I thought Simmons came across quite well in that interview. As for prepping for podcasts, clearly he does *some* prep in terms of knowing what questions to ask - I've heard bad interviewers before, and clearly he's not that.
Marciano490 said:
Bernard Hopkins held the light heavyweight title at 49; Bill Simmons doesn't think he can continue writing about sports into his fifties.
OilCanShotTupac said:
I love to knock Simmons, but I don't have a problem with this. I'm 45 and I understand what he's saying and agree with it.
Using Bernard Hopkins as your comp is problematic; he's an outlier, to put it mildly.
luckiestman said:
Simmons might be wrong about prepping but I agree with the conversation aspect. I saw Larry David and Rick Gervais talking about bad interviews where the interviewer is not interested in having a conversation and just following a list of questions. Go to 4:55 of this video
This gets down to a define "hard" kind of thing.Marciano490 said:
The Hopkins thing was obviously hyperbole, but saying you're slowing down from an office job at 50 is a little absurd when athletes can still compete at 50, and most of our nation's top judges, attorneys and many of its doctors are over 50. I get wanting to slow down or stop, especially if you have money in the bank, but saying you can't work hard into your 50s just isn't the case for most people.
JBill said:Grantland's his baby, he wants it well taken care of in this next negotiation. I assume they're not hurting to pay writers, but maybe they skimp on the behind the scene guys.
That interview actually made me think he's definitely staying. He's too invested in Grantland.
Your obviously a smart guy and post a lot of good stuff on this site, but you are way off here. I'm guessing that you're not in your 40's and therefore cannot relate at all. Most people cannot work at the same levels beyond 50 they did in their 30's and 40's. I'm 47 and I can 100% relate to what he is saying. He clearly said he doesn't know if he can maintain the same pace in 5 years. It's an entirely rational take. It's not the physical ability, but the overall mental fatigue that gets to you after you've been doing something for 20+ years. 10-12 hour days were no big deal 10 years ago, but are really hard to do now for a variety of reasons none of which are my health or physical ability to do so. Do people continue to work at a high level well beyond 50? Absolutely. That is partly because one day leads into another and you keep going and partly because they have to. I would argue that most of those who are "working hard" beyond 50 are not working nearly as hard as they were earlier in their careers. The work level may appear to be the same, but the coping skills you accumulate allow you to work smarter, delegate, and ignore the low value things that you grinded through before. Plus it's a much different effort to have reached a level where you are going to sustain where you are instead of continuing to climb the ladder.Marciano490 said:
The Hopkins thing was obviously hyperbole, but saying you're slowing down from an office job at 50 is a little absurd when athletes can still compete at 50, and most of our nation's top judges, attorneys and many of its doctors are over 50. I get wanting to slow down or stop, especially if you have money in the bank, but saying you can't work hard into your 50s just isn't the case for most people.
Grin&MartyBarret said:Maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn that Simmons announced last week that every Monday there was going to be a new NBA podcast--branded separately from the BS Report.
Am I missing something, or did that idea just take a single week to die?
jimbobim said:I don't know how much you can take from that interview. If I remember correctly back before he exploded into running a whole website and many media properties he relished the idea of negotiating with big stakes like star players and the teams he's followed.
If you look at his answers from that mindset along with the fact he knows there are people at ESPN who don't like him or the power he currently has he dances around any suggestion of demands or technically whining about being overpaid.
I despise the idea that he wants to just drop commercial nonsense into the podcast unexpectedly to get an easy buck, but I guess that is not surprising. He specifically didn't like the idea of "recreating" Grantland and I'd bet that has to do with not only the relationships he's created, but with the probability that ESPN might view the site as being continuable even if they don't meet whatever demands Simmons brings up .
Without knowing anything about the contract it's impossible to know, but similar to the talk around his suspension Simmons probably has little leverage to up and leave the World Wide Leader for a bunch of different reasons. I'm sure he is working hard on editorial and managerial duties , but I imagine ESPN plays hardball with the next contract and his answers seem to suggest he knows that.
In sum I have liked him a lot over the years, but he is pretty terrible on TV both last year when he was part of countdown, his PTI stint this year, and his own show he's got has been pretty ehhh. Finally, the disintegration of his writing skill that is badly and perhaps permanently out of practice, outside of the occasional good basketball piece. Would love to be a bug on the wall in that negotiation.
FWIW--and certainly everyone is different--but I'll soon be 52, work a demanding job, and one of my two kids is a special needs child--and I find Simmons's comment about slowing down at 50 almost beyond ludicrous.RIFan said:Your obviously a smart guy and post a lot of good stuff on this site, but you are way off here. I'm guessing that you're not in your 40's and therefore cannot relate at all. Most people cannot work at the same levels beyond 50 they did in their 30's and 40's. I'm 47 and I can 100% relate to what he is saying. He clearly said he doesn't know if he can maintain the same pace in 5 years. It's an entirely rational take. It's not the physical ability, but the overall mental fatigue that gets to you after you've been doing something for 20+ years. 10-12 hour days were no big deal 10 years ago, but are really hard to do now for a variety of reasons none of which are my health or physical ability to do so. Do people continue to work at a high level well beyond 50? Absolutely. That is partly because one day leads into another and you keep going and partly because they have to. I would argue that most of those who are "working hard" beyond 50 are not working nearly as hard as they were earlier in their careers. The work level may appear to be the same, but the coping skills you accumulate allow you to work smarter, delegate, and ignore the low value things that you grinded through before. Plus it's a much different effort to have reached a level where you are going to sustain where you are instead of continuing to climb the ladder.
Grin&MartyBarret said:Maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn that Simmons announced last week that every Monday there was going to be a new NBA podcast--branded separately from the BS Report.
Am I missing something, or did that idea just take a single week to die?
Do you remember the "Top 72 Sports Movies of the Past 33 Years?" I think he wrote about five.Grin&MartyBarret said:Maybe I'm misremembering, but I could have sworn that Simmons announced last week that every Monday there was going to be a new NBA podcast--branded separately from the BS Report.
Am I missing something, or did that idea just take a single week to die?
NW Sox Fan said:Do you remember the "Top 72 Sports Movies of the Past 33 Years?" I think he wrote about five.
Yes, good call. Still waiting for that Eastern Conference preview as well.NW Sox Fan said:Do you remember the "Top 72 Sports Movies of the Past 33 Years?" I think he wrote about five.
And joe Posnanski promised an iPad review for like 3 years on his blog, along both his top 100 baseball players, a couple a week....and it's been nearly two years and he just hot to like 40 (actually, I think it went from top 100 to top 50 so he has done ten of them)NW Sox Fan said:Do you remember the "Top 72 Sports Movies of the Past 33 Years?" I think he wrote about five.
He started at 100 with Curt Schilling.PC Drunken Friar said:And joe Posnanski promised an iPad review for like 3 years on his blog, along both his top 100 baseball players, a couple a week....and it's been nearly two years and he just hot to like 40 (actually, I think it went from top 100 to top 50 so he has done ten of them)
Simmons runs a multi-media empire, He's the executive producer of multiple short films every year, editor in chief for a major website, puts out a lot of podcasts (12 in February if you treat the multipart ones as singles 16 if not), and has a monthly hour long TV special. Treating Simmons like his column output is even close to his main job is disingenuous.John Marzano Olympic Hero said:He started at 100 with Curt Schilling.
http://joeposnanski.com/baseball-100/
And the difference between Pos and Simmons is that Pos writes a regular column four or five times a week, at least one book a year, a podcast every few weeks, actually goes on the road to research stories and does his blog.
Comparing Simmons to Pos lessens your point. Immensely.
I was wrong about the 100, but he wrote the first 35-40 or so within the first 5-6 weeks.John Marzano Olympic Hero said:He started at 100 with Curt Schilling.
http://joeposnanski.com/baseball-100/
And the difference between Pos and Simmons is that Pos writes a regular column four or five times a week, at least one book a year, a podcast every few weeks, actually goes on the road to research stories and does his blog.
Comparing Simmons to Pos lessens your point. Immensely.
Simmons runs a multi-media empire, He's the executive producer of multiple short films every year, editor in chief for a major website, puts out a lot of podcasts (12 in February if you treat the multipart ones as singles 16 if not), and has a monthly hour long TV special. Treating Simmons like his column output is even close to his main job is disingenuous.
And Posnanski does not write at least 1 book a year... Where the hell did this come from?
I am the biggest Pos fan there is, but shit happens and promised columns get shelved, delayed, etc. I just don't think it's a big deal.
I think the point that people are missing is that value of Simmons written words is about 10th of the list of things that he gets paid to do.
"People don't pay him to write. He does so when he feels moved to. Why harp on that? He's moved on."
While everyone here considers themselves amazing editors and wordsmiths, at this point Simmons probably cares less about the quality and quantity of his writing than you do.
Clears Cleaver said:I think the point that people are missing is that value of Simmons written words is about 10th of the list of things that he gets paid to do. While everyone here considers themselves amazing editors and wordsmiths, at this point Simmons probably cares less about the quality and quantity of his writing than you do. People don't pay him to write. He does so when he feels moved to. Why harp on that? He's moved on.
Clears Cleaver said:Saw Skeleton Twins last night. Heder and Wiig... Wiig is mediocre, and I feel now like she's a one-trick pony.
Clears Cleaver said:he was never really good before the injury and had the drops after he returned, l;argely because he couldn't get separation. Landry beat him out.
drleather2001 said:
"Well, you're just jealous" and "How many books have you published?" are the last refuge of the dullard.
drleather2001 said:
"Well, you're just jealous" and "How many books have you published?" are the last refuge of the dullard.
I think some here have suggested just that but at this point Grantland without Simmons written material would take a huge revenue stream hit. He'd be shooting himself in the economic foot.joe dokes said:If, in fact, writing is so far down the list of things that Simmons has the time or interest to focus on, then he shouldn't do it.
ifmanis5 said:I think some here have suggested just that but at this point Grantland without Simmons written material would take a huge revenue stream hit. He'd be shooting himself in the economic foot.
The new podcast kicked off this week. You get to hear him tell Mark Stein that he gets how Barcelona plays soccer because his daughter's U9 team plays the same way.ernieshore said:
In his recent podcast with Rusillo, he talks about a new branded podcast called "Bill Don't Lie" that would be coming in a week or two. I hadn't heard about this, so I was confused.