Bill C to ESPN
Link to his twitter announcement.
Posted last week about him leaving SBNation, here's the announcement on his landing spot. His Twitter note says that S&P+ will continue, as will his team previews although the format for the rest of this year's will be different.
As long as we get Bill on a new podcast to fill the PAPN void (ideally keeping the same focus on smaller schools, numbers, the tasting menu etc. just with a less obnoxious cohost), this seems like an overall positive news. A bigger platform for Bill is good IMO.
This will hopefully mean the same Bill with even more resources at his disposal. A college football Bill Barnwell.
And now 100% less Godfrey!
For those old folks like me who see "Bill C" and might wonder why ESPN would've hired either Cosby or Clinton, it's Bill Connelly.
He's always been my favorite Scottish comedian....
That'd be Billy Connolly
I don’t think Bill Cosby is Scottish.
pretty sure cosby is incarcerated, not scottish....
Cosby could be an Irish twin.
Completely understandable op didn't have time or sense to actually type out his last name.
ES&P+N?
If they shove his content behind the ESPN+ paywall I will be very sad
That thought didn't even cross my mind. That would suck for sure.
No Joke. Like 12 years ago the ESPN online subscription gave you access to Kieth Law, Buster Olney, NFL scouting reports, John Hollinger's stuff, and loads of juicy rumors you can't get anywhere else.
Now we have much better alternatives for scouting, stats, and rumors for all the major sports, and Olney (though fantastic) was not worth a subscription all on his own.
This was the first thing that crossed my mind.
I paid the $29.99 for The Athletic subscription. I'm tired of ESPN and their NBA overload coverage. Really enjoying the writing (with no commercials, ads etc by the way) the Athletic offers up. I almost forgot that type of journalism still existed. A lot of good former journalists from ESPN have found their way over there. Surprised Bill C is moving to ESPN.
It's weird - I've found The Athletic to be remarkably, um, unremarkable. It's probably just me, but it feels like a collection of newspaper columnists, which means you get a couple bits of useful info and a TON of "access" journalism that is sorta useless. I'm not in love with ESPN one iota, but the Athletic feels like a site designed to get my uncle to read it instead of the newspaper, and that it will become just a junkier analog in short order.
That's a pretty fair description of it but there is a fair amount of content there to keep me busy during these dog days of summer. Some good CFB content by team as well that I like in addition to all the quirky baseball related articles. There was also a nice Michigan baseball write up on the front page this morning.
I also really like the state of the programs piece they do all summer. Gives me a good overview of teams without going too crazy into advanced stats like Bill C's previews can. I bought the athletic during a sale this summer and want to see what football season is like before deciding if I want to renew.
Every time I think I can sorta get rid of ESPN as a site to visit, they pull me back in.
Congrats to Bill C for the move, and hopefully ESPN doesn't screw up S&P+ or make it into some weird "look, the SEC is amazing" analog. As for PAPN, he'll wind up releasing a new podcast that will have 100% less Godfrey and that will make it better.
To be fair recently S&P+ has already been an "SEC is amazing" analog. Bill's #s always love SEC teams and consistently rate it as the best conference.
I think it's true that Bill's numbers usually rate the SEC as the best conference, but that's true about almost everybody's numbers. Bill's numbers still usually undervalue the SEC compared to other systems.
For example, look at the 2018-19 final rankings and compare Bill's numbers with ESPN's. ESPN's numbers come first, Bill's second.
Alabama 1 | 1
Georgia 3 | 3
LSU 17 | 12
Florida 11 | 13
TAMU 13 | 18
Kentucky 26 | 41
Miss. St. 9 | 15
Auburn 12 | 17
Missouri 14 | 20
S. Car. 35 | 38
Vanderbilt 53 | 73
Tenn 65 | 88
Ole Miss 58 | 68
Arkansas 91 | 94
ESPN ranks SEC teams higher virtually across the board.
I think it's a pretty safe bet that some mystery variable will be employed to "fix" S&P so that it tells us what ESPN wants it to tell us.
Agree. Happy for him and looking forward to what's to come.