ESPN Giving Bill Simmons New Show 'The Grantland Basketball Show' Premiering October 2014, Leaving 'NBA Countdown'

 

ESPN Giving Bill Simmons New Show 'The Grantland Basketball Show' Premiering October 2014, Leaving 'NBA Countdown' 

Bill Simmons is leaving ESPN's "NBA Countdown" crew, where he has been for the past three seasons, and is getting to host his own new show titled "The Grantland Basketball Show".

ESPN officially announced the new show Tuesday afternoon and gave some details. "The Grantland Basketball Show" will premiere on October 21, at 8pm and will air 18 episodes on ESPN throughout the NBA season and playoffs.

Simmons will host the show, which will feature a "lively discussion" about mainly NBA related topics along with some pop culture thrown in. Grantland contributors and other guests will join Simmons on the show each week. 

Besides leaving "NBA Countdown", where he hosted with Sage Steele, Jalen Rose, and Doug Collins last season, he will keep his other responsibilities at ESPN (no word on the replacement for "NBA Countdown" yet). Among these are his co-executive producer position for ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series.

In March 2014, ESPN bundled Grantland, FiveThirtyEight and ESPN Films, into a new unit, Exit 31. 

"It really is about figuring out how to bring these other talents and other disciplines to bear on ESPN, and even ABC News a little bit through our FiveThirtyEight relationship with them," Marie Donoghue, ESPN's senior V.P. of global strategy, business development and business affairs, and the executive in charge of Exit 31, told Capital at the time. "We will look for the best, most effective way to tell the stories, and not necessarily be governed by which platform we are working on."

 

 

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