The morning after the latest Bill Simmons pipebomb, Mike & Mike took to the airwaves to elaborate on the Thursday feud between Mike Golic and The Sports Guy. Golic criticized Simmons for trying to “grab headlines” with some comments about LeBron James on The Herd. Simmons then went Full Tony Montana on Twitter, ripping Mike & Mike to shreds. In addition to accusing Golic of taking his words out of context (mostly true), Simmons also said that he had no respect for the program.
Golic had promised a discussion about the controversy on this morning’s radio show, and it was addressed within the first half hour. Both Golic and Greenberg discussed the matter with Simmons with Golic saying that “everything was good” after his conversation with The Sports Guy. However, there’s also an air of agreeing to disagree with Simmons’ harsh words for the program and his Twitter rant:
This looks to end the very brief, yet very volatile Bill Simmons vs Mike & Mike dispute that lasted less than 24 hours.
Perhaps the most interesting element here is that ESPN declined comment on the story and appears to be letting Golic and Simmons settle this dustup on their own time. It’s a long cry from just last year when ESPN suspended Bill Simmons for daring to criticize the golden calf that is First Take.
So what’s the difference between Simmons criticizing First Take on Twitter and taking a blowtorch to Mike and Mike you may ask…
ESPN has long been averse to seeing their employees criticize one another in public. Let’s be clear about one thing – Golic started this by taking Simmons’ words out of context and throwing in a kidney shot by coming after him personally. Simmons then took it to the next level in his Twitter rant saying he didn’t respect the show. ESPN also set something of a precedent by not disciplining Michelle Beadle for rightly going after Stephen A. Smith over the latter’s domestic violence comments.
In all of this, it is worth noting that ESPN’s social media guidelines contains the statement, “At all times, exercise discretion, thoughtfulness and respect for colleagues, business associates and fans.” One might accuse ESPN of picking and choosing when and where to enforce their own guidelines, but the network has even admitted their glaring inconsistency when it comes to discipline.
ESPN is just coming off suspending Simmons for three weeks and any form of public reprimand on this would had to have been a fatal blow to their working relationship. It’s a tenuous situation as is with Simmons’ future at ESPN with his contract expiring next year. A second suspension in less than a month would have been the beginning of a long goodbye. Suspending Golic from the normally vanilla and non-threatening Mike & Mike would have been a significant PR blow as well. The path of least resistance here is to do just what ESPN did – sweep it under the rug as quickly as possible and try to move on.
(Video via Cork Gaines)
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