September 7th, 2016 at 9:52 AM ^
The Ringer is pretty good content, but it's not quite up to Grantland standards just yet. I've not looked at it in weeks, so thanks for posting this.
September 7th, 2016 at 9:57 AM ^
I think the problem is Bill Simmons hasn't been up to standard in quite a while.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:12 AM ^
I think thats' a big part of it. Simmons has backed away from writing and his HBO show is kind of a trainwreck, so they lost the masthead. I'd also say there just wasn't the same juice behind The Ringer as there was behind Grantland and the fact that the site felt incrementally rolled out vs. one big bang that got added to over time contributed to it.
I'm also looking over the articles and let's just say there's a pretty overt political bent. That bent existed with Grantland, but wasn't as obvious as it is with The Ringer. If you've already written off half of your audience, you're just a knockoff of the Huffington Post(which covers similar content, has been doing it for longer, and has a wider reach).
September 7th, 2016 at 10:21 AM ^
Agreed, I find the Ringer oddly preachy. I don't read nearly as much of it as I did Grantland, but it's worth checking out from time to time.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:37 AM ^
I'd counter that a Sports & Culture rag will not be particularly good if it either 1) tap dances around any subjects with political implications, or 2) goes out of its way to be evenly displeasing to people of all political affiliations.
To your direct insinuation: a Sports & Culture rag that exhibits the political bent that The Ringer does is writing off substantially less than half the market for this particular genre of writing. Taking on a mealy-mouthed even-handedness would be writing off much more.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:49 AM ^
So only liberals are interested in sports and pop culture?
Interesting take.....................
All I'm saying is for those who constantly need their biases confirmed there is a website that does it better in HuffPo. Grantland went from it's political analysis written by Nate Silver to now having it be done by Jon Favreau(sp?, but don't care), that's a definite change in tone and bias. I don't need mealy-mouthed even-handedness, but do like either A) varying perspectives or B) not having to wade through a bunch of preachy crap designed as ideological comfort food.
September 7th, 2016 at 11:04 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 11:17 AM ^
> "So only liberals are interested in sports and pop culture?"
This wasn't remotely implied. Do I think that consumers of long-form essays about Bojack Horseman are evenly distributed across the political spectrum? No. I'd be very surprised if you did, either... (I'll leave my elipses in the standard three-dot form, though I grant that these aren't nearly as effective at expressing petty condescension.)
I'm not fan of the Ringer's explicitly political coverage, as I don't think it's particularly adroit or insightful, but it's silly to think about politically oriented essays on a single, partisan dimension. I don't think that The Ringer and HuffPo are shooting for remotely the same lane (though I admit that I'm not very familiar with the latter), and, whatever their failings, I don't think that The Ringer's political pieces serve primarily as just vacuous expressions of reassurance for people who want to think nice things about themselves.
September 7th, 2016 at 12:48 PM ^
Sorry if you felt condescended to, my attempt was more aimed at sarcasm, but on a re-read it didn't come across well. My apologies.
Think of it this way, you log onto what you assumed was a thoughtful site with deep-dive articles about Sports and pop culture, sure there were a lot of jokes at liberals expense, along with implicit assumptions that being conservative is just what good people do, but it was muted and didn't really distract from the content. The political stuff was mostly by a well-known pollster or by a well-known journalist who, while rarely writing something you agreed with, always had what looked like a thoughtful take. This is what the previous site was after all. Unfortunately, now you log on and it looks like an sports focused offshoot of Breitbart. Are you telling me you wouldn't react to that?
September 7th, 2016 at 10:20 AM ^
The other part is that Simmons assembled some really good talent at Grantland, and wasn't able to take it all with him to the new site. The success of long form sites like The Ringer and Grantland boil down to the quality of writing. I'm optimistic that The Ringer will get there, but it's a lot of hit-and-miss so far, from what I've seen.
Also, The Ringer site itself is a bit clunky. Simmons probably had to tread carefully so that ESPN did not accuse him of appropriating the Grantland brand, but it takes a lot of scrolling to find the articles that interest you on that site.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:23 AM ^
Grantland was first and foremost a sports website that had auxilliary content that made it greater than its initial parts. The Ringer is basically a Bill Simmons-endorsed political website with some sports thrown in. Plus, the writing on The Ringer just isn't as good as as Grantland's, outside of some carryovers. Seems like a lot of the new writers have a case of "let's end a piece on a single sentence that I think is thought provoking but is really just pretentious"-itis. Not as much analytic coverage as Grantland in the actual sports articles either. It's still on my daily click through list, but I probably actually read about 1/3 less articles than I did on Grantland.
September 7th, 2016 at 3:16 PM ^
thought provoking but it is really just prententious-itis"
You articulated my thoughts perfectly with that line, could not agree more.
I picked up on this with Simmons 3-4 years ago. He had a couple of jabs in his column where I thought to myself, "why are you talking about this, I don't come here to hear your opininon on that." And just as I predicted, LA swallowed him up, he thought his shit didn't stink, and he thought he was on the fast track to being the next Keith Olbermann.
Simmons problem is the same it has always been, he doesn't come as witty or funny in person like he did through his writing. It seems like he wants to be the sports version of Howard Stern, but he isn't talented enough to pull it off.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:36 AM ^
I always found with Grantland it was less about Simmons' writing and more about the team he put around him. He will find more good writers in time. The person that wrote his article is a former Grantland writer, and she mainly concentrated on hockey before.
September 7th, 2016 at 9:57 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 10:23 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 7th, 2016 at 10:30 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 10:45 AM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 8th, 2016 at 3:47 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 11:45 AM ^
The first mile of a marathon.
The first day of school.
Enjoy the ride. It will be a tough act to follow.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:24 AM ^
Katie Baker is an excellent writer and much of the info in this piece isn't exactly news to us, but it's very well written.
Also, MGoBlog shoutouts are always good.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:57 AM ^
"Vile porches" is a great description of the primary feature of student housing around the stadium
September 7th, 2016 at 11:10 AM ^
I immediately thought "oh she walked down Main from downtown"
September 7th, 2016 at 10:25 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 10:40 AM ^
Great find thanks amedema
September 7th, 2016 at 10:46 AM ^
Re: The Ringer
Do people want to read about MTV Challenge tv shows? I genuinely know zero people who watch those shows enough to know the characters or anything so I have to assume the number of people who want to read about said shows are about zero. Good writing is entertaining regardless of content, but sheesh. Half the stuff on the ringer falls into this category for me.
September 7th, 2016 at 10:58 AM ^
I've been meaning to post a thread like this for a while- so far, I'm finding the Ringer to be a pretty big step down from Grantland. I think it's because the new site is more focused on the now- pop culture and current events. What made Grantland great, IMO, was the stuff that came out of nowhere: Brian Philip's incredible longform work on whatever interested him, Klosterman writing about old music TV shows from Europe, etc. Hopefully Simmons can find some new people to fill that nice.
September 7th, 2016 at 12:58 PM ^
Agreed, but I don't think it's going to happen. What made Grantland great was it's commitment to longform journalism and essays (and its ability to hire some unique talents such as Phillips, Wesley Morris, Barnwell and Zach Lowe). I think Simmons has expressly stated that the Ringer is aiming for shorter pieces to be read on mobile devices. And I don't think he's got the same budget to make big splash hires (Wesley Morris, for example, had already won a Pulitzer for criticism when he was hired by Grantland). Nothing that I've read on the new site strikes me as unique in today's media environment.
That said, this article is longer than the norm and is very well written (by one of the folks brought over from Grantland) so maybe there's some rethinking about the target length going on.
September 7th, 2016 at 2:06 PM ^
Wesley Morris was awesome and I miss his stuff greatly.
My problem is even the ones he brought back, like Andy Greenwald, don't seem quite the same. I was really glad to see Katie Baker wrote this as I always appreciated her voice and sense of humor and it seems to show that good things can still happen when you let a talented writer do his/her thing.
September 7th, 2016 at 2:35 PM ^
Agreed about Morris. He's writing for the NYT, but it's irregular (since he's "critic at large") and is not as easy to find.
I don't think Greenwald is writing for the Ringer. I think he's just hosting podcasts (IIRC, he's working on a book titled something like "How to Watch Television.")
September 7th, 2016 at 4:16 PM ^
The Podcast is what I meant. Just not as much fun as it used to be.
September 7th, 2016 at 1:21 PM ^
Agree. And not to be that guy, but I'm sure you meant 'niche' instead of 'nice'. We all get fat fingers once in a while (as opposed to those annual physicals, when we get fat fingered).
September 7th, 2016 at 11:28 AM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 11:31 AM ^
I'm glad the Ringer exists, but yeah, it does seem to be a step down from Grantland. There are a lot more bizarre, self-indulgent pieces...it's almost as though Simmons just told everybody, "Go nuts, do whatever you want, I won't stop you," and they went through their file drawers and pulled out everything they could never get published. But there's some really good stuff as well.
September 7th, 2016 at 11:55 AM ^
And sometimes it's barely functional. I do like their Game of Thrones content though.
September 7th, 2016 at 1:18 PM ^
September 7th, 2016 at 2:14 PM ^
"The official header image of MGoBlog, the internet’s locus for dedicated Michigan Kremlinology, features one of the coach’s most ominous Biblical subtweets as a sort of raison d’etre, a rallying cry: Do not be deceived. You will reap what you sow."
Michigan Kremlinology!
September 7th, 2016 at 8:50 PM ^
It's an interesting article. It does trade in the "he doesn't stay somewhere for long" as if he burns people out, as opposed to him going up to the next logical rung of his profession. I mean, most of the people at The Ringer didn't get their first break there, and they probably see The Ringer as a stepping-stone to an even better job somewhere.
But yeah, it is a nice view of the coach from outside the bee hive.