Last night, Bill Simmons new show, "Any Given Wednesday" premiered on HBO. This show was a long time coming for me. I'm a very big Bill Simmons fan. I like his takes. He is one of the most knowledgeable NBA writers on the planet. He isn't afraid to attack morons like Roger Goodell. And he seems like a pretty genuine, cool person.

I watched the show this afternoon, and it was just fine. I don't know why I was expecting it to be like "Real Sports", which is a great show, but I thought it as going to be more like that. "Any Given Wednesday" is the opposite of a show like "Real Sports". "Any Given Wednesday" is sports and pop culture, mixed with elements of comedy. There is no panel on this show. Simmons has people come on and talk, but it is more interview and less talking head type stuff. What the show all boils down to is, it is a live taping of his podcast. The show is very free flowing. There is a looseness to the show that I found refreshing. Simmons looked totally calm and in his element. The show is a perfect way to get his view across.

Last night, he had Charles Barkley come on to talk about LeBron James. Simmons asked, after doing a great opening monologue about why he now thought James belonged in the conversation as the best NBA player ever, and Barkley shut that notion down immediately. Barkley is definitely stuck in his old view of the NBA, but that is one of the many things that makes Charles Barkley so great. I personally agree with Simmons. I think LeBron is a top 5 all time player, but I liked hearing Barkley say he had to win a couple of more championships before he would put him past Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan. I also enjoyed Barkley letting Simmons, the studio audience and everyone watching know that his top five all time players will never change. He is set in his way. Barkley seemed just as comfortable as Simmons was, even when Simmons pushed him on stuff like Barkley holding Larry Bird's arms back so Dr. J could punch him in the face, or Barkley's many past gambling stories. After the Barkley interview, Simmons did a kind of funny spoof on the Under Armor and Steph Curry commercials. There was some decent humor in it, but it was just okay. The commercial Simmons and his writers created was a very funny closing bit to the joke.

Then, Simmons had another one on one interview with Ben Affleck. They talked about the Batman stuff and what drove Affleck to becoming a director, but when Simmons brought up the Patriots and Tom Brady and "deflategate", Affleck went off. This was at times funny and very revealing. Affleck is a true sports fan and a true Boston fan. This dude loves Tom Brady and thinks, like most of the sports watching public, that "deflategate" is so dumb and so unimportant. His speech was impassioned. I recommend people seeking it out on the internet to watch, it is bizarre and telling. I know that I was enthralled.

Once Affleck has done speaking the truth, Simmons did his first of what I'm sure will be a weekly segment, where he gave the "championship belt" to the best thing of the week. This week was the year 2016 and how it has become so unpredictable. He mentioned the Cavs winning the title, the fact that the Cubs have the best record in baseball and that he now has his own show on HBO, among other things. I very much enjoyed this part of the show. Like I said, it was basically a live taping of his podcast, and that is a good thing, in my opinion.

I will be curious to see how future episodes attack sports and pop culture news. I also hope, at some point, he goes off on ESPN. I know he did that recently in a magazine interview, but I want to see him do it live on his TV show, curse words and all, since it is on HBO. I also hope he brings on some of his recurring guests from his podcast for face to face interviews. I don't think it will happen, but I'd love to see Jalen Rose and Zach Lowe on his show, but they both work for ESPN. He can have his buddy Joe House on, or Chuck Klosterman or even more famous NBA players, like Charles Barkley. Anyway, it was a decent premiere of a show that I will watch every week because I am a Bill Simmons fan. Don't go into "Any Given Wednesday" expecting "Real Sports", it is a totally different show.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may not have the slurred passion of Ben Affleck, but Ty is also not a fan of "deflategate". Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.