Meet The Ringer

June 6, 2016 8:43 PM

Less than a year after the untimely demise of Grantland (previously), Bill Simmons is back with a new sports and pop culture site, The Ringer.

Returning are Grantland editorial staff Sean Fennessey, Bryan Curtis, and Danny Chau, as well as writers Jason Concepcion (Ask the Maester), Katie Baker (hockey and more), Matt Borcas, Robert Mays, and Jason Gallagher. New additions include former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau (no relation to the actor), Alyssa Bereznak (Vanity Fair), Kevin Clark (WSJ), and Allison Davis (NYMag's The Cut), among others. Some may lament the lack of Grantland's heavy hitters, as WaPo reports:

Not everyone could be rounded up. Dan Fierman, Alex Pappademas and group of other Grantlanders were hired to revive MTV News. Wesley Morris took a gig at The New York Times. Even Robert Mays, a 28-year-old sportswriter, admitted that he wrestled with whether to return to Simmons.

Unlike Grantland, an ESPN property, The Ringer is owned by Bill Simmons Media Group, with HBO as the sole publicly acknowledged major investor, and a prominent beer sponsorship on the front page.

Sports Illustrated interviews Editor-In-Chief Sean Fennessey.

posted by Existential Dread (34 comments total)

That looks pretty full-featured. Good on him for not disappearing.

Hopefully he will continue to do truly independent sports journalism.
posted by yesster at 8:59 PM on June 6, 2016

This just made America great again.
posted by Ber at 9:02 PM on June 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I recall that the Deadspin article in the FPP is pretty good, and asks an interesting question: Is anyone else involved in this other than HBO (and therefore, Time Warner)?
posted by clorox at 9:21 PM on June 6, 2016

It'd be cool if Dave Zirin was a part of this.
posted by rhizome at 9:28 PM on June 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

They also have one of their Muhammed Ali tribute pieces under the partial byline of Keith "I USED to live in a Trump building" Olbermann.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:28 PM on June 6, 2016

It feels a bit like Grantland with a less appealing layout so far. The Miller Lite thing is a so-dumb-it's-clever way to get around adblockers, for sure. I don't hate it though, it's not trying to force a bunch of code into my browser so no harm, no foul, I guess.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:36 PM on June 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

An essay on tickets by the former CEO of Ticketmaster, in which the author somehow avoids any criticism of his former employer, places all of the blame for high-priced tickets on secondary markets, and argues for unrestricted paperless ticketing.
posted by clorox at 9:46 PM on June 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I've been disappointed with it, so far. The articles are shorter, or at least less substantive. One of the things that made Grantland as good as it was, was the balance between fluff and heft.

If it's nothing more than navel - gazing and bull sessions (by smart people, granted), it won't be enough.
posted by oddman at 9:56 PM on June 6, 2016

Bill Simmons was talking about the Ringer on a podcast recently and he was ranting about how Grantland had too much longform and that the Ringer was designed to be read on a phone, and to accommodate quick reaction pieces. I can't imagine anything less appealing. I really like Andy Greenwald (did you all see his Grub Street diet last week? OMG), Chris Ryan and Juliet Litman so I'll continue listening, and maybe reading, but man, some of these new hires are not great and they ruined the best news all year with an offensively boring hot take.

MTV News.. I LOVE Holly Anderson and Brian Phillips, and quite like Molly and Alex too, but there's too much stuff on the website and none of them do a good job of tweeting out links. But, they hired some wonderful people to join them so I am hopeful.

ESPN's probably doing the BEST job of all three organizations with their small bunch of ex-Grantlanders. Zach Lowe is indeed America's best sportswriter and I am really enjoying Bill Barnwell's forays into the NBA and the Bachelorette. ESPN seems to be really supporting and promoting both of them so that's good. And Jalen & Jacoby seem to be doing well also.

Of course the real winners are Rembert Browne and Wesley Morris, who both got "write about whatever you want" jobs at NYMag and the NYT, and have really flourished, and Shea Serrano, who is peddling high-quality Kawhi Leonard erotic fan fiction.
posted by acidic at 10:00 PM on June 6, 2016 [15 favorites]

I miss Wesley Morris the most. Is there an easy way I could keep up with his writing at the NYT?
posted by mannequito at 10:47 PM on June 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I came here to write acidic's exact comment. I want to like the site so badly and I can't possibly blame Simmons for knowing which way the wind is blowing but man.
posted by MillMan at 11:00 PM on June 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've been disappointed with it, so far. The articles are shorter, or at least less substantive. One of the things that made Grantland as good as it was, was the balance between fluff and heft.

Simmons mentioned on his resurrected podcast that shorter articles was a conscious pivot to people reading on mobile devices. I never tired of Grantland's disregard for word limits given their interests directly intersected mine, but I recognize Simmons might need to pay his bills.
posted by midmarch snowman at 11:03 PM on June 6, 2016

Whoops, I scanned over acidic's comment too quickly, and now I realize I wasn't really adding anything.
posted by midmarch snowman at 11:05 PM on June 6, 2016

They can always add longer stuff later.
posted by rhizome at 11:10 PM on June 6, 2016

mannequito, a Google alert for Wesley Morris ought to do the trick, without too many false positives. You can find all of his articles so far here.
posted by acidic at 11:18 PM on June 6, 2016

I'd actually... Been very much enjoying the site, but I guess we all must have out first "mildly huffy about mefi disliking something we like" moment sooner or later.

Very, very useful roundup of non-ringer grantland alumni above, thanks everyone for that.
posted by ominous_paws at 12:06 AM on June 7, 2016

I have been enjoying the Keepin' it 1600 podcast. If he could get Bill Barnwell to join Mays and reconstitute the Grantland NFL podcast, I'd appreciate it. I spent more hours on that podcast than watching NFL games last year.
posted by These Premises Are Alarmed at 5:37 AM on June 7, 2016 [2 favorites]

A starry-eyed paean to Julio Jones?

I am OK with this.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 6:26 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

"mildly huffy about mefi disliking something we like"

I don't see anything on Curling yet.
posted by sammyo at 7:04 AM on June 7, 2016

Zach Lowe is the best, it kills me that ESPN doesn't make it easy to find his work. Why can't I just have a Lowe page with his essays ordered by recency?
posted by oddman at 7:14 AM on June 7, 2016 [4 favorites]

Exactly, oddman. It's incredibly frustrating that I can't just click on his name as a link to other articles. Trust me, if ESPN had other articles I wanted to read, I would, but given what Truehoop became, I tend not to spend much time trying to find actual content on the NBA section anymore.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:41 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oddman: Zach Lowe is the best, it kills me that ESPN doesn't make it easy to find his work. Why can't I just have a Lowe page with his essays ordered by recency?

ESPN's old search page allows filtering by authors. (You can also generate an RSS feed!)
posted by silanfa at 7:51 AM on June 7, 2016

If he could get Bill Barnwell to join Mays and reconstitute the Grantland NFL podcast, I'd appreciate it.

I'd be willing to wager that ESPN is the obstacle to this happening, not the BSMG.
posted by benbenson at 7:56 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just read a surprisingly good article on the Ringer about the best show on TV right now: Jennifer Garner for Capital One.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:33 AM on June 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

This was pretty cool. I just made my way through their archives. Good stuff, especially the Joe Thornton/Phil Kessel article by Katie Baker. I don't generally care for her stuff (in fairness, I didn't really like Sean McIndoe's stuff for Grantland, either). Also the Tech section is promising.

The great thing about Grantland wasn't the great writers, breadth, or depth (although all those things were there, for sure). The great thing was that, when I was bored at work, I had somewhere reliable to go and read something that would probably be interesting, without being so deep that I couldn't also concentrate on my work. It's nice to have something like that again: get bored, open browser, read thought-provoking short article about something I'd never cared about before, get back to work. The Ringer is starting off nicely.
posted by kevinbelt at 10:38 AM on June 7, 2016

I started reading Bill Simmons probably 15+ years ago, when he was one of the original Page2 writers on the was-then-less-spectacularly-shitty ESPN.com. His columns stopped being of interest a long time ago for me because his heart just doesn't seem to be in them. However, he assembles top flight writing talent to make up for that, first at Grantland and now here.

But, what's really been superb from Simmons over the past decade is his and his staff's podcasts. For me this is typically more important than the writing. With the exception of when he goes off talking about pro wrestling or reality TV, I never miss a Simmons podcast. Regular guests include the always fantastic Wesley Morris, Chuck Klosterman, Al Michaels (Al Michaels stories are the best stories), and his buddies Joe House and Jack-O. House is actually a skilled NBA analyst, and the Simmons/House podcasts are a worth listening to for that.

I've also been listening to the Keeping it 1600 podcast for a while now and it's really great. Feels a bit strange being thrown in with the pop culture/sports Simmons thing, but whatever. Favreau has some pretty amazing anecdotes from his time with Obama. Of particular note is the description of how crazy it was as head speechwriter when Bin Laden was killed.

Zach Lowe is missed under the Simmons fold (again, because I enjoyed him on Simmons podcast so much). I'd hold out hope that he escapes ESPN and comes to The Ringer, but I figure it's more likely he gets hired by an NBA team as an advanced metrics guy and we never hear from him in public again...
posted by mcstayinskool at 10:49 AM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hey Simmons, when I'm eating lunch, I don't want to read four shortform articles about East Coast teams, I want to read an engrossing longform vaguely historical sports article that epitomized Grantland.

Less of the clickbait, and more of the fantastic writing, please.

And keep doing the bits where you go and buy odd sports memorabilia at super odd conventions.
posted by Sphinx at 2:03 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kawhi Leonard erotic fan fiction.

Let me just say that, here in the middle of a prolonged Spurs drought... Oh myyyy!

Though the bit about the one chair was the best part.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:35 PM on June 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Worth it for Ask the Maester alone.
posted by gadge emeritus at 10:18 PM on June 7, 2016

Hopefully this site won't incite any women to suicide! That'd be a step up from Grantland!
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:17 PM on June 7, 2016

Thank goodness you're able to use Essay Vanderbilt's tragic end to score cheap points without even bothering to remember her name.
posted by Etrigan at 3:30 AM on June 8, 2016

I'm keenly aware of Essay Anne Vanderbilt's name. I didn't think it actually needed to be brought up.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:36 AM on June 8, 2016

THR: Bill Simmons Breaks Free: His "F—ing Shitty" ESPN Exit, Who Courted Him and Details of His HBO Show, which includes this OTT gem:

And then, as though still trying to settle the score, he adds of the recent rash of ESPN departures, which include Keith Olbermann and Jason Whitlock: "They've now gotten rid of everybody who is a little off the beaten path. Ask yourself this: 'Who would work there that you respect right now?' "
posted by acidic at 9:47 AM on June 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

"They've now gotten rid of everybody who is a little off the beaten path. Ask yourself this: 'Who would work there that you respect right now?'

FWIW, on Instagram Simmons has apologized for that specific passage.

That Hollywood Reporter article is an excellent read.
posted by mcstayinskool at 1:00 PM on June 8, 2016