OT Simmons leaving ESPN | Page 2 | The Boneyard

OT Simmons leaving ESPN

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Candyman34 said:
Referring more to Yahoo sports then to the main page. ESPN is where more sports centric minds go to.
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Yahoo Sports gets 50% more pageviews than ESPN.
 
whaler11 said:
Yahoo Sports gets 50% more pageviews than ESPN.
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Still feel based on your hard evidence that ESPN.com is premium sports webiste. Basically my point is if he got hired by Yahoo it would be a downgrade compared to ESPN.
 
Apparently ESPN didn't even tell Simmons about this before making the news public.

Regardless of how you feel about Simmons, it shows how petty and pathetic ESPN's higher ups are.
 
whaler11 said:
Yahoo Sports gets 50% more pageviews than ESPN.
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Pageviews aren't really indicative of popularity. A lot more people use Yahoo for fantasy than ESPN and CBS, which will artificially spike up pageviews.
 
auror said:
A lot of "Used to..."'s in here. I get it, it's cool to hate on Simmons since he's gotten so big and well known.

Grantland is awesome, 30 for 30 is awesome, his podcasts are a pretty nice mix of entertaining and informative (guest dependent, of course, but finding good guests is a talent), and he still bangs out the occasional very entertaining mailbag or seminal column. And this is all achieved within the corporate structured and creatively restricting world of Disney, which may be the biggest accomplishment of all.
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The "used to" fits in his case. Somewhere in the 2008-2010 range he became an EXCEEDINGLY NBA-centric, boring, lazy, PC version of his former self. There was a time when his pop culture references made sense, however the past few years they're clearly forced, template, insert-recent-movie/show/event-here.

Also, while he's always been more about the NBA than anything else, prior to his empty calorie basketball book, he would at least make an effort to talk about sports outside of the NFL (from Sept thru Jan) and the NBA (year round). These days he just vacillates between taking pot shots at every other league and Adam Silver/whoever the 27th best player in the NBA is at any given time (all while being too much of an NBA ass kisser to admit that unless team 'x' has one of 4-6 players at any given time, they are ultimately irrelevant and won't factor into the title scene).

His writing these days is so uninspiring that I'd even say his podcasts are the best thing he does now, and I don't even think he's that great at that medium. And he's obviously truly awful and doesn't have the charisma for TV.
 
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He is so bad on TV, it's basically cringe worthy. I really hope he doesn't go to Turner.
 
UConn990411 said:
Pageviews aren't really indicative of popularity. A lot more people use Yahoo for fantasy than ESPN and CBS, which will artificially spike up pageviews.
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I'm sorry that the numbers don't fit y'alls worldviews.

It's 45,000,000 more pageviews a month that Yahoo gets.

How exactly do you measure webpage popularity if not pageviews? Your opinion?
 
whaler11 said:
I'm sorry that the numbers don't fit y'alls worldviews.

It's 45,000,000 more pageviews a month that Yahoo gets.

How exactly do you measure webpage popularity if not pageviews? Your opinion?
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How about toning down the douchiness a notch?

I didn't make the argument for ESPN over Yahoo Sports, or vice versa. I just don't think pageviews - without context - necessarily means one site is more popular.

For instance, you may have 1,000 Yahoo fantasy users who visit 10 pages per day, compared to 5,000 people who visit ESPN.com, check out one article, and leave. In that instance, both sites would have the same number of pageviews.

That's the only point I was making, so no need to get all defensive.
 
UConn990411 said:
How about toning down the douchiness a notch?

I didn't make the argument for ESPN over Yahoo Sports, or vice versa. I just don't think pageviews - without context - necessarily means one site is more popular.

For instance, you may have 1,000 Yahoo fantasy users who visit 10 pages per day, compared to 5,000 people who visit ESPN.com, check out one article, and leave. In that instance, both sites would have the same number of pageviews.

That's the only point I was making, so no need to get all defensive.
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Well I went back and looked at the numbers: Yahoo Sports actually has 50% more unique visitors.

I'm not being defensive I'm trying to figure out how with actual data on which is more popular you wouldn't just accept that your assumption was wrong rather than try to dream up ways it could still be right.
 
auror said:
A lot of "Used to..."'s in here. I get it, it's cool to hate on Simmons since he's gotten so big and well known.

Grantland is awesome, 30 for 30 is awesome, his podcasts are a pretty nice mix of entertaining and informative (guest dependent, of course, but finding good guests is a talent), and he still bangs out the occasional very entertaining mailbag or seminal column. And this is all achieved within the corporate structured and creatively restricting world of Disney, which may be the biggest accomplishment of all.
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You're right, auror. Nearly 4 million twitter followers...but nobody pays attention to him anymore.
 
whaler11 said:
Well I went back and looked at the numbers: Yahoo Sports actually has 50% more unique visitors.

I'm not being defensive I'm trying to figure out how with actual data on which is more popular you wouldn't just accept that your assumption was wrong rather than try to dream up ways it could still be right.
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Still being defensive.

I wasn't the one who said ESPN's more popular - only that pageviews isn't the be all, end all.
 
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UConn990411 said:
How about toning down the douchiness a notch?

I didn't make the argument for ESPN over Yahoo Sports, or vice versa. I just don't think pageviews - without context - necessarily means one site is more popular.

For instance, you may have 1,000 Yahoo fantasy users who visit 10 pages per day, compared to 5,000 people who visit ESPN.com, check out one article, and leave. In that instance, both sites would have the same number of pageviews.

That's the only point I was making, so no need to get all defensive.
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1,000 x 10 visits per day is 10,000 page views
10,000 > 5,000
 
Connor Schell was the originator of 30 for 30. I know Bill gets the credit, but it was Connor's idea.
 
whaler11 said:
I'm sorry that the numbers don't fit y'alls worldviews.

It's 45,000,000 more pageviews a month that Yahoo gets.

How exactly do you measure webpage popularity if not pageviews? Your opinion?
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Their point, I believe, is that much YahooSports' traffic comes from being a link on the Yahoo front page, which is probably the driver of the vast majority of their traffic-not to mention Yahoo's status as the top fantasy site. ESPN on the other hand is no doubt the biggest brand in sports, both on online and on television, even though it may not average more monthly page views than YSports or as many viewers as a cable network (which receive a Yahoo-esque boost for sports programming compared to sports-only channels by virtue of the fact that they are delivered to far more households).

I am sure Yahoo pays its top writers well and it has some big names, include Woj. Even Forde, annoying as he might be, has a huge platform at Yahoo and was successfully poached from a great gig at ESPN to boot. The problem for them is that ESPN turns people into personalities and has 24/7 sports only programming running on at least five networks. YSports can support a decent number of high profile writers, but ESPN is a behemoth with unlimited room for advancement into whatever medium you fancy.
 
nyhusky89 said:
Their point, I believe, is that much YahooSports' traffic comes from being a link on the Yahoo front page, which is probably the driver of the vast majority of their traffic-not to mention Yahoo's status as the top fantasy site. ESPN on the other hand is no doubt the biggest brand in sports, both on online and on television, even though it may not average more monthly page views than YSports or as many viewers as a cable network (which receive a Yahoo-esque boost for sports programming compared to sports-only channels by virtue of the fact that they are delivered to far more households).

I am sure Yahoo pays its top writers well and it has some big names, include Woj. Even Forde, annoying as he might be, has a huge platform at Yahoo and was successfully poached from a great gig at ESPN to boot. The problem for them is that ESPN turns people into personalities and has 24/7 sports only programming running on at least five networks. YSports can support a decent number of high profile writers, but ESPN is a behemoth with unlimited room for advancement into whatever medium you fancy.
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Doesn't matter how they get there.

You can't be end all be all with 45 million fewer unique users a month.

Also ESPN clearly edits their site and their voices to their television partner's desires - part of the reason we are having this conversation.

Hard to take someone seriously as the end all be all when they will suspend you if you say something mean about Goddell.
 
Northbound said:
Connor Schell was the originator of 30 for 30. I know Bill gets the credit, but it was Connor's idea.
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In anticipation, ESPN Films’ executive producer Connor Schell spoke to Forbes about the 30 for 30 series from inception to fruition and the surprises along the way.

Forbes: How does what the series creator, Bill Simmons, and you initially envisioned differ from what viewers are seeing on screen today?

Schell: We had been doing documentaries for several years at ESPN, but on more of a one-off basis. Bill’s e-mail and Bill helping advance the conversation allowed us to all get together...."
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Paste: Tell me a little bit about the origin of the idea; I know that columnist Bill Simmons was a big part of it. How did such an audacious idea get started?

Connor Schell: Going back to 2007, we were looking for a way to celebrate 30 years in sports, going into ESPN’s 30 year anniversary. And we thought, what better way than to reach out to the creative community and find 30 compelling, original stories that were a cross-section of where sports had intersected culture over the last three decades.
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Connor doesn't dispute the Bill Simmons creator thing in the Forbes article, and definitely gives him credit for being the driving force in it getting made. In Paste, he only says "we". Maybe he's just being modest, but either way it seems fair to give Simmons a lot of credit for 30 for 30.
 
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I read a comScore report earlier in the year and ESPN was the largest site by unique visitors.

Yahoo and Fox had about 1/3rd fewer uniques than ESPN and they were about ten million higher than the NFL, Bleacher Report and CBS.

CBS Sports broke out visitors to their team sites - UConn was top 15-ish.
 
auror said:
Connor doesn't dispute the Bill Simmons creator thing in the Forbes article, and definitely gives him credit for being the driving force in it getting made. In Paste, he only says "we". Maybe he's just being modest, but either way it seems fair to give Simmons a lot of credit for 30 for 30.
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I worked there at the time I've got some personal knowledge of it.
 
James said:
where will I go for all his 5k word pieces stocked with useless 90s references?

Wonder what happens to all the talented writers at grantland... Bleacher report must be excited. although i'm not sure there is room for any more tv episode breakdown writers anywhere else
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I think Diana outshining him on his own show was the death nell:p
 
taurasi was incredible on the basketball hour, she could be a awesome nba in studio analyst. mainly because shes so bleeping good at basketball
 
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