ESPN president John Skipper announced last week that the World Wide Leader will not be renewing Bill Simmons’ contract when it expires in September. Apparently Simmons is leaving much sooner than that.
How much sooner? According to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated, Simmons is essentially already gone. He has worked out an agreement with ESPN where he will no longer appear on any platform, including the Grantland website that he founded in 2011. As of now, there are no plans for a farewell column, television appearance or anything of the like.
It seems fairly obvious that the relationship between Skipper and Simmons became strained in recent months. Simmons was suspended back in September for his harsh criticism of Roger Goodell, and he took aim at the NFL commissioner once again during a recent appearance on “The Dan Patrick Show.” That was likely the reason the separation happened immediately rather than waiting until the fall.
And if things didn’t already seem awkward enough between Simmons and ESPN, Skipper admitted earlier this week that Simmons found out on Twitter that the network had officially decided to not renew his contract.
Skipper also said the decision to part ways with Simmons had nothing to do with money.
“It did not come down to money,” he said. “Look, we’re a big company. If it was just dollars and cents, we would have figured something out. It is about ultimately about what he wants to do, what value that creates, what we want to do together in deciding whether there is going to be a match, and we decided that ultimately there wouldn’t be.”
The Sports Guy will likely have his pick of jobs, unless he chooses to launch an independent website and do his own thing.
