Type of site | Sports, popular culture |
---|---|
Owner | Spotify |
URL | theringer |
Commercial | Yes |
Launched | March 14, 2016 |
The Ringer is a sports and pop culture website and podcast network, founded by sportswriter Bill Simmons in 2016 and owned by Spotify since 2020. [1] [2] [3]
The Ringer was launched in March 2016 by Bill Simmons, who brought along several editors who had previously worked with him on Grantland , an ESPN-owned blog he operated from 2011 to 2015. [2] At launch, the Ringer had a staff of 43 and focused primarily on sports and pop culture as content areas, with a few writers also working on technology and politics. [2] HBO, the network on which Simmons hosted his weekly television program Any Given Wednesday one season in 2016, was an initial investor in the website. [2]
The website was previously published on the Medium platform. [4] In May 2017, The Ringer entered into an advertising and technology partnership with Vox Media (owner of SB Nation ), under which Vox would handle advertising sales, and give the site access to its in-house publishing platform. [5]
Former Grantland writers who have since written for or worked for The Ringer include Mark Titus, Shea Serrano, Ben Lindbergh, Robert Mays, Sean Fennessey, Chris Ryan, Mallory Rubin, Juliet Litman, Craig Gaines, Bryan Curtis, David Shoemaker, Ryan O'Hanlon, Danny Chau, Jason Concepcion, Riley McAtee, Joe Fuentes, and Tate Frazier. [6]
In May 2018, The Ringer published a story by Ben Detrick about Bryan Colangelo, [7] then the GM of the Philadelphia 76ers, and his apparent use of various Twitter accounts to criticize players and defend himself. This led to Colangelo's resignation on June 7, 2018. [8]
In August 2019, The Ringer's editorial staff voted to unionize with the Writers Guild of America, East. The union was voluntarily recognized by the Ringer's management four days later. [9]
On February 5, 2020, subscription music streaming service Spotify announced it was acquiring The Ringer for an estimated $195 million and an additional $50 million in performance-driven incentives. [10] Spotify chief content officer Dawn Ostroff stated that Simmons was "one of the brightest minds in the game and he has successfully innovated as a writer and content creator across mediums and platforms." [3] [11]
Like the content on the website, the Ringer's podcast network covers both sports and pop culture. [12] The flagship podcast, The Bill Simmons Podcast, is an interview show hosted by Simmons, featuring other Ringer writers and podcast hosts as well as athletes, filmmakers, comedians, and pop culture figures. Popular podcast hosts include former Daily Show correspondent Larry Wilmore (host of Black on the Air) and James Beard Award-winning chef David Chang (The Dave Chang Show). [12]
Former podcasts include Keepin' it 1600 , a politics podcast featuring former Obama speechwriters Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, and others. After leaving the Ringer, the hosts of Keepin' it 1600 created a new podcast called Pod Save America as part of their own new media company, Crooked Media. [13]
In 2017, The Ringer began the video podcast series Talk the Thrones, an aftershow for Game of Thrones hosted by Ringer staff writers and live-streamed on Twitter. [14] Talk the Thrones is a continuation of After the Thrones , which aired on HBO. [15]
The Ringer premiered Binge Mode in 2017, a podcast that has recapped every episode of Game of Thrones and every book in the Harry Potter series. [16]
As of April 30, 2018, The Ringer's world-wide Alexa ranking is 2,077 with over 15 million views per month. Of those, 6,150,000 are unique visitors. [17]
The list of podcasts offered as of May 13, 2023. [18] The Ringer podcast network features a slate of more than 30 podcasts. Since being acquired by Spotify in February 2020, The Ringer has continued to publish its podcasts across platforms while promoting additional shows that are exclusive to Spotify.
On Hiatus
Limited Series
Ended/No Longer on The Ringer
William John Simmons III is an American podcaster, sportswriter, and cultural critic who is the founder and CEO of the sports and pop culture website The Ringer. Simmons first gained attention with his website as "The Boston Sports Guy" and was recruited by ESPN in 2001, where he eventually operated the website Grantland and worked until 2015. At ESPN, he wrote for ESPN.com, hosted his own podcast on ESPN.com titled The B.S. Report and was an analyst for two years on NBA Countdown.
Andy Greenwald is an American author, critic, podcaster, screenwriter, and television producer.
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Mark Titus is an American author, podcast host, and former walk-on basketball player at Ohio State.
Michael Lombardi is an American football executive and media analyst. Until 2016, he was an assistant to the coaching staff of the New England Patriots and is a former analyst for the NFL Network and sportswriter at NFL.com. Lombardi also previously served as an NFL executive with the San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland Browns, Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos, and Oakland Raiders. He hosts his own podcast "The GM Shuffle" formerly with Adnan Virk now with Femi Abebefe, and co-hosts a Saturday morning sports betting program on Sirius XM for Vegas Stats & Information Network along with a daily show on Vegas Stats & Information Network called "The Lombardi Line".
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Mark Edward Fischbach, known online as Markiplier, is an American YouTuber, actor, film director, producer and screenwriter. He mainly uploads Let's Plays and is known for his videos of indie horror games. After joining YouTube in 2012, Fischbach became popular on the platform with Let's Plays of Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010) and the Five Nights at Freddy's series. As of June 2023, his channel has over 35 million subscribers.
Juliet Elinor Litman is an American journalist, editor, and American media personality. As of 2017, she is the Head of Production at The Ringer, Bill Simmons' latest online enterprise. Litman is the former host of the Right Reasons and NBA After Dark podcasts and was also formerly the Special Projects Editor at Grantland.
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After the Thrones is an American live television aftershow that premiered on April 25, 2016, and ended on June 28, 2016. It was hosted by Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan who discussed episodes of the HBO television series Game of Thrones. The talk show was executive produced by Bill Simmons and Eric Weinberger. Greenwald and Ryan previously hosted a podcast version of the show titled Watch the Thrones on Simmons' Grantland website. A similar talk show called Thronecast aired on British channel Sky Atlantic, which also discussed episodes of Game of Thrones.
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Binge Mode is a pop culture podcast produced by The Ringer. It is hosted by the website's editor-in-chief, Mallory Rubin, and former senior creative, Jason Concepcion. The first episode premiered on June 5, 2017. Binge Mode has been named to "best podcast" lists by Time, USA Today, and Adweek.
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Mallory Rubin is an American editor and podcaster. She is most well-known for her work at The Ringer, and for the Binge Mode pop culture podcast which she co-hosted with Jason Concepcion. She is one of the founding editors of The Ringer and currently serves as Editor-In-Chief.
Call Her Daddy is an advice and comedy podcast created by Sofia Franklyn and Alexandra Cooper in 2018. The podcast was formerly owned and distributed by Barstool Sports until June 2021, when it was announced that Cooper had signed an exclusive deal with Spotify worth $60 million. Barstool is still involved in the podcast's merchandising. In the late spring of 2020, Cooper and Franklyn were engaged in a publicized dispute with Barstool founder David Portnoy, which resulted in Franklyn leaving the show. Cooper reached an agreement with Barstool and continued hosting the podcast on her own.
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