The Ringer is Live

[Big Circus]

What an appropriate day for this thread to pop up! I'm sure it will be controversial, but I loved this piece:

The 2017-18 Lakers, a Drama in Three Acts

 

[DanOregon]

For fans of Friday Night Lights - today is Tim Riggins Day on The The Ringer. Some quality stuff on there.

 

[poindexter]

What an appropriate day for this thread to pop up! I'm sure it will be controversial, but I loved this piece:

The 2017-18 Lakers, a Drama in Three Acts

Did it end up being controversial?

 

[Big Circus]

Did it end up being controversial?

Ron Howard voiceover: It wasn't controversial.

 

[LanceyHoward]

How does the Ringer turn a profit? They have a least 19 people writing on the NBA and I would think Simmons is making seven figures. They don't run many ads. They have ton of podcasts but I don't know how many are sponsored. "One Shining Moment', the college basketball podcast, struggles to find sponsors.

I would think the site is bleeding money.

 

[The Big Ragu]

The Ringer could be turning a profit. If it is, it would be entirely from podcasts. They might be bringing in more from ad revenue than a lot of people would imagine.

At the same time, subtract out costs from revenue, and I doubt the business is a huge money maker. If it is profitable (it is an if, not a definite), it likely isn't throwing off much of a dividend to anyone. I thought this at the time Simmons left ESPN, and I strongly suspect it is true. Simmons wasn't going to do any better financially for himself than what he was getting from ESPN -- not from another website and not from anything he started up on his own. I'd imagine he is doing worse in terms of take-home pay on his own, putting aside the ill-conceived deal HBO gave him and whatever he took from it before the contract was scratched. The Ringer is dependent on his name, so in essence anything he pays himself is still akin to him being a hired hand and collecting a salary for the worth of his name. The tradeoff for collecting less personally (if I am right about that), is that he gets whatever satisfaction comes from doing his own thing and being his own boss. Maybe the trade off is worth it to him. But when he left ESPN, I was pretty sure he was never going to get more money from another website than he was able to earn working for ESPN, and I strongly suspect it has played out that way for him.

I wish it wasn't a private company and we could see a balance sheet, because I am curious about how it does. Subscription-based things are in favor right now, but it is a more difficult way to succeed, because there is a direct link between what you are supplying in terms of content and whether the demand is there. Produce something people will pay for, or you don't have a business. The Ringer relies on ad revenue. If it is like most online content, it isn't earning bubkus -- except for podcasts for which there are ad dollars if you have listeners, and that is a big thing for his site. The podcasts are probably carrying the site, but is it enough to make for a profit, and if so, much of a profit?

 

[clintrichardson]

The most insightful thing I ever heard said about HBO—which owns the Ringer—was in a podcast interview years ago with Bob Odenkirk. He said that HBO doesn't just want shows that are popular, it wants shows that are cool. They would rather make something like Mr. Show, which wasn't popular but was revered by the cognoscenti, than something like, say, a Tim Allen sitcom that would attract more people but wouldn't project the image they want.

I think of the Ringer in this context—it's as much about the kind of branding HBO wants for ventures like this, as for the thing itself.

 

[CD Boogie]

The most insightful thing I ever heard said about HBO—which owns the Ringer—was in a podcast interview years ago with Bob Odenkirk. He said that HBO doesn't just want shows that are popular, it wants shows that are cool. They would rather make something like Mr. Show, which wasn't popular but was revered by the cognoscenti, than something like, say, a Tim Allen sitcom that would attract more people but wouldn't project the image they want.

I think of the Ringer in this context—it's as much about the kind of branding HBO wants for ventures like this, as for the thing itself.

Is The Ringer considered cool? Their guys aren't starting up podcasts with A-Rod; that's Barstool.

Simmons had his moment (and then some). No shame in no longer being relevant.

 

[The Big Ragu]

The most insightful thing I ever heard said about HBO—which owns the Ringer—was in a podcast interview years ago with Bob Odenkirk. He said that HBO doesn't just want shows that are popular, it wants shows that are cool. They would rather make something like Mr. Show, which wasn't popular but was revered by the cognoscenti, than something like, say, a Tim Allen sitcom that would attract more people but wouldn't project the image they want.

I think of the Ringer in this context—it's as much about the kind of branding HBO wants for ventures like this, as for the thing itself.

HBO was an original investor in The Ringer. That made it a partial owner, not the owner. My question. ... I never saw anything laying out their interest, so does anyone know exactly what their stake is? And does anyone know if HBO unloaded that stake after it cancelled Simmons' show? i.e. -- do they still have a stake, and if so, how big is it exactly?

 

[justgladtobehere]

I'm pretty sure the website and HBO show were different deals. And he had a production deal with HBO, which is still in effect, I believe.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I'm pretty sure the website and HBO show were different deals. And he had a production deal with HBO, which is still in effect, I believe.

So I can see the show and an investment in the website not being connected. I guess there is no way to know how big their stake is. If they have sold it (or if they sell it in the future), there would be no way to really know unless they said it publicly.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I actually can't find anything via Google about 1) What kind of stake HBO has. I mean, I assumed in my earlier post it is an equity stake, but is that true? No specifics were ever disclosed that I can see. 2) Is HBO the only investor? If they are, I would have been wrong. They might actually own the site. I may have spoken out of school. If they aren't the only investor, who are the other investors? I am assuming that Simmons wouldn't have done it without having an ownership stake. But there is no way to know for sure.

Does anyone know anything more?

 

[User 149557]

Simmons has to be pissed he lost the Keepin' It 1600 guys. That was his ticket to accessing a much, much larger audience. And he had it right in his hands and it got away.

 

[Alma]

I doubt it makes much, but it provides a platform for those who write there. They can go on to the next site that will hire them for 3 years or whatever. It's a living.

I visit The Ringer very rarely. A snapshot of the site right at this moment shows 6 posts on movies, for example, and "the top 25 NBA players of the first 25ish games."

I mean, FFS.

 

[Double Down]

Simmons has to be pissed he lost the Keepin' It 1600 guys. That was his ticket to accessing a much, much larger audience. And he had it right in his hands and it got away.

I don't think he had any choice. They made it clear they wanted, while doing the podcast, to work with various organizations to elect Democrats and just the advocacy aspect of it meant both sides didn't want the pod, going forward, to be specifically tied to a journalistic endeavor.

 

[Webster]

I had mostly stopped listening to Simmons’ podcasts, except for his guess the lines on Monday’s. I tried to listen to one yesterday about the Steelers disfunction and it was brutal. He is incapable of going more than 3 minutes on any NFL topic without mentioning the Pats.

 

[User 149557]

I had mostly stopped listening to Simmons’ podcasts, except for his guess the lines on Monday’s. I tried to listen to one yesterday about the Steelers disfunction and it was brutal. He is incapable of going more than 3 minutes on any NFL topic without mentioning the Pats.

I don't think the podcast works at all when Kevin Clark and Kevin O'Connor are on. And he put both of them on the same show. It was a real slog.

I have about 12 hours of podcast content I digest per day while working my jobs and that was a really, really slow couple of hours.

 

[CD Boogie]

Hadn't noticed that Rembert Browne was writing for The Ringer

2 Chainz on Longevity, Working With Everybody, and LeBron James

Guess there's still hope for guys who were on The ****ty Men in Media List -- and labeled in red, no less, for their egregious alleged offenses.

****ty Media Men

 

[typefitter]

Hadn't noticed that Rembert Browne was writing for The Ringer

2 Chainz on Longevity, Working With Everybody, and LeBron James

Guess there's still hope for guys who were on The ****ty Men in Media List -- and labeled in red, no less, for their egregious alleged offenses.

****ty Media Men

It's interesting to me how some of those guys completely ****ing vanished, and some of them just kept keeping on. Not sure what separates them, except that the ones who pretended to be feminists while they abused women seem to be the most disappeared.

 

[CD Boogie]

It's interesting to me how some of those guys completely ****ing vanished, and some of them just kept keeping on. Not sure what separates them, except that the ones who pretended to be feminists while they abused women seem to be the most disappeared.

Last I heard Greg Howard, late of Deadspin of NYT, was living under a rock in Australia. If he ever pops back up, I'll be among the many waiting to whack-a-mole his ass. First-class POS.

I wasn't overly familiar with a lot of those guys, but every time I see one pop back up (like Rembert) I re-read the list to see if I now know more of them. Like, damn, Philip Meyer? I own "The Son" and was planning to read it. Now, uh, not so much.

EDIT: I realize that's unfair because he wasn't (to my knowledge) arrested. But we're not trying him in a court of law. I'm trying him in my judgment -- about whether I want to spend untold hours heading a work of art by a guy who might just be a real **** heel.