In a story that shook the sports media landscape at the end of last week, it was revealed that ESPN was not going to renew the contract of Bill Simmons. Plucked out of obscurity of the first wave of sports blogging, Simmons became a central figure to ESPN in the 21st century, first as a blogger for Page 2, then given his own podcast (The B.S. Report), became a founder/executive producer for the documentary series “30 for 30” and then in 2011 given his own sports and pop culture spin-off website Grantland.
Simmons always had a rocky relationship with ESPN, but this season came to a head when he was suspended for three weeks following a very public shaming of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell over the Ray Rice domestic abuse case. Now that Simmons is winding down his time, I texted him to see how things are going.
