Because we posted several stories at the time it all went down, it makes sense to put a bow on the decision of ESPN to put Bill Simmons on the sidelines for three weeks. But the final bow won’t be applied to the brouhaha until we know whether Simmons extends a contract that expires in 2015.
The suspension ended Wednesday. According to Jonathan Mahler and Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, Simmons was “furious” about the punishment. Still, Simmons opted not to breathe fire or spit blood like his distant cousin (they’re not related), Gene. Though Bill boasted that he would “go public” if anyone from ESPN gave him flack for calling Roger Goodell a “liar” on an ESPN-based podcast, Bill hasn’t said “boo” about the decision.
His silence answers the next question. Although Simmons reportedly “has been talking a lot about whether ESPN is still the right place for him,” Simmons knows there’s no other place that would give him the same platform. Sure, he could try to build his own platform and compete with ESPN. But that would entail voluntarily leaving the biggest stage in sports and assuming the risk that the new stage will never be quite as big.
That’s likely why Simmons ultimately didn’t “go public.” He knows that ESPN has the ability to put him on ice for the balance of his current contract with pay, silencing him for a full year and, in turn, making him irrelevant.
Everyone in this business would quickly become irrelevant if they weren’t around. Really, did anyone miss Bill Simmons while he was gone for three weeks? Would anyone really miss any of the assorted scribes and gas bags (me included) if we all of a sudden disappeared?
If Simmons would have “gone public” about ESPN shutting him down for three weeks, ESPN possibly would have shut him down for a lot longer, which permanently would have damaged his brand and his income because the void created by his departure eventually would have been filled with something else. By the time his ESPN contract ended, enough of the audience would have adjusted their daily sports-coverage consumption habits to put Simmons close to Square One.
Sure, he could build it all back again. Maybe he’d welcome the challenge. Along the way, however, he’d be writing and talking to a fraction of the audience that sees and hears him via ESPN. If he was willing to walk away from all of that, he already would have.