Simmons is currently serving a three week suspension after he went in on his show about the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice mess. New reports are surfacing that Bill might be looking for an exit. Hit the jump for details.
Via Yahoo:
We’ve spoken to a few executives at several old and new media companies about the situation.
Here is the scuttlebutt:
Simmons’ contract is up next year.
He’s not cheap. ESPN is currently paying something like $3 million per year.
In response to a story that said Simmons and ESPN both wanted to renew, Simmons’ best friend tweeted: “I’ve known Bill since we were 18 years old. That is the funniest thing anyone has ever written about him.”
A CEO at a digital media company with lots of sites catered toward men says that when news broke of Simmons’ suspension, people from CBS and FOX called him to ask if he would be competing with their bids for him.
In some quarters, there’s skepticism that Simmons is worth so much money. ESPN executives apparently gripe that Simmons’ pet project brands on the web — Grantland and FiveThirtyEight — aren’t doing very well.
One digital media CEO said Grantland writers were completely shielded from traffic data and that there was little pressure on them to attract new readers.
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