Beneath the surface of the silly argument over players and non-players in sports media that broke out after the argument between Ryan Clark and Peter Schrager\u00a0on\u00a0Get Up\u00a0last Friday, a more rudimentary breach of etiquette by Clark as a panelist on live television was revealed.<\/p>\n
As a veteran TV and podcast host, media executive, and friend of Schrager\u2019s, Bill Simmons understands the dynamics better than most.<\/p>\n
In the latest episode of his podcast, Simmons, who was a panelist on ESPN\u2019s\u00a0NBA Countdown and other shows in his decade-plus at the network, broke down what it\u2019s like to be in a disagreement like the one between Clark and Schrager<\/a> on live TV.<\/p>\n Simmons highlighted why it is such a significant issue for ESPN and Clark\u2019s colleagues when he goes off-script to undermine someone else on air.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I didn\u2019t like about what Ryan did \u2026 when you\u2019re on live TV with people, there\u2019s a nakedness to that,\u201d Simmons explained<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really have to trust people that you\u2019re with. And I\u2019ve been in situations where you really trust the people that you\u2019re with and it\u2019s great, and I\u2019ve been in situations where I did not trust at least one of the people I was with, and it sucks. Because if somebody tries to flip something on you or make you look bad in some way or screw you up on live TV \u2026 it\u2019s just f*cked up.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I felt like that moment, whether Ryan intended to do that or not, he was doing it in a way to put Peter on his heels on live TV. And live TV is a \u2018we\u2019 thing, it\u2019s not a zero-sum game. You\u2019re on a show, everybody\u2019s gotta win if you\u2019re doing the show. Once you bring that element into it, it\u2019s really hard to put the genie back in the bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Later, Simmons said he believed Clark\u2019s point \u2014that a losing player in an NFL game would always feel worse than a winning player, regardless of how they individually performed in the game \u2014was \u201cinteresting.\u201d Simmons also acknowledged that Clark apologized<\/a> to Schrager and clearly regretted the incident.<\/p>\n \u201cHe apologized for it, and he obviously knows, \u2018Hey man, that\u2019s not where I want to be when I\u2019m doing television,’\u201d Simmons added.<\/p>\n However, he used the situation to highlight how these dynamics play out and what goes into producing the live content that sports fans love. He described why he believes the chemistry and team play in media is getting worse as platforms prioritize \u201clouder\u201d takes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so easy to undermine somebody when you\u2019re doing any kind of show with them. You can undermine somebody\u2019s point in all these subtle ways, with how you\u2019re sitting, with what your demeanor is, no-selling,\u201d Simmons said. \u201cSome people on TV, especially now, as the louder and louder you get on TV, the more people notice you, the professional wrestling, selling part seems to be going out the window a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Schrager has been a recurring guest on\u00a0The Bill Simmons Podcast for years and once co-hosted a show for The Ringer. In this case, Simmons was not merely defending his friend but also illustrating why the Clark callout became such big news<\/a> in media circles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beneath the surface of the silly argument over players and non-players in sports media that broke out after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358677,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11562,7,6,7645,5679,25225],"class_list":{"0":"post-358676","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-bill-simmons","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-peter-schrager","12":"tag-ryan-clark","13":"tag-the-bill-simmons-podcast"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115183988487008313","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}