Bill Simmons asked, and ESPN listened.
The sports analyst went on a profanity-laced tirade against NFL commissioner Roger Goodell during Monday’s episode of his “B.S. Report” podcast, calling Goodell a “liar” for claiming he never saw the second Ray Rice tape.
Simmons continued by challenging ESPN to tell him that he’s “in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell.” The sports network obliged him Wednesday, suspending him for three weeks for failing to “operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards.”
Here is the full statement from ESPN:
“Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards. We have worked hard to ensure that our recent NFL coverage has met that criteria. Bill Simmons did not meet those obligations in a recent podcast, and as a result we have suspended him for three weeks.”
Simmons certainly isn’t the first member of the media to criticize Goodell, but his obscene language and brash call-out of his employer was apparently a bit too over the top.
Simmons had yet to comment on his suspension as of Wednesday.
