Bill Simmons has been out of ESPN for two years, but couldn’t help himself on Wednesday when asked what advice he has for his former employer.
In an interview at the Code Conference at the Terranea resort in California, Simmons said ESPN’s current problems can be traced to a leadership vacuum that emerged after the company’s business chief, George Bodenheimer, left at the end of 2011.
While former content chief John Skipper took over for Bodenheimer in title, the business side has in reality been run by a committee, Simmons claimed.
“When you lose your closer and a team says we have all these set-up guys ... it never works and I think that’s what they did,” he said, using a baseball analogy to make his point.
Simmons also said ESPN should have had a presence in Silicon Valley. “The other mistake they made, they had to realize they were a technology company.”
Here’s the full video:
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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