Last Wednesday, ESPN suspended popular columnist Bill Simmons due to an epic rant against Roger Goodell after allegations came out that suggested NFL officials hadn’t been completely honest in handling the Ray Rice scandal.
His rant had one consistent theme throughout the podcast: Goodell is a liar. “Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just saying it. He is lying. I think that dude is lying, if you put him on a lie detector test that guy would fail,” said Simmons. In reference to his suspension, ESPN stated, “Every employee . . . must operate within ESPN’s standards . . . Simmons did not meet those expectations.”
We, the editorial board, question whether or not Simmons failed meet ESPN’s expectations. Such a question requires looking at what his comments, and whether such statements were out of line with what other ESPN commentators were saying. Simmons’ message was not different from many other analysts remarked during ESPN’s “Sportcenter” or “Around the Horn”.
In fact, ESPN does a wonderful job in bringing people from across the country to talk about the sports it airs. These voices are often diverse in their perspectives and sometimes go off the cuff to talk about things that are not sports related.
Bomani Jones did just that during ESPN writer Dan LeBatard’s radio show, “Highly Questionable”, when he discussed racial housing discrimination in Chicago for eight minutes! He received no punishment for his remarks.
Perhaps the only difference we noted was the way that Simmons said what he said. In comparison to popular shows like “Sportscenter” where such topics are broached conversationally, Simmons’ mode of communication was a podcast. Podcasts can be intensely personal and other members of a cast are not there to keep each other in check .
Simmons rant was harsh, and at times explicit, and perhaps that was the reason ESPN chose to suspend Simmons. However, ESPN will not divulge how Simmons violated their network’s journalistic standards. Regardless, we found such reasoning a poor excuse for suspending one of the network’s most popular columnists.
While “journalistic standards breach” seemed like a reach to us, we looked at another, perhaps more compelling reason to why Simmons was suspended: ESPN and the NFL’s $15 billion relationship.
This relationship contracts ESPN to air Monday Night Football games, as well as the film from every game to show highlights. This relationship between these two organizations is mutually beneficial. The NFL gets its games to reach a wider audience and conversation regarding the games, and ESPN gets advertisers for the popular games and shows.
We did consider that ESPN has more to lose than the NFL does; surely another network would step up to play more NFL games, and therefore such a relationship, while mutually beneficial, might not be equal.
Regardless, it is easy to assume that a company so invested in the sport it covers cannot be devoid of bias. While Simmons may be out of line, under ESPN’s (probably) narrow journalistic standards, ESPN may be out of line by investing so heavily in a company that the network claims to objectively cover.