Bill Simmons has been a part of my life for about 20 years now. As with any relationship that lasts that long, my feelings about him have evolved. At various points I've been a fan, a hater, a critic, a detached observer, and a begrudging admirer, sometimes all at once.
I'm not alone in this. I have only recently discovered that I am part of a whole demographic of sports fans for whom Simmons occupies an odd, conflicted space in their media diet. They are dedicated listeners of his podcast, which they primarily consume in order to find things to make fun of him over, and they would be devastated if Simmons were to retire tomorrow. Thousands of these people congregate on a subreddit dedicated to Bill Simmons, where they crack jokes at his expense, maintain the lore of The Bill Simmons Podcast universe, and speak in a language that can only be understood by fellow sickos. Some of them even listen to a podcast about The Bill Simmons Podcast.
To get a better sense of what this community is all about, or maybe to just feel a little less alone with my strange fixation, I reached out to the anonymous host of The r/BillSimmons Podcast, who is known to listeners as "rBS." Our conversation, conducted over email, has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Maybe a good place to start would be with you just explaining your relationship with Bill Simmons. How long have you been reading and listening to him?
I started reading Bill in the early 2000s. I don't remember the exact first article I read, since back in those days ESPN.com would often feature his column on the front page, so one of those was probably my entry into his writing. I'm also a big Red Sox fan, so I loved reading him during the height of the Yankees-Sox rivalry in the mid-2000s.
As for listening, I started consuming his first podcast, The BS Report at ESPN, pretty much as soon as Bill created it in 2007. I probably listened to 99 percent of those pods—the only ones I recall skipping were episodes with David Jacoby where they discussed reality TV shows I didn't watch.
I often have trouble explaining my own feelings about and continued fascination with Simmons to other people. I listen to most of his podcast episodes, and when I’m done with one I usually want to tell people at work about something dumb he said, and then they are like, “Why do you listen to this podcast so much if you hate it?” and then I’m like, “But… I love it...” How would you explain your own feelings about Simmons?
Yeah, it's an excellent question and people who don't listen don't understand it. We don't hate Bill Simmons—if we did, we wouldn't listen. Personally, I think his podcast is objectively worse than it used to be in terms of quality of content. At ESPN he featured a wider variety of guests than today's Ringer-dominant lineup, brought on key sports figures such as David Stern more often, had on celebrities which were often doing interesting longform interviews for the first time, and talked about most sports rather than being so NBA heavy. Additionally, I think Bill has regressed as a host—he doesn't prepare as much, he interrupts guests instead of listening and asking questions, and the podcast is usually more about him than his guests, which I don't think was the case at the start and which I believe developed as Bill became more famous and successful. Plus, I just don't think Bill cares as much about sports as he used to, which inevitably shows up in the pod.
I was a superfan of Bill's up until the Any Given Wednesday/Ringer timeframe in 2016 when, in my view, his content started dropping off considerably. And it took me awhile to digest the decline. I went from listening to all of Bill's pods to 75 percent, to 50 percent, to 25 percent to, at the low, basically only listening to Chuck Klosterman appearances. But recently, I've come back some. I joke on Twitter that he's Full Parody Bill Simmons' Expiring Contract in Keep Cashin' Dem Checks Mode—longtime fans will understand the references—and that the way to enjoy Bill in 2025 is as a comedy pod, high-up on Bill's famous "Unintentional Comedy Scale." We know the content is worse than it used to be, but we keep coming back because it's enjoyable to listen for all his Simmons-isms, make in fun of him and his guests for the stupid shit they say, laugh at his extremely confident predictions that don't pan out, and revel in the joy of a Boston team losing a playoff game and Simmons going mad.
By this point, Simmons has been in my life for over 20 years. It's hard to quit. Now that I've had time to fully process his decline, I come back to the podcast to laugh with and at him with other longtime listeners, including the ever-growing subreddit and Bill Simmons Twitter community. And I'm certainly more than happy when he rears back and fires the 99 mph fastball again and we get Vintage Simmons.
I think people who are not hyper-aware of Bill Simmons would be surprised to learn that there is a subreddit dedicated to his podcast that has 101,000 members. What is your impression of what this subreddit is for, and why it exists?
A few years back someone in the subreddit authored a poll that asked how high Bill ranked for distinct voices you heard that week. So if you listened to, say, three hours of Bill pods, did you hear anyone else's voice in that same week for over three hours? If I recall correctly, the vast majority of people ranked Bill very high, Top 1 or 2. Which makes sense—if you're on a Bill Simmons subreddit, you're likely a major fan, and if he's the top podcast you listen to, especially if you live alone, he's probably the person you're hearing from the most.
I provide that context to say that it doesn't surprise me at all that there's a massively popular subreddit for a Mount Rushmore, Pantheon-level podcaster. It's for people who listen to all his episodes and want to discuss them further. It's also for those that have listened to Bill in the past and still do at times, and want to have a laugh at his expense. Even people who don't listen anymore come to the sub as they get most of the references. Also, when there's big sports or sports media news, there's often a substantial amount of discussion happening on the sub—people use it as an outlet to fire off their takes. It's also the place to be online when a Boston team loses a big game. Finally, there are some outrageously funny threads where users comment on world events using Simmons-isms—e.g., "Does Iran have some 'nobody believes in us' energy??"
How long have you been using the subreddit? Has it changed in any meaningful ways since you first got on there?
I have been on the subreddit since 2016. I found r/BillSimmons because I needed a place to discuss the absolute shock to my psyche that resulted from how horrific Any Given Wednesday was. As a massive Simmons stan at that point consuming close to 100 percent of his content, I simply couldn't believe how bad the show was, and needed a place to digest it with like-minded people, as not many of my friends in real life were watching or as obsessed with Simmons as I was. Plus, it was a good place to start contemplating the decline of Bill; I was noticing his podcast and writing slipping and was curious if others felt the same way—many did.
The subreddit has changed drastically over the years. When I was first there in 2016 there were about 1,000 members, compared to 100,000 now. Back then there was probably an average of one new post a day; some days there would be none. Episode threads had 10–20 comments, rather than hundreds. There were very few memes. I mostly recall there being, for Reddit, relatively deeper conversations, typically about the current state of Simmons and his career. The people contributing were generally Simmons lifers from the Page 2 days that were lamenting his decline, at that point more so how his writing had dropped off, but we were beginning to question the quality of his podcast too.
Now the sub has 10s of posts a day, tons of memes, and operates like a typical, popular subreddit. With 100,000 members, it is much more homogenous with the rest of Reddit, rather than when it was 1,000 hardcore fans that may have only used Reddit for that sub. There have been changes for the better (hilarious memes, massive group celebrations when the Celtics and Pats lose big games) and the worse (overuse of specific memes, tons of posts about non-Simmons general sports and pop culture content). And everyone misses the knife_guy era.
You also have your own podcast, which is about The Bill Simmons Podcast. Can you tell me more about that, and why you started doing it?
The podcast originated from the idea that there was a lot of interesting conversations on the subreddit about Bill, Ryen Russillo, The Ringer, sports media, sports in general, and more—could we bring those discussions into a higher level of communication in audio form? Plus, since the sub discusses Bill and the pod so intensely, there must be an audience for further analysis. It's certainly a funny concept, a podcast about a podcast, and I joke all the time about that, but truthfully, now that podcasts are often a large part of people's media consumption, I don't think it's unreasonable that we are starting to see content like this.
At over 120 episodes in now, it's evolved to what I call it an examination of sports media using the lens of Bill Simmons, who's obviously a central figure in how sports coverage has changed over the last 20 years. There are very Bill-centric episodes, for sure—a classic r/BS Pod will often include the guests' personal experience with Bill over the years, discussion of recent BS Pod episodes, and how they're engaging with his and The Ringer's content today, but I also will do solo shows on specific sports media trends. I have a personal and professional interest in that topic, and while those pods aren't necessarily about Bill Simmons, I try to tie it back to him in some way. For example, I've done several podcasts about the new NBA media rights deal and weighed in on the ratings debate—while that's not about Simmons himself, he discusses these topics in great detail and I use points from his pod as a conversation starter.
I have also found that people really enjoy discussion of Ringer-related sports media topics they're not getting elsewhere because the usual podcasters they listen to are participants in the news themselves, and thus can't analyze it. For instance, a highly popular topic on the show lately has been Russillo's looming free agency—does he stay with The Ringer, go to Barstool or The Volume, or somewhere else? Clearly, Russillo and Bill won't be discussing this on their weekly Sunday night pods. My most listened to episode, by far, is an emergency pod reacting to Zach Lowe signing with The Ringer. And, while you'd have to ask him to confirm, I believe Russillo referenced this podcast recently on Pardon My Take by saying, "There’s a show that pivoted into covering every single sports media beef." People love sports media feuds. In recent episodes we covered Kendrick Perkins vs. Bill and Pablo Torre vs. Bill. Again, Bill can't hit on these since he's involved, so listeners enjoy the r/BS Pod takes.
Is the podcast something you are able to adequately explain to people in real life?
One of my recent guests—Roman on Episode No. 118—answered this better than I can, so I'll quote him. We were talking about how he was telling his friends he was going on the podcast. I'll paraphrase what he said below:
I've been telling people in my life I'm going on a podcast, because I'm excited. And they're asking, "What's the podcast about?" And there's that three seconds of mental syntax where I go, "What level do I go with? Do I go level one or level five? Do I say it's a sports podcast? Do I sit you down and explain what Page 2 is?" Usually I say there's a sports guy Bill Simmons, he's from ESPN and founded The Ringer website and podcast network, and this is a podcast that discusses The Ringer, Bill Simmons and sports media. And they typically say, "Hey, cool!"
I think part of what I genuinely like about Simmons is that over the years he’s developed this whole language of tics and hang-ups and expressions. A lot of this stuff used to drive me crazy, but now I find it kind of comforting, like visiting an old relative. On a recent episode I think he described someone in the NBA as the “45th to 53rd best player in the league,” and I just smiled. Is there a particular Simmons tic that you really enjoy?
This is absolutely a huge reason, in my view, why Simmons continues to have a major listener base. I could be here for hours talking about my favorites. I love hearing his use of specific phrases, some of which are now commonly used among people who aren't even Bill listeners: chainsaw in the hot tub, black swan event, piece, thing, shareholder meeting after buying stock in a player, buying condos on that player's island, who says no?, body language doctor, sliding doors moment, dueling banjos situation … there are just so many! And if you asked me a different day I'd probably have different responses.
Something that Bill's been doing recently that I find particularly funny is when he says things like "We do a higher level of analysis than First Take on this pod," but then tells his guests something to the effect of "Let's do First Take" as a means to actually do First Take. In a recent podcast Zach Lowe called him out on it ("Let's do a morning TV segment, Zach"; "Why??") and to go back to a previous question—that's why we listen, for moments like that.
Recurring guests are also a big part of the Simmons universe. Do you have a favorite? Least favorite?
Starting with BS Report guests who don't show up much these days, JackO talking Sox-Yanks is probably my all-time favorite Simmons recurring guest. I don't think the newer listeners or younger fans realize A) just how much JackO used to come on and B) how much of a big deal mid-2000s Sox–Yanks was. As Bill would say, "you just had to be there" to understand it. Adam Carolla is another all-time BS Report guest, with his fake movie pitches, the original Rewatchables talking Fast movies and just general shooting the shit. According to the Wikipedia page for the BS Report, Chad Millman is seventh all-time in appearances—he's someone I thought had great chemistry with Bill, giving him the insider Vegas perspective on sports betting (when that was hard to come by as it wasn't legal) and Simmons bringing his hilariously square takes. The three-man weaves with Marc Stein and Ric Bucher on the NBA were great, as there was an interesting dynamic where those two were legitimate NBA reporters and they'd react to Bill's fun, but often nonsense, takes.
As for guests who have bridged Bill's ESPN days and The Ringer, Joe House and Sal Iacono are Pantheon guests and are some of the few who actually call Bill out on his bullshit and make in fun of him. Chuck Klosterman episodes are some of the best podcasts in history in my opinion, and he's unique at being the only guest to ever get Bill to reflect on himself. Kevin Wildes and Dave Jacoby vibe really well with Bill—Wildes's half-baked ideas are legendary and Jacoby and Bill reacting to the premiere of Jersey Shore might be the greatest podcast ever. For more recent Ringer-era guests, Bill and Peter Schrager have great chemistry, and Bill loves talking media, streaming, and Hollywood, which typically makes his pods Matt Belloni pretty entertaining. I think Rob Mahoney's established himself as an elite NBA guest for Bill in The Ringer era with strong ball knowledge and just enough pushback on Bill's wonky takes.
As for least-favorite recurring guests, Mike Lombardi is pretty universally known as Bill's worst. The arrogance factor with him relative to what he accomplished in the NFL is off the charts and it leads to absolutely outrageous statements. Nathan Hubbard is also a very odd one; it will never not be weird how obsessed he is with Taylor Swift. And I have to reference Bill's Kevin Durant pods, which I think are some of the worst podcasts ever, especially with KD's business partner Rich Kleiman eating snacks into the mic.
