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Type of site | Sports, popular culture |
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| 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, Andy Greenwald, 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]
In April 2021, writers and producers ratified their first collective agreement with Gimlet Media and The Ringer. It would last 3 years, with minimum base salary of $57,000 for The Ringer staff. Absent, was any provision over worker ownership of content created. [12] [13]
Like the content on the website, the Ringer's podcast network covers both sports and pop culture. [14] 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). [14]
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. [15]
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. [16] Talk the Thrones is a continuation of After the Thrones , which aired on HBO. [17]
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. [18]
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. [19]
The list of podcasts offered as of May 13, 2023. [20] 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.
Dawn Ostroff is an American businesswoman. She was the chief content officer and advertising business officer of Spotify, and is the former president of entertainment of The CW and former president of Condé Nast Entertainment.
Sal Iacono, also known as Cousin Sal, is an American comedian, writer, podcaster, and game show host. He is known for his roles on The Man Show and the late night television show Jimmy Kimmel Live!. He is Jimmy Kimmel's cousin, hence his nickname Cousin Sal.
Mark Titus is an American author, podcast host, and former walk-on basketball player at Ohio State.
Grantland was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. Grantland was named after famed early-20th-century sportswriter Grantland Rice (1880–1954).
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.
Gimlet Media LLC is a digital media company and podcast network, focused on producing narrative podcasts and headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. The company was founded in 2014 by Alex Blumberg and Matthew Lieber, who served as the company's CEO and president respectively until Lieber stepped down in 2022. In February 2019, Spotify announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Gimlet for $230 million. In 2023, Spotify announced that they were to merge Gimlet and Parcast into Spotify Studios.
StartUp is an American podcast from Gimlet Media hosted by Alex Blumberg and Lisa Chow. While the first two seasons follow stories of starting businesses – Season 1 about the starting of Gimlet Media itself, and Season 2, a dating company called "Dating Ring" – the third season follows one business per episode. Season 4 began by following Gimlet Media again, then aired episodes focusing on other companies. Season 6 followed the making of the TV series created about the podcast. The most recent season covers the founding of Success Academy Charter Schools in New York City. The final season of Startup premiered in late 2019 and covered the process of selling Gimlet Media to the streaming media company Spotify.
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.
Nazanin Rafsanjani is an American television and radio producer. She was the head of new show development for Gimlet Media until 2020, and before that served as Gimlet's creative director and a senior producer for The Rachel Maddow Show.
The Pitch is an American podcast hosted by Josh Muccio, produced in partnership with Vox Media. The show features entrepreneurs in need of venture funding as they pitch to a live panel of investors, similar to ABC's hit TV series Shark Tank. Billed as, "A show where real entrepreneurs pitch to real investors—for real money", the podcast aims to capture the essence of what happens when entrepreneurs pitch investors.
Science Vs is a science podcast created and hosted by Wendy Zukerman. The show takes a myth-busting approach to controversial topics and current events, with fact checking and research of the scientific literature, as well as interviewing relevant experts. A typical show will have over a hundred citations and involve background interviews of dozens of scientists in addition to the scientists who speak on the show.
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.
Parcast is a digital media firm and podcast network, that specialized in producing both scripted podcasts as well as audio dramas. It was founded in 2016 by podcaster Max Cutler and his father Ron Cutler in Los Angeles California.
Max Cutler is an American entrepreneur, creator, author and businessman best known for founding the podcast studio Parcast in 2016.
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.
Kevin Robert Wildes is an American sports television producer, personality, sports radio talk show host, and podcaster. Wildes currently serves as a co-host on Fox Sports 1's First Things First (FTF) alongside Nick Wright and Chris Broussard.
Sports podcasts are a subset of podcasts that cover topics related to sports and athletes. Content can include sports news, predictions and analysis of game results, debates and discussions between hosts, and interviews with sports figures.
Spotify the subscription music streaming service employs 7,500 employees globally as of December 2023. Spotify recognizes trade unions at its US podcasting subsidiaries Ringer and Spotify Studios since 2019. Swedish trade unions are unsuccessful in trying to collectively bargain with Spotify since 2023. In Germany there is a Works Council since 2023.
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