Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards.
After all, you’d be lucky to delineate what those standards are. What allows ESPN to come down on a Bill Simmons podcast for an ethical insufficiency when, despite occasional guests like Barack Obama, everyone knows it’s an informal hangout hour for Simmons, his friends and his interests? How does he transgress journalistic boundaries for expressing an opinion on a goofing-around op-ed program when Olbermann’s sternly composed editorials and Outside the Lines’ serious journalistic tone already say the same things? What difference is there between them and him, other than their being less marketable stodgy fare, other than the Simmons persona speaking directly to the pleasure center of the NFL’s prime demographic? And how can Simmons be held to these standards at a newstainment complex that lacks a firewall between its broadcast promotion and its reporting and investigation?After all, you’d be lucky to delineate what those standards are. What allows ESPN to come down on a Bill Simmons podcast for an ethical insufficiency when, despite occasional guests like Barack Obama, everyone knows it’s an informal hangout hour for Simmons, his friends and his interests? How does he transgress journalistic boundaries for expressing an opinion on a goofing-around op-ed program when Olbermann’s sternly composed editorials and Outside the Lines’ serious journalistic tone already say the same things? What difference is there between them and him, other than their being less marketable stodgy fare, other than the Simmons persona speaking directly to the pleasure center of the NFL’s prime demographic? And how can Simmons be held to these standards at a newstainment complex that lacks a firewall between its broadcast promotion and its reporting and investigation?
Late Wednesday night, it appeared as if ESPN scrubbed its own ombudsman’s report praising Simmons, Olbermann and Outside the Lines. Although ESPN claimed a tech issue was to blame, we’ll never really know, because the network issues high-minded statements about journalism while addressing internal operations with a thoroughly corporate, hermetic voice. That so many sportswriters leapt to a negative conclusion tells you of the attitude engendered by years of obfuscatory network announcements. Maybe Simmons is partly acting out to make a statement, but it responds to the culture he works in. It seemed entirely plausible that ESPN would choose to delete obdurate truths from the record like Stalin erasing all images of an apparatchik who challenged his orthodoxy. But at least with Stalin, you knew who was the boss.Late Wednesday night, it appeared as if ESPN scrubbed its own ombudsman’s report praising Simmons, Olbermann and Outside the Lines. Although ESPN claimed a tech issue was to blame, we’ll never really know, because the network issues high-minded statements about journalism while addressing internal operations with a thoroughly corporate, hermetic voice. That so many sportswriters leapt to a negative conclusion tells you of the attitude engendered by years of obfuscatory network announcements. Maybe Simmons is partly acting out to make a statement, but it responds to the culture he works in. It seemed entirely plausible that ESPN would choose to delete obdurate truths from the record like Stalin erasing all images of an apparatchik who challenged his orthodoxy. But at least with Stalin, you knew who was the boss.
Who’s the boss of Bill Simmons?Who’s the boss of Bill Simmons?