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TPercy wrote:

anrst wrote:simmons without the espn backing is kinda sad

espn is so cruel to have him hanging out there with no job like that.

Why did he get fired?

ESPN = Billion dollar deal for NFL rights to Monday Night Football along with other exclusive NFL programming.

ESPN owned by the Big Mouse, which also owns Grantland by extension

Bill Simmons, a cross over sports/cult media personality, rips Roger Goodell over what is essentially the NFL's drug policy. ( i.e. why does a player get a smaller suspension for beating his wife than for having/using drugs) Then keeps calling for Goodell's head on a platter.

Simmons is a full on no holds barred liberal, and has lots of friends in the media and Hollywood, who are full on non stop liberals who are pro legalization of drugs. And they want pro sports to lead the way on a mass culture change.

The "tone" of Grantland had become frighteningly partisan in nature and the political talk that is too polarizing for a pop culture site was becoming overwhelming.

For example, Wesley Morris, a black entertainment writer ( he covers movies) basically spent a couple of months shifting ANY movie talk into a Travvon Martin discussion. When the show Looking on HBO got cancelled, the show got the full court press by some of the staff writers ( because they are gay and Hollywood has a large gay base ) It's a good entertainment site, but a pop culture/sports site has to know where to draw the line. Simmons also rankled about not being able to bring in liberal politicians as guests to help raise their profile.

Simmons initial appeal is as an "everyman", which by nature if usually moderate. As he became more of a "celebrity" he seemed to demand more of his voice talking about non everyman issues, including his bread and butter, sports.

TripleThreat wrote:

TPercy wrote:

anrst wrote:simmons without the espn backing is kinda sad

espn is so cruel to have him hanging out there with no job like that.

Why did he get fired?

ESPN = Billion dollar deal for NFL rights to Monday Night Football along with other exclusive NFL programming.

ESPN owned by the Big Mouse, which also owns Grantland by extension

Bill Simmons, a cross over sports/cult media personality, rips Roger Goodell over what is essentially the NFL's drug policy. ( i.e. why does a player get a smaller suspension for beating his wife than for having/using drugs) Then keeps calling for Goodell's head on a platter.

Simmons is a full on no holds barred liberal, and has lots of friends in the media and Hollywood, who are full on non stop liberals who are pro legalization of drugs. And they want pro sports to lead the way on a mass culture change.

The "tone" of Grantland had become frighteningly partisan in nature and the political talk that is too polarizing for a pop culture site was becoming overwhelming.

For example, Wesley Morris, a black entertainment writer ( he covers movies) basically spent a couple of months shifting ANY movie talk into a Travvon Martin discussion. When the show Looking on HBO got cancelled, the show got the full court press by some of the staff writers ( because they are gay and Hollywood has a large gay base ) It's a good entertainment site, but a pop culture/sports site has to know where to draw the line. Simmons also rankled about not being able to bring in liberal politicians as guests to help raise their profile.

Simmons initial appeal is as an "everyman", which by nature if usually moderate. As he became more of a "celebrity" he seemed to demand more of his voice talking about non everyman issues, including his bread and butter, sports.

Simmons has had a tumultuous relationship with the ESPN brass for many, many years. He basically had 1 or 2 powerful executive backers who protected him for many years while the others called for his head. It was not about politics either but over, silly enough, over what they deemed as inappropriate humor and Simmons propensity to sometimes "work blue" in essence in his columns. There were _many_ incidents over the years where ESPN censored his columns, podcasts, etc over the most ridiculous things (again, not political stuff).

Honestly I peruse Grantland everyday and while I don't read everything on there I have never noticed a liberal bent. Methinks this is another case of conservative minded people seeing the liberal boogeyman in every corner of the media. Again, politically I'm pretty much an "Everyman" as you say where I'm split down the middle generally being socially more liberal and fiscally lean conservative. Grantland has never come off as a liberal mouthpiece to me.

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