Bill Simmons Trashes ‘Depressing’ ESPN for Bungling Rachel Nichols Diversity Drama: ‘Disaster’ on ‘How to Handle a Crisis’

Brandon ContesAug 27th, 2021, 10:20 am

Ex-ESPN star Bill Simmons previously discussed his “f*cking sh*tty” divorce with The Worldwide Leader before launching his highly successful project The Ringer. And on Friday, Simmons commented on the recent ugly ending at ESPN for another one of their star employees, Rachel Nichols.

ESPN’s decision to erase Nichols from their airwaves has been met with significant backlash as the decision looks to be a consequence of controversial audio that was leaked earlier this summer.

“Pieces I read from media reporters are all like, ‘wow that was just completely F’d up by ESPN.’ What a disaster over a course of a year for how to handle a crisis,” Simmons told his guest Jim Miller, who wrote a detailed book giving an inside look at ESPN. “And I think that’s going to be the legacy of this right? How can you handle something this badly for a year?”

Earlier this summer, year-old audio of a private conversation between Nichols and PR executive Adam Mendelsohn was leaked. In the damning audio from 2020, Nichols implied ESPN gave her colleague Maria Taylor the NBA Finals hosting gig because she is Black. Taylor has since left for NBC, Nichols was told she no longer has a role with Disney’s sports brand and ESPN is without two talented broadcasters because of a mismanaged situation.

“It feels like they’re constantly playing defense,” Simmons said of ESPN. “They’re playing whack-a-mole with crises that come up.”

“You’re putting a lot of responsibility on certain people,” Simmons added as a result of the company’s significant cutbacks in recent years. “You have these moments like with what happened with this Rachel thing. It’s almost like they don’t have enough people in charge or focused on how everything’s going.”

ESPN has conducted multiple rounds of layoffs in recent years, eliminating on-air and behind the scenes talent. The most recent cuts saw the layoff of 300 employees, but ESPN has continued to lose high-profile talent in recent months, with Taylor, Nichols and Kenny Mayne near the top of the list.

“Think about what the company was like in the 1990s,” Simmons said of ESPN’s fall from grace. “They would take swings and misses. What are the swings now? They’ve retreated and they basically said, ‘we just want to show games and highlights and I guess that’s who we are.’ It’s kind of depressing.”