It’s cool to hate Bill Simmons. Simmons permanently jilted the large following he amassed from often hilarious, smart columns mish-mashing sports and pop culture by simply opening his mouth and showing his face a little too much. The consensus now is that Simmons persona has been oversaturated, which is difficult when you have the on-camera persona of Stephen Hawking.
During an appearance on The Breakfast Club on Power 105.1 in New York, Simmons gives his opinion as to why his HBO show Any Given Wednesday was canceled after just five months.
In the interview, which you can listen to in its entirety at the bottom of this post, Simmons claims that the format of the show (which aired every Wednesday) was not built to last.
“I wish it’d been monthly,” said Simmons. “I think it’s really hard to do a weekly show and just pop in and out and be like, ‘Here’s my take.’”
“Everyone’s got the take on whatever,” he said. “I don’t know how you just parachute it on Wednesday and have a take that’s greater than everyone’s take.”
Simmons implied that since he was competing with shows that aired daily on networks like ESPN and FSI, when he gave his take mid-week, it came off as stale and dated.
Simmons also claimed that his previous success and notoriety actually hindered his chance at people enjoying his show without any predetermination.
“When you have some success with anything, I think, at a certain point people are like ‘fuck this guy.’ Simmons said.
People builds you up to break you down, or as Charles Barkley once said, “when you’re the top dog, everyone wants to put you in the pound.”
And his current relationship with ESPN, one which has been about as civil as Palestine and Israel:
“It’s really not a relationship,” he said. “But I don’t think it’s as acrimonious as it was. Really weird shitt happened the last couple years. I guess when you have some distance from it and you look back, you go, ‘Oh, I get it, I understand why that happened.’
“They operate a little bit like the NFL operates. And the NFL doesn’t want any player to have any identity whatsoever.”
I feel for Bill here. It’s easy for people to forget some of the incredible contributions he made to sports journalism just because he’s not great on every platform, and having your show canceled after just five months can’t be an easy pill to swallow regardless of past success. I wish nothing but the best for the dude, and I’m glad he’s still breathing after Cris Collinsworth nearly ended his life a month back.
Too soon, Cris. Too soon.
Here’s the full Breakfast Club interview.