Ian Darke was almost traded to FOX

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Hey, here's a fun little story. Remember last week when Fox Sports's Katie Nolan went on the BS Report, and she and Bill Simmons kinda coyly reminisced about a failed attempt at bringing her over to Grantland, in the way that people talk about these things on the BS Report, where they don't actually say anything, and the actual content of their conversation is, hey, look, we famous people know each other well enough to have stuff we can't really speak openly about in front of our audience? No, of course not, because why would anyone listen to the BS Report.

In any case, The Big Lead reports today that the proposed mechanism for bringing Nolan from Fox to ESPN was a trade: Nolan to Grantland, in exchange for ace soccer commentator Ian Darke. Apparently the whole thing fell through when Fox asked ESPN to include NASCAR reporter Marty Smith in the deal; instead, Nolan got a new show on FS1, and a guest appearance on a podcast to discuss what might have been.

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