- Former Grantland editor-in-chief and ESPN contributor Bill Simmons is going to HBO.
- HBO announced that Simmons will have a talk show on the network that will premiere in 2016.
- Simmons’s contract will begin in October.
Bill Simmons is going to HBO
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
HBO is Bill Simmons’s new home
Simmons parted ways with ESPN in May. He had worked at the sports network in some capacity since 2001. While there, Simmons created and edited Grantland, a revered sports and pop culture site with a loyal following.
Despite being best known as an online columnist, Simmons has previous TV experience. Prior to this new deal with HBO, he worked as an analyst for NBA games and contributed to ESPN’s E:60 series. He also helped conceive ESPN’s documentary series 30 for 30.
It sure sounds like Simmons’s new show will pursue the same eclectic mix of sports talk and pop culture that made the writer such a major voice in the first place and that animates much of Grantland.
“We could not be more thrilled for him to bring those talents to HBO and to become a signature voice at the network, spanning the sports and pop culture landscapes,” Michael Lombardo, HBO’s president for programming, said in a statement.
While it looks like Simmons won’t be writing — the talent that brought him from freelance contributor to major voice at ESPN — he won’t be abandoning his roots completely. The New York Times reports that Simmons’s deal will include video podcasts similar to the ones he did at Grantland.
