This is probably good for Bill Simmons and good for NBA Countdown. ESPN had some chemistry issues with its studio show, and Simmons seemed to be a reluctant participant.

Now Simmons get his own show. Yet another toy to play with under the ESPN umbrella.

The official announcement from ESPN:

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ESPN will debut the first Grantland-branded television series – The Grantland Basketball Show – featuring Grantland Editor-in-chief Bill Simmons, on Tuesday, October 21, at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Grantland Basketball Show will feature lively discussion about a variety of NBA topics, facilitated by Simmons, with a rotating group of Grantland commentators and other contributors. Up to 18 one-hour, primetime episodes of The Grantland Basketball Show will air throughout the NBA season on ESPN, including eight during the regular-season and eight during the NBA Playoffs and NBA Finals. Other episodes are planned for the NBA Draft and the NBA’s free agency period.

The Grantland Basketball Show will emanate from ESPN’s Los Angeles Production Center. Elements from the show will also be showcased on several ESPN platforms, including SportsCenter and Grantland. As a result of the new NBA opportunity, Simmons will no longer appear as an analyst on NBA Countdown. He will continue to serve as Editor-in-chief of Grantland and co-executive producer of 30 for 30.

The Grantland Basketball Show will be created as one of the first projects from ESPN’s new Exit 31 production studio, overseen by Marie Donoghue, [senior vice president, global strategy, business development and business affairs].  Production for The Grantland Basketball Show will be overseen by Connor Schell, [vice president and executive producer, ESPN Films and original content].

John Wildhack, executive vice president, production and programming:

“We’re thrilled that Bill will continue to have a presence as part of ESPN’s NBA television efforts. The nature of The Grantland Basketball Show schedule will allow Bill to stay connected to the sport he loves, while focusing on his other priorities, including the successful Grantland site and the acclaimed 30 for 30 series.”

Marie Donoghue, senior vice president, global strategy, business development and business affairs:

“The Grantland Basketball Show is a great step forward for Grantland as it continues to evolve and to expand its presence across ESPN platforms. In addition, this show is precisely the type of innovative, smart content we’re aiming to create at Exit 31. Bill is one of the industry’s leading commentators, who also happens to be a human NBA encyclopedia, with a vast knowledge of the league and its history. We couldn’t be more excited to work with Bill and help bring his vision to life.”

Johnny Manziel also is a ratings machine in the pros.

Saturday’s Cleveland-Detroit game featuring the young quarterback generated the highest rating ever for a preseason game during the 11-year run on NFL Network. The telecast averaged nearly 3 million viewers, trouncing the previous high (2007 Hall of Fame game between Pittsburgh-New Orleans) by 36 percent.

Manziel entered the game midway through the second quarter during the Lions’ 13-12 victory. He completed 7 of 11 passes for 63 yards and rushed for another 27 yards.

You can expect ESPN will turn up the hype machine for Manziel even higher this week. The network will air the Browns-Washington game Monday night.

As a sports guy, when I heard the news about Robin Williams yesterday, one of my first thoughts was about this classic scene.

Dan Le Batard addressed his two-game, err, two-day suspension by ESPN for purchasing a LeBron James billboard in Akron.

In a column for theticketmiami.com, Le Batard writes that he was just trying to have fun.

I found myself, a little bit by accident and a little bit not, at the center of a funny national sports mess last week. I chose to have some fun in the corporate-sponsored cathedral we’ve made of sports. The episode became a blasphemy, and I was made to pay a two-day penance for my sins. It was a suspension I earned and deserved, by the way, but we’ll get to that soon enough.

The whole experience was turbulent and endlessly entertaining madness. And it worked out for me a lot better than it did for my bosses, though it worked out for them, too. In retrospect, though, the experience was in keeping with my entire sports outlook, irreverently viewing a fun-and-games world I believe most people view way, way too reverently.

Le Batard then details how the stunt unfolded. It’s all there if you want to read it.

Eventually, he addresses the ESPN element.

ESPN didn’t find this quite as funny as I did. I hadn’t checked with my supervisors. I had gone rogue with a local stunt in a national venue in a rah-rah way that isn’t really how ESPN does business. So I was told to suspend the plane flight and whatever shenanigans we had planned for LeBron’s Akron homecoming. I said I would not and could not because we were building this up for days on the radio to a crescendo and to simply stop talking about it and not do it with no mention would be dumb, inauthentic, confusing and not me. I was polite about it, but I was insubordinate. I refused to budge. We were flying the plane. So I was suspended, as I should have been. If I’d actually believed in any of this, I might have flown the plane anyway, even while on suspension, but this would be a pretty silly cause for which to lose your job.

Le Batard then writes.

I say all this because everyone sided with me in the matter of LeBatard vs. ESPN. I mean, everyone. I’m used to being unpopular. I’m used to having opinions people don’t like. I’ve never had this many people behind me on an issue … even though I didn’t believe in my actual cause … and even though I understand exactly why ESPN had to suspend me because, you know, I have more information than the people applauding me, and I was insubordinate.

Now, we can have a different discussion about whether ESPN was too self-serious about protecting its brand in this instance from harmless billboards, a plane and general fun-having. I obviously think so. I got suspended in part for thinking so. Billboards and planes — what’s the big deal? I don’t think I should have been forced into being insubordinate.

I suppose I’m in the minority here. I was critical of what Le Batard did here.

A network needs to have some sort of standards. Otherwise, you’ll have people pulling similar stunts all over the place, and there’s the potential for many of them to explode in ESPN’s face.

As I wrote Friday, I expect this suspension also is related to his earlier move to give his Hall of Fame vote to Deadspin. ESPN is telling him, enough with the stunts.

It had been a mostly bleak year for the majors. The combination of no Tiger Woods and a lack of drama in the three previous majors was deadly, leading to some historic low ratings.

Then there was Sunday. The last round of the PGA Championship reminded everyone about what Sunday at a major is all about.

Not only was action thrilling, and the finish on 18 truly bizarre, the afternoon rain delay pushed the climax into primetime on CBS. It should result in a nice rating for the network when it comes out later today.

More importantly, it got everyone talking about golf again. The final round will serve as a transition of sorts, with the new era, Rory McIlroy and Rickie Fowler, battling the old era, 44-year-old Phil Mickelson. The veteran nearly pulled it out, but ultimately the day belonged to the new face of golf.

With his second straight major in the bag and fourth overall, McIlroy is showing he is the kind of player who can get non golf fans to tune in when his name is on the leaderboard.

Wrote Gene Wojciechowski at ESPN.com:

McIlroy isn’t just collecting trophies; he’s making golf relevant again. Or he should be.

He wins big. He wins small. He wins here. He wins over there. He wins sublimely. He wins boringly. But he wins. And if Woods and Nicklaus have proved anything over the years, winning matters.

“It’s beginning to look a little Tiger-esque, I suppose,” said fellow Northern Irishman Graeme McDowell. “I said to [reporters] at the Open, I didn’t think we were going to see the new Tiger era, as in someone creating their own kind of Tiger-esque era just yet. I guess you could say — I’m not eating my words, but I’m certainly starting to chew on them right now.”

Chew on these numbers: McIlroy has won four majors before his 26th birthday.

“So it’s a case of how the guy continues to motivate himself,” said McDowell. “You don’t know what the number is. It’s however many he wants, you know. He’ll win as many majors as he wants — within reason.”

From a media perspective, McIlroy definitely will be a much more likable face of golf than Woods. He is much more accessible and candid than the former No. 1, who rarely makes him available beyond the required press conferences.

Writes Wojciechowski:

There is a humility to McIlroy, an accessibility. He has committed his share of off-course sins, but immediately owned them.

Indeed, the only problem with yesterday was the deadly slow play on the front 9. It was interesting to note how fast the players moved on the back 9 in a bid to finish before the light completely disappeared. Perhaps, if they played with that mindset all the time, the game would be more enjoyable to watch.

But that’s a minor quibble about Sunday.

After McIlroy won the British Open, Sports Illustrated put him on the cover, looking ahead to next year’s Masters. Hey, what about the PGA?

SI was premature then, but not anymore. Not after Sunday. The countdown has begun: 242 days until Augusta.

It also is a long enough time for Woods to get healthy and regain his game. CBS can only dream of the ratings possibilities of McIlroy-Woods showdown in Augusta.

Late Friday, Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead broke the news about a first in sports TV:

CBS Sports will make television history in September when it debuts the first all-female sports talk show, the network confirmed exclusively to The Big Lead.

The weekly show, which will air on CBS Sports Network, will not only feature an all-female cast, but will also be produced and directed by women.

“We’re really excited and proud to be launching the first ever all female sports talk show,” David Berson, the President of CBS Sports told The Big Lead. “We have been discussing and developing the show for well over a year. Internally and externally, there’s been universal enthusiasm and across-the-board support.”

Berson would not confirm any names connected to the show – it’s still unclear if the as-yet titled show will have one central host – but people familiar with the show’s plans who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details were supposed to remain confidential revealed to The Big Lead six names who are expected to be regulars: CBS Sports veteran Lesley Visser, Dana Jacobson (who previously worked at ESPN), CBS NFL analyst Amy Trask, and sideline reporters Allie LaForce, Tracy Wolfson and Jenny Dell.

It’s a great idea, considering the lack of women on these shows. Last week, Paul Fahri of the Washington Post wrote a column about the issue:

ESPN, the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports,” has had just two female panelists (Jackie MacMullan and Jemele Hill) among the 33 regular and guest panelists who have appeared on “Around the Horn,” its signature daily debate show, since the program started in 2002. “The Sports Reporters,” another ESPN blabfest, is somewhat better: It has put seven women on as regular or semi-regular panelists over the program’s 26-year run. (ESPN declined to comment for this story.)

Among the top 100 sports-radio programs ranked by the trade magazine Talkers last year — a list containing 183 hosts and co-hosts — only two women made an appearance (Fox Sports Radio co-host Amy Van Dyken, whose program was ranked No. 76; and Dana Jacobson of CBS Sports Radio at No. 99).

Of the 143 sports pundits whose picks and predictions are tracked by the Web site Pundittracker, only one is a woman (Ramona Shelburne, a columnist for ESPN.com’s Los Angeles site).

Now to be fair to ESPN, its espnW is focused on women’s sports and the network has numerous women in anchor positions. Focusing on one show doesn’t tell the complete story.

Fahri looks at sports talk radio. He writes:

A different dynamic may be at play in sports radio. Women just aren’t clamoring to become hosts of the pugnacious call-in shows that dominate the format, says Chuck Sapienza, vice president of programming for ESPN 980 and Sportstalk570, two Washington-area stations owned by Redskins owner Daniel Snyder.

“Most women interested in broadcasting are interested in TV,” he says. “We try [to attract women]. We try a lot. It’s next to impossible.”

Sapienza regularly asks would-be interns and young job candidates about their career ambitions. Many of the young men want to break into, or move up in, sports radio. But Sapienza says, “I’ve never had a young woman tell me she wants to be a radio talk-show host. They want to be on ‘SportsCenter.’ They want to be sideline reporters.”

Indeed, there is some truth there. In my short experience teaching sports journalism at DePaul, the majority of my women students were interested in being the next Erin Andrews or Pam Oliver.

Ultimately, it is about creating role models. One of them is my old friend, Christine Brennan, the columnist for USA Today.

Brennan herself is proof of the improving climate. A one-time panelist on “The Sports Reporters,” she is a regular sports commentator on NPR and on such ABC News shows as “Good Morning America” and “Nightline.” “I’m doing more TV in my 50s than I did in my 30s and 40s,” she says.

Having more women on sports broadcasts isn’t just a question of equity, she argues, it’s smart business.

“TV sports has just about maxed out the male audience,” Brennan says. “If you want to grow your ratings, you’ve got millions of girls and women in this country who are growing up to be consumers of sports news and products. They’re obviously used to hearing a man talk about sports. But maybe there’s a 12-year-old girl somewhere who hears a woman’s voice and says, ‘Let’s watch.’ And the sport and the network have just created a new fan.”

My problem with Dan Le Batard is that I still view him as a journalist. He had a highly successful run as a columnist at the Miami Herald and still works at the paper as a contributor.

Le Batard the journalist wouldn’t take out a billboard ad in Akron mocking LeBron James leaving the Miami Heat. Even if he were so inclined, there’s no way his sports editor would allow it.

Journalists report the news; they don’t make it.

However, Le Batard the sports talks radio personality did take out the billboard ad. His station approved it.

I suppose the rules are different. Radio personalities have to do things to call attention to themselves. That’s how you get listeners.

Now here’s the catch. His station is an ESPN affiliate.The Bristol folks weren’t as amused by Le Batard’s stunt, especially since he didn’t get an OK to do it in advance. ESPN decided to send him to the bench for two days.

Did ESPN go too far here? When I posted news of the suspension yesterday in a Tweet questioning Le Batard’s motives, I got several responses telling me to lighten up.

Paul Pabst, the executive producer of Dan Patrick’s show, replied to me, saying Le Batard’s did it, “because he’s not boring.”

When I asked if Patrick would take out a similar billboard, Pabst said, “Maybe. Our show is strewn with comic relief, I hope.”

Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald had more on the situation, including a text from Le Batard to Herald Greg Cote: “I guess ESPN didn’t find it all quite as funny as I did.”

Jackson also had this:

I asked Maureen Lesourd, general manager of 790 The Ticket, if she thought the ESPN suspension was unfair and unwarranted. She said because 790 is an ESPN affiliate, “I don’t feel I should comment one way or the other. Am I happy I don’t have Dan’s show on today? Of course I’m not happy. I love Dan. He’s a great contributor to the station.”

But later in the day, she said: “The fans were offended, so for The Ticket it was a brilliant local promotion and meant for fun, but I have to respect stunts like this don’t work for a national outlet like ESPN.”

Again, did ESPN go too far here? Remember, Le Batard attracted considerable national attention for another stunt last January when he gave his Hall of Fame vote to Deadspin.

Perhaps his benching is ESPN telling him, enough with the stunts.

Regardless, I am going to have to change my view on Le Batard. I’ll have to look at him as a radio/TV guy, not a journalist.

Nicely done by Sports Illustrated.

From the magazine.

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For its 60th anniversary cover, Sports Illustrated asked readers to submit photos of themselves playing a sport, being a fan or wearing their favorite team’s gear.

The photos from thousands of people who responded were used in a photomosaic recreation of SI’s first cover, from Aug. 16, 1954, which featured Milwaukee Braves third baseman Eddie Mathews, New York Giants catcher Wes Westrum and umpire Augie Donatelli.

The photomosaic anniversary cover, which features 1,596 photos, seemed like an out-of-the box idea, but it was a logical choice.

“In thinking about what we should do about this cover, we really wanted to make it less about us and more about the people that read the magazine,” Chris Hercik, Sports Illustrated Sports Group’s Creative Director, said. “It’s about doing something different. This mosaic was weeks in the making, but the bottom line is that we wanted to celebrate the sports fan.”

Over 3,069 covers in the last 60 years – some iconic, some head-scratching, some controversial – Sports Illustrated’s main focus through its storytelling and photos was to engage readers, provide thought-provoking commentary and inform. Although society at large has changed, fans’ thirst for sports has not.

Featured in this issue are a look back on the sports landscape over the last six decades, a feature on new Cleveland Cavaliers head coach David Blatt and some of SI’s cover regrets.

SI’s Steve Rushin takes readers on a journey through the eyes of Los Angeles Dodgers legendary announcer Vin Scully, who is in his 65th year of broadcasting, as Scully navigates the team’s move from Brooklyn, sees athletes come to earn huge salaries because of television contracts and experiences social media changing the way the fans engage the athletes they are cheering for (or against).

Rushin sums up the last six decades: “And so anyone who wants to understand the last 60 years in sports, the journey from the Regency TR-1 to the iPhone5s, who do well to stop at Dodger Stadium, high atop Chavez Revine. Vin embodies changes on the field, changes in technology, changes in the economics of sports. And all of that in a guy who may be the best storyteller in the history of broadcasting.”

Scully will call the Dodgers game against the Milwaukee Brewers this year on Aug. 16, just as he did sixty years ago when the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Philadelphia Phillies on Aug. 16, 1954.

“Sixty years and a continent separate those two games,” Rushin writes, “between which everything changed and – he (Scully) is quick to say, surveying that beautiful ball field – ‘nothing much has changed at all.'”

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Also, Richard Rothschild, writing at SI.com, reviews the sports landscape in 1954 when Sports Illustrated made its debut.

Imagine a sports landscape ruled by baseball, where college football is more popular than the National Football League, horse racing and boxing draw bigger interest than either pro or college basketball and the year’s signature athletic achievement takes place on a track in Oxford, England.

There are as many major league teams in upstate New York as on the entire West Coast and only two franchises west of St. Louis. There are two big league baseball clubs in Philadelphia, two NFL teams in Chicago and NBA franchises in Syracuse, Rochester and Fort Wayne, Indiana. There are no major league sports in Miami, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Denver or Seattle.

Such was the state of athletics when Sports Illustrated printed its first edition 60 years ago on Aug. 16, 1954. Legends Joe DiMaggio, Joe Louis, Sammy Baugh and Bob Mathias were recently retired. Contemporary champions Rocky Marciano, George Mikan and Otto Graham soon would join them on the sidelines.

It has been a while, but Jason Whitlock’s site is starting to come together. The new editor has impressive credentials.

From ESPN:

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ESPN Digital & Print Media today announced that award-winning journalist Amy DuBois Barnett will join ESPN as Executive Editor of Jason Whitlock’s upcoming site that will provide coverage, commentary and insight about sports and culture directed towards an African-American audience.  In this role, Barnett will manage editorial operations for the site.  She will report to Whitlock, founder and Editor-in-Chief.

“Amy’s impressive resume across a wide range of publications and brands, as well as her leadership experience, will ensure that the site will be at the forefront of news and commentary relevant to African-Americans,” said Whitlock.  “Together, we aim to serve audiences with quality and innovative journalism when the site debuts.”

“We continue to attract highly-acclaimed editors that bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the ESPN Digital & Print Media team, and Amy is a prime example,” added Patrick Stiegman, vice president and editorial director, ESPN Digital & Print Media.  “She and Jason are building a tremendous team that will speak to, entertain, inform and serve African-American audiences about sports and culture.”

Most recently, Barnett was Editor-in-Chief of Ebony, the oldest and largest African-American magazine in the country. At Ebony, Barnett executed the publication’s first top-to-bottom redesign in its 68-year history and also re-launched Ebony.com, both to critical acclaim.

Prior to Ebony, Barnett was the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar. Barnett was also the Managing Editor of Teen People. Before Teen People, Barnett served as Editor-in-Chief of Honey magazine where she oversaw a major redesign of the magazine.  Prior to Honey, Barnett was with Essence magazine, heading up the publication’s style content and lifestyle department.

For her work as a journalist, Barnett was named the 2012 Media Executive of the Year by Target Market News.  In 2013, she was included on the Folio 100, a list that honors the most innovative and influential professionals in magazine media.

This past school year, Barnett was also an Adjunct Professor of Management & Organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, teaching a Spring semester class on Shifting Business Frameworks in Media and Entertainment.

A Brown University graduate, Barnett also has an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing from Columbia University.