Bill Simmons is a writer, analyst, podcaster, producer and founder/CEO of The Ringer. But the one thing you really need to know about this native of Marlborough, Massachusetts, is that he loves Boston sports. Like, loves Boston sports. The kind of love in which nothing else matters except for family . . . maybe.
Yet Simmons didn’t approach the new nine-part HBO docuseries Celtics City — which chronicles the championship-laden history of Boston’s NBA team and its societal impact off the court — as a mere super-fan. "The Celtics were in the NBA starting from Day 1," he explains. "So we felt like there was a chance to really elevate a story around the Celtics and how they intersected with sports and race in America."
Oh, there was one more incentive: "We saw that the Lakers were doing a docuseries," he says of 2022’s Legacy: The True Story of the L.A. Lakers, "And we knew we had to be better."
Though Simmons has amassed a fervent following on social media thanks to his no-nonsense sports and pop culture takes, he’s proven to be a star in the documentary producing world. Celtics City comes from his Ringer Films, which he launched in 2017. The studio was also behind the recent Netflix series Mr. McMahon, which explored the career of controversial wrestling promoter Vince McMahon. The film Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary debuted in November as part of its Music Box anthology series on HBO.
And in 2007, it was Simmons who helped pitch and conceive the idea for ESPN's groundbreaking and Emmy-winning 30 for 30 documentaries. Back then, "Sports documentaries were at a different stage and you could get anybody you wanted," he says. "Now they’re a part of so many content strategies and [athletes] are hesitant to do them."
He had to raise his game for Celtics City, which premiered March 3. The series features soundbites from current Celtics like Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and head coach Joe Mazzulla, as well as interviews with legends Doc Rivers, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. (FWIW, Lakers great James Worthy sat down to talk as well.) Simmons notes that generational icons Bird and Garnett were "the two we were just crossing our fingers for the whole time hoping they’d agree to do it"
Simmons agreed to do his My Seven Shows list with the lament that a few of his favorites just couldn’t make the cut. Dock a point for Curb Your Enthusiasm for being a touch too recent. The Challenge "has been turned into an athletic competition, which isn’t interesting to me." Beverly Hills 90210 is the show he’s watched the most over time, but "the first couple seasons are dated." Now he puts more of those critical skills to use for The Television Academy.
Saturday Night Live (1975-, NBC)
I started watching when I was about 10. It felt dangerous to stay up late for it, like I was pulling a power play on my parents. That was Season 5 — at the end of the Bill Murray and John Belushi cast when NBC was showing these 'Best of SNL' shows. Then Eddie Murphy showed up, and he was like a comet. SNL has evolved over the years, but it’s impacted me in the way I think about what's funny and not funny and even in how I relate to my friends. It’s still a hit-or-miss show, but you tend to forget the misses and only remember the hits.
The White Shadow (1978-81, CBS)
When it came on . . . I’m a kid growing up in Boston. I love basketball. I love TV. I’m an only child. And here was this show about this high-school basketball team in L.A. with characters that just weren't anywhere else on TV except maybe Good Times. It was basically like an Afterschool Special, but way better. And the guy who produced it, Bruce Paltrow, ended up doing St. Elsewhere. The first two seasons were good; the third season was bad. Then it went away. But it left a great-looking corpse.
Late Night with David Letterman (1982-93, NBC)
I’m talking about the NBC years. I used to tape it on my VCR and probably got into it about five or six months [after it premiered] because it was buried at 12:30 at night. I felt like it was the first show that somebody created specifically for me. I wasn’t sure anyone else was even watching it! I remember he went to Los Angeles for a week in 1984 or 1985. He had Johnny Carson on, and Eddie Van Halen sat in with the band [from May 16 1985]. It was honestly, like, one of the greatest moments of my life. It was very vindicating when Letterman went on to become a real big star.
Cheers (1982-93, NBC)
A great show set in Boston had an appeal to me, of course. But Cheers is still the best TV sitcom of all time. I'll fight that battle with anybody. There were also long stretches in an episode where there weren't any laughs. Like it was a real TV show — especially when Coach [Nicholas Colasanto] was alive. After he died in real life [in 1985], it felt like a family member died. And Sam [Ted Danson] and Diane [Shelley Long]'s relationship was the first relationship I was ever invested in on a TV show. If you go back and you watch those first couple seasons, they're just perfectly written and performed. I think the show has actually gotten lost over the years.
Miami Vice (1984-89, NBC)
That show is so influential and so cool and hasn't really been replicated. If you watch a show pre-Miami Vice that’s one-hour long, it feels like it came out in, like, 1940. That’s because Miami Vice supercharged TV. It fused MTV with a cop show. It had Michael Mann behind the scenes. It struck oil with Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas. The first season is now 40 years old — but it still looks great, and I’d put it up against anything. And in the history of network television, I don't think there's been a better buddy cop show. Don Johnson as Sonny [Crockett] was one of the great leading men, and I think it’s amazing that he did he not become an A-plus-list movie star.
The Sopranos (1999-2007, HBO)
It’s one of the greatest things we've produced as a country from a content standpoint. And I’d still put it over Breaking Bad or Mad Men as the best TV show ever. I've done two rewatches in the last four years and still find new stuff in it. It's like diving into the biggest, best, greatest novel you've ever read. And the characters are like your old friends. I think James Gandolfini gives probably the best TV performance ever. Edie Falco is not far behind. I also don’t think The Sopranos gets enough credit for being absolutely hilarious, even though it was a really dark show. There is really great comedy in those latter seasons!
The Wire (2002-08, HBO)
It is right there with The Sopranos for me. And Season Four is in the running for the best season of television I've ever seen. What The Wire pulled off so well was showing us specific pieces of things that were fundamentally wrong with the country. Like, things that were broken. I loved all the characters and all the richness. And the shock value of some of the deaths — I was like, "Oh my god, they killed…" Well, I’m not going to say it, because maybe somebody still hasn’t watched it. And the producers did it all on top of not knowing every year if the show was going to be cancelled!
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Celtics City premieres March 3 on HBO.
