The ongoing soap-opera/feud between Bill Simmons a.k.a. The Sports Guy and ESPN took another turn this week, when Simmons’ normal Friday column did not appear. Simmons took to his personal “unplugged” blog to say that he handed it in as normal, and ESPN.com chose to not publish it.

I don’t know when this little feud technically started, but it’s been building for a while. The powers at ESPN.com seem to have been reigning in his content over the last year or two, and the final blow to the relationship may have been dealt when ESPN would not allow Simmons to interview Barack Obama, when the interview had already been arranged and scheduled for a podcast. Since then, Stuart Scott, Rick Reilly and now Chris Berman have interviewed Obama.

This week’s column not running could have been for any number of reasons, but Sports Guy doesn’t sound happy about it.

From Sports Guy Unplugged:

Quick update: I received a slew of e-mails yesterday wondering what happened to my Friday NFL column and blaming me for being lazy and all the usual crap. Please know that I handed in that column as scheduled – on Thursday night, on time, like I always do — and on Friday afternoon, ESPN.com decided not to run the column. These are the facts.

…

We are on the record.

**END**

Point taken. Clearly, Sports Guy is not pleased about his column getting axed, but offers no reason as to why.

So what’s to read into all of this? Nobody really knows, but there are a lot of theories. Along with what’s written above, there is a picture in the sidebar of Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank Redemption, rock in hand, waiting for the thunder to strike so he can escape prison. Could you have a more obvious metaphor for a guy that seems to be just waiting for his contract with the Worldwide Leader to come to an end.

Simmons clearly has not been happy for quite some time. Other than the WWL giving him a bunch of time off to write his most recent book, he seems to despise writing for them when he has to. There is a sense in his writing over the last year that he is handcuffed when it comes to writing on certain topics, and the cuffs are just getting tighter and tighter.

Was there something in particular about this most recent column that was deemed “too hot for ESPN?” My guess would be that the week before the election, there were some political words, perhaps even something about Reilly getting an interview with Obama, while Simmons was told he couldn’t go through with his arranged interview with Barry for the B.S. Report podcast. I can’t imagine that Reilly’s ridiculous article sat well with Simmons, and if he mentioned it, ESPN likely didn’t look so good in it.

Simmons’ contract reportedly runs through 2010, and I think it’s safe to say that there will be no future extensions to the contract. With ESPN bringing in Reilly, they seemed to have turned their backs on the one writer that pretty much built Page 2 by himself. Throw in the boatloads of money they through at Reilly, and I think Simmons at least tests the free agent waters.

ESPN.com’s competitors, such as Fox Sports and Yahoo! would probably jump to sign Simmons to some type of deal, one that includes not only his column, but other multimedia work, including his current podcast or appearances on shows like The Best Damn Sports Show Period. There is also the possibility of Simmons starting his own website, featuring other writers and multimedia or just by himself. I have a feeling that he’s have a fair share of advertisers quickly lined up.

The most important part of this whole story to me is that ESPN seems like they have no concern over losing one of their top draws. They may not want to admit it, and they may think they have stats that show otherwise, but losing Simmons would be a huge blow to the WWL and a huge score for one of their competitors.

ESPN’s official response to Simmons’ column not getting published was:

“Editorial decisions are made every day about what content does and doesn’t appear on the site, when it runs and how it appears. This is no different. Our relationship with Bill continues to be a great one and he continues to be a singular, central voice that plays a very important role at ESPN.”

It has not been a good month for ESPN around the web, as they were previously blasted for the whole Jay Glazer/Brett Favre fiasco.

ESPN has the potential to be the greatest sports media conglomerate in the country, and they might be. But they fall so far short of their potential that, as a sports fan, it’s sad. They misuse talent, waste airtime on television with terrible programming decisions, steal credit for breaking stories, and have broken one of the biggest rules in journalism — to report the news, not to make it (Who’s Now? anyone).

I don’t know what will happen with Simmons and ESPN over the course of the next year, but I can’t wait for him to break the WWL shackles. He is a great writer and should be even better when he doesn’t have the fine people of Disney looking over his shoulder. I’d personally like to see him with his own site, one that allows him to play by his own rules. Of course, there is also a million sites (just like this one) that write about sports that would be willing to give him some space.

This is certainly not over, and should be interesting to watch unfold. I, for one, will be curiously reading each of his columns for hints of what the hell is going on. Except for the NBA columns, of course. I got no need for 7000 words about the Celtics amazing 13th win of the year. Other than that, I’ll keep following him, if only because ESPN news is for some reason interesting to me.

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