Mike and Mike Talk about Defusing Bill Simmons Bomb, Inadvertently Describe Everything That's Wrong with Their Own Show

I love this. Mike and Mike this morning addressed the fallout from Bill Simmons’ (mostly correct) Twitter explosion in which he responded to comments the Mikes made about his supposedly ridiculous LeBron take. The story is the most ESPN thing ever – nonsense segment spawns internal strife spawns pseudo-lovey mea culpas – but it also cut to the core of what’s wrong with ESPN and mainstream sports media in general.

Both Mikes said they spoke to Simmons yesterday and, at least to a degree, patched things up. That’s nice. But while explaining their errors, they inadvertently described exactly what’s wrong with the HOT TAKE world of mainstream sports media in 2014, something that Simmons, to his credit, is trying to get away from with Grantland.

Here’s how the Mikes described what happened:

Mike 1: “And there was a soundbite that had been left for us of Bill Simmons appearing on Colin Cowherd’s show in which I saw on the sheet it says, compares him to Albert Pujols. And so I thought, that sounds interesting. We played that, we reacted to it.”

Mike 2: “I certainly reacted strongly. And from that soundbite we heard, you know, for the way I reacted, I would do it again… if it were just that soundbite.”

Mike 1: “Right. And the day went on, and later in the day, as many of you probably saw, Bill heard what we said and was extremely upset about it. And when I went back and read everything that had actually been said, I realized that in the substance of what he’s mad about, he’s absolutely right… in fairness to him, let’s play exactly what he said.”

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Mike 2: “He stated his case, and what you brought up about the context, I understood, how again, in sports, I think anybody who does shows, plays soundbites, and a lot of times you play a lot of soundbites and you don’t listen to the whole interview, and sometimes it happens where there was more said. So he understood that part of it, but I said I would be upset if I were you in that situation.”

Bingo. Therein lies the problem.

This whole thing is stupid and basically pointless, but the Mikes just described what’s wrong with their format. A 20-something producer finds something interesting that might help fill four hours of sometimes pointless banter, he cuts it up into a digestible bite, leaves out the part that makes it uninteresting, busy radio host going on four hours sleep sees note, plays digestible bite, rips colleague for no reason, rinse and repeat. That’s the ESPN car wash. Everything’s about react, react, react, but substance is often a secondary consideration. Both Mike 1 and Mike 2 just admitted that their entire show is based on soundbites which are often taken terribly out-of-context. They had to swallow their pride here because Simmons is precisely the person to make a stink about it. But how many other times have their nonsensical, react-to-dumb-soundbite segments spawned wildly-misinformed takes? How many times has any I-have-too-many-hours-to-fill ESPN or radio or TV host done the same thing? That’s what happens when you’re constantly chasing ratings and filling time. Instead of actual, substance-filled discussions, conversations usually lay atop the surface for the dumb masses. I’d call it entertainment, but often, it’s not even entertaining. It’s just noise. And here you have the hosts of the biggest sports talk radio show on Earth (probably?) admitting that, yeah, we just go by what’s on the sheet… you can’t expect us to actually read the whole thing we’re telling hundreds of thousands of people about.

This often isn’t the hosts’ fault, either. The Mikes genuinely try to avoid going for shock value (unlike Cowherd or Skip Bayless), but they’re a product of the system, of a format that breeds this sort of inanity.

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Somewhat unrelated, but try this sometime: Listen to the actual words coming out of the mouth of a pre- or post-game analyst, on any network. Rarely – and I mean rarely – will you ever hear something that is actually useful. It’s just words. A former player or other analyst breaking down a confusing play or blown call can be interesting, but rarely does that happen, because 30 (or more) minutes of analysis for every game is too much. Sometimes sports just happen. Teams win, teams lose. The reasons are often pretty mundane – Team A is better than Team B, Team B is better but they succumb to random variables – but in the 24-7 sports world, there’s always time to be filled, and usually it’s with generic nonsense.

Video after the jump.