HBO announced today that Bill Simmons’ Any Given Wednesday is getting the ax. The sports and pop culture show will air its last episode on Wednesday, November 9. The first season was supposed to run for 20 episodes, but it will now wrap up after 17. Via Variety, here’s Simmons on the show’s cancellation.
“One of the many reasons I joined HBO was to see if we could create a show built around smart conversations for sports fans and pop culture junkies. We loved making that show, but unfortunately it never resonated with audiences like we hoped. And that’s on me,” Simmons said. “But I love being a part of HBO’s family and look forward to innovating with them on other ambitious programming ideas over these next several years – both for the network and for digital. With that said, I want to thank the dedicated staff that worked so diligently with me behind the scenes to make this show every week – we hired so many great and talented people and I loved having them in my life. It’s difficult for me to imagine not working with them anymore.”
Any Given Wednesday royally sucked and Simmons is pretty awful on television, but I’m still excited to see what else he can cook up with HBO. I used to read Simmons’ columns religiously back in the day and he’s the man who brought the transcendent 30 for 30 documentary series to television, so I’m hoping he’s still got some magic left in him.
But if not, at least we’ll always have Ben Affleck losing his goddamn mind over Deflategate.
