While it seems to be just one-way traffic at this point, give it time, my friends. David Scott on Bill Simmons’ Thursday chat with WEEI’s Dennis & Callahan :
After co-host Gerry Callahan suggested Rick Reilly could be making as much as $3 million a year with his new ESPN deal, Simmons said, œI don™t even care about the money (he™s making). I care about the fact he only has to write 800 words all week. What does he do all week? I™m just getting warmed up at 800 words.Also, Simmons said of Reilly, œI don™t think (his hiring) has really changed my life in any way other than he touches my soul with his writing. That™s really it. He™s raising the bar morally, financially. . . he™s raising it all over the place. I™m just happy to be along for the ride.
(Now THAT was tongue-in-cheek. And a bit petty, too, wethinks.)
Earlier in the interview, Simmons denied being a œprima donna and suggested that he is not œsleeping on the couch anymore with ESPN and is œBack in the bed, but. . . not getting any (action).
Simmons also went with an old and tired refrain after trying to goad Callahan into agreeing that it™s tough to write for such a large company like Disney or Sports Illustrated (where Callahan was for five years). œI think you know it™s very hard to write for a conglomerate, moaned the non-prima donna. œIt seems like people leave big conglomerates and don™t look back.
Depending on their annual results (ie. the profitabilty of “John Clayton : The Ride”), Disney might seek to consolidate Simmons and Reilly’s future columns. Something about a dying boy’s last wish and Jeannie Garth.
Nice to know that you there’s a “celebrities at their worst” track waiting to happen just beneath the surface of sportswriting’s most ostentatiously Ordinary Guy. I mean, Reilly’s pretty corny, and the idea of paying him Luis Castillo money is clearly one of the goofiest moves ESPN could’ve made. But I’d take cloying earnestness/dad-jokes over Simmons’ increasingly threadbare imitation of a non-jerk. Given the choice, though, I’d take neither.
I’d take total silence and four white walls over either of them.
I know it’s TSG’s shtick, and on a per story basis Reilly’s certainly no Gary Smith or SL Price, but that doesn’t mean it’s actually easier to write 800 words a week instead of 10,000 words a week.
And not to go all Buzz Bissinger here, but Reilly also reports a lot of columns, even when it is a dead kid or scavenging something that was in a newspaper.
I actually like reading Simmons… when he isn’t writing about sports. There should be a ban on writing about Boston sports teams as long as ESPN’s headquarters are located in New England. I get enough of it on Sportscenter.