I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been a bigger variety of podcast guests for Bill. When he first started The Ringer and Any Guven Wednesday for HBO, he hinted that "the better" guests were being saved for TV. Well, the show's been dead for about a year now, and the guests are pretty much the same: employees of the Ringer, and his usual buddies (House, JackO, his dad, etc.) Yes, I know he's gotten a few good outside guests like Durant, but that's more the exception than the rule.

I'm only surprised because Bill was with ESPN for over ten years, and I would've thought he would've made a huge number of contacts and resources to draw on. Part of the promise of The Ringer (which is why fans of Bill like myself get so annoyed with him) is that he repeatedly claimed that ESPN had always "held him back" on Grantland, and The Ringer would be better. It's not. And one of the reasons why is he keeps going to the same few podcast guests over and over again, mostly Ringer employees who cheerfully agree with everything Bill says and don't otherwise bring much interesting to the table.

I suppose it's possible that ESPN has effectively embargoed a lot of guests from coming on any Ringer podcasts. (I know they did something similar to Mike Francesa's radio show on WFAN, so there's precedent.) But I get the feeling that Bill prefers being the expert in the echo chamber of The Ringer, rather than being challenged by other guests' ideas, and that's a shame.