Bill Simmons' Fan Perspective
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Shaan Puri shares how Bill Simmons changed sports journalism by writing from an authentic fan perspective.
"Bill Simmons changed the game for what he does. Every sports journalist did things one way, he just did it differently. He wrote from the perspective of a fan. He was like 'What are the rules if you're a journalist? You need to be objective.' He's like 'How can I be objective? I follow sports because I love the Boston Red Sox, I love the Celtics, I'm from Boston, my dad used to take me to the games.'
He decided 'I'm gonna write as a die-hard fan. When my team wins I'm gonna be so happy, when my team loses the sky is falling.' That was super relatable to readers because that's who your reader is - a die-hard sports fan. He didn't pretend to be objective.
Then he would write columns like 'If NBA players were characters in Die Hard, here's who would be Bruce Willis.' He would do these crossovers that nobody else took risks on. He was doing podcasting before it was popular. Now he has the number one sports podcast and sold his company to Spotify for $200 million. There was never really any plan you could draw up for how that podcast was going to make him $200 million someday, but he did it because he thought it was fun and cool."
Shaan Puri
Host of MFM
Shaan Puri is the Chairman and Co-Founder of The Milk Road. He previously worked at Twitch as a Senior Director of Product, Mobile Gaming, and Emerging Markets. He also attended Duke University.