I considered doing this as a long Twitter thread, but that would be just as bad and disappointing as The Ringer has been thus far. Also, this is only partially inspired by this:
Moving on.
1. The site’s formula for success is inherently wrong.
Bill Simmons doesn’t seem to understand very well that the following site formula:
=SUM(ESPN+Hollywood Reporter+The Verge)/3
Simply isn’t working. Indeed, all three areas are very average, with the best part of the site typically coming in varying sports sections – what Simmons is most well-known for. This sort of weird stew that attempts to make readers think there’s a natural crossover between New York/Hollywood/Silicon Valley is a bit ridiculous. The Ringer is a great example of a restaurant theory I hold: focus on what your niche is and what you do well. By aiming to be the Applebee’s of websites, you’re a jack of several trades and a master of none.
At no point during Grantland‘s tenure was the front page as watered down with entirely useless stories as this sample from today’s front page is.
Thanks for letting me know that some of the clown photos aren’t real, Molly. How would I ever have known?
2. Someone’s convinced Simmons that tech coverage is what was missing from Grantland.
Listening to Simmons attempt half-hearted interest in technology whenever it’s mentioned on one of his podcasts is more sad than frustrating. I’ve yet to read an article on The Ringer centered around tech that didn’t sound like one of the following:
- An edited press release
- 300-400 words that might as well have been five Tweets
- A Verge or CNet castoff
3. The Ringer is riding Shea Serrano until he dies out.
I like Shea a lot. Loved his Grantland writing, actually. Love his newsletter. Really loved The Hip-Hop Yearbook. But take a look at these…and tell me that 90-95% of them should be in existence. Brevity is a useful thing. This leads into the next issue(s).
4. Bill Simmons whiffed on getting almost all of his best writers to move to the new site from Grantland.
5. Because of this, nearly every genre is covered by the writing version of a running back committee with far less talented/creative individuals.
Just as an example, let’s look through FiveThirtyEight (another disappointing entity) and their list of Grantland’s best works. There’s 16 different articles on this list, and I’m withholding comment about how brutally perfunctory a list it is – where’s Bill Barnwell, Wesley Morris, Zach Lowe, Holly Anderson, Rembert Browne, etc.? Anyway, here’s the important thing: excluding Simmons, two of the 11 other writers represented followed Simmons to The Ringer. Again, this is excluding the four outstanding writers I mentioned above, plus Jonathan Abrams (who did appear on Bill’s podcast), Mark Harris, Sean McIndoe, Alex Pappademas, and more. Simmons has brought some of the good writers/editors from Grantland to his new project, but they either work in specialized areas (Juliet Litman and podcasts), are underutilized (Jordan Conn, two longform pieces in three months plus a pair of interviews), or are overutilized (Joe House, golf podcast?!?).
I continue to get the feeling that Simmons is hiring respected names without wondering if they’ll fit into his site’s plan, if there is one. Every tech writer hired is well-respected in that field, but they continue to push out stuff that’s borderline unreadable and generally not actual news. They bragged about not posting an iPhone 7 review, for God’s sakes! It also doesn’t help that Simmons lost his normal eye for talent (Dan Fierman) to MTV and that Simmons is now unusually focused on a fledgling TV show on HBO. Speaking of which…
6. The show sucks.
It really, really does. And it might get cancelled soon. Then what?
7. Simmons is proud of the variety of podcasts without doing much in the way of quality control.
Simmons’s best hire will end up being Chris Vernon, who hosted a radio show in Memphis for several years. Want to know why Vernon somehow seems comfortable on audio and not nervously laughing at anything even mildly funny his guest or co-host mentions? He has actual audio experience. No one else on the staff does. Simmons is comfortable because he’s done this for nearly a decade. Grantland‘s podcasts worked because they paired people together as sort of a buddy system so they could learn together and become better co-hosts – Robert Mays and Bill Barnwell, Juliet Litman and Chris Ryan, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald, Jalen Rose and David Jacoby, etc. It worked very well there. Pairing people like former Grantland intern Tate Frazier – whose voice is as exciting as the quiet drone of a ceiling fan – and Mallory Rubin, someone legitimately exciting, is very awkward and stilted all around. And every single Ringer podcast is like that. Some people aren’t meant to record audio, Bill.
8. Finally: it’s just Grantland-lite. Even the site design is bad in comparison.
Look at how gigantic and gross the banner ad is. The premier story on the site, as chosen by editors (I presume) takes up another 600 pixels or so. You can literally fill your entire screen with one story, a banner ad, and a list of other places on the site you can go to also be disappointed. Grantland’s site design is perfectly clean and actually featured multiple stories below that on a normal landing page, as the screencap above is cut off. It’s even frustrating to look at!
For Bill Simmons to fix his site and make it not suck (or at least return it to his original Grantland ideal), there are three remaining options:
- Nix the entire tech section.
- Prepare for cancellation of the television show and begin easing the TV writers into the Ringer site.
- Stop the (Insert Vague Subject Here) Weeks. No one enjoys them. Just write.
What’s most disappointing about Bill Simmons’s vision and The Ringer as a whole is this: I see exactly zero of these happening. It’s one thing to disappoint; it’s another to promise a grander vision and present a product that looks like the Dollar General version of what you’ve done before.
gyrateplus: the website 