OT - New Bill Simmons Website
I thought this might be worth a mention to some people here. Simmons himself can be a fairly divisive personality, but it's tough to argue that Grantland was an exceptional collection of talent. If he can do something similar with this new site it could be really cool, along with his show that will be on HBO. It sounds like there are already a lot of familiar names that will be contributing to the site. Channel 33 and his own podcast will also be part of it.
The site will be live sometime in the spring/summer.
Link: TheRinger.com
My next website is called The Ringer - launches later in 2016. Check out our logo & sign up for our newsletter at https://t.co/EgdH3mnlbC.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) February 17, 2016
February 17th, 2016 at 2:35 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 2:37 PM ^
Not for acouple of years. A lot of the writers (Like Lowe and Barnwell) have to finnish their contracts with ESPN. Alot of the other writers have been hired elsewhere. Might take a few years to build that roster.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:42 PM ^
I needed a break from Barnwell. Seems like ESPN was feeding him opinions for a while. But otherwise I agree.
February 17th, 2016 at 8:31 PM ^
Reincarnation 2.0 is redundant. Anyway, on his podcast today, Simmons said in no uncertain terms this will not be a Grantland redux. He doesn't want to tarnish what was a really cool thing that a lot of people were part of, but he also wants to innovate and do something really new.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:37 PM ^
Thought this would eventually happen. Very nice.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^
Grantland was in some ways the best website on the web. Simmons attracted great writers, gave them flexibility but demanded good work, and had a good ear for what would best supplement the "meat-and-potatoes" of sports.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing what he does now, free of his ESPN overlords.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:45 PM ^
There, fixed it for you.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:10 PM ^
Fair point. I don't enjoy that sort of thing, but "RateMyPoo.com" certainly has a strong following. It's just not my cup of tea.
February 18th, 2016 at 1:38 AM ^
Bill Simmons gave us back our Grantland! The talent over there went beyond clickbait which is all that ESPN seems to be about these days. Clicks = advertising = money. The mouse house does a few things very well, but sports does not seem to be one.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:41 PM ^
Simmons is too talented and creative to work for a "boss." My hope is that he can monetize his website sufficiently to turn quality writing into a profitable venture.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:29 PM ^
I'm not entirely sure that being a relentless Boston Sports homer and recycling the same jokes and talking points over and over again translate into being too talented and creative to answer to "The Man."
That said, based off of what he built at Grantland, he has a great eye for writing talent and I appreciated the wide range of content available. If the new website performs a similar function I would be very happy.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^
Excited to have Simmons back online. If it is even half as good as Grantland I will be happy. I still sometimes type Grantland in to my Internet before remembering it doesn't exist anymore.
February 17th, 2016 at 8:45 PM ^
It was a good run.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:46 PM ^
This is great news. And when Simmons was asked about the lessons he learned from running Grantland and his answer was "Don't do it with ESPN." I've always been a fan of his but that response made me like him even more. Screw ESPN.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:48 PM ^
Not sure if anyone remembers Molly Lambert - she wrote a pop culture column at Grantland and hosted the "Girls in Hoodies" podcast. MTV has hired her to be "lead music writer."
http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/mtv-news-amy-nicholson-molly-lambert-m…
February 17th, 2016 at 3:01 PM ^
MTV News is the other home of a lot of the Grantland people. The head Grantland editor was hired there and he hired a lot of the out-of-contract Grantland people, including Brian Phillips.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:49 PM ^
Brian Phillips was my favorite writer on Grantland.
February 17th, 2016 at 2:55 PM ^
I miss Grantland every day. I even miss disagreeing with Andy Greenwald about pretty much everything.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:05 PM ^
Listening to him and Chris Ryan brings me great joy. I often disagree with their opinions, especially about music, but their enthusiasm about television is awesome. If they can bring Watch the Thrones back in some form, I'll be extremely happy.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:14 PM ^
They're back on Simmons' "Channel 33" podcasts.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:16 PM ^
Yeah, I listen to every one they put out. Just hoping for something like they did for Watch the Thrones where it was a full hour and four different view points all about Game of Thrones. It was the best content out there on the show, IMO.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:52 PM ^
It is possible because the Mallory Rubin joined Chris Ryan and Greenwald. The only missing piece is the Maester. I have no idea what he is doing other than posting hilarious tweets about Roc Divers the GM of the Clippers.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:11 PM ^
He's one of the best follows on Twitter for sure. I don't remember seeing him go anywhere, so he might be available. I wonder if HBO would try to have input in their writing/podcasts about Thrones.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:19 PM ^
Being on HBO means they should have even more access and bring back an even better version of Watch the Thrones.
February 17th, 2016 at 3:39 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 5:23 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 3:43 PM ^
Check out our logo, the letter "R".
February 17th, 2016 at 3:47 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 3:57 PM ^
There was a thread about the SCOTUS that got political and was locked. There was a lengthy discussion about not knowing who Antonin Scalia was. Over at ESPN's other web project, fivethirtyeight.com, they have an article up about the SCOTUS that says this:
The contemporary classic work on Americans’ political knowledge, “What Americans Know About Politics and Why It Matters,” reports that few citizens can name more than one Supreme Court justice. A 2012 survey found that two-thirds couldn’t even name one.
I find that shocking. I was able to name 8 and only missed Kagan because she hasn't been around long enough. I mean seriously, we can name the entire starting offense and defense for Michigan, but we can't name one supreme court justice?
This is not a political comment. It is a comment about how dumb/uninformed 2/3 of Americans are.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:01 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 4:51 PM ^
you thought he was bright and talented.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/politics/russia-putin-trump/
Darn it, I made it one whole comment before this got political.
February 17th, 2016 at 5:20 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 4:12 PM ^
That really is embarassing. I can get 6 of them and don't really care all that much about politics.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:16 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 4:47 PM ^
about constitutional law, if such a thing exists.
February 17th, 2016 at 6:10 PM ^
well there are only 8 right now ....
February 17th, 2016 at 7:12 PM ^
Burn the witch!
February 17th, 2016 at 6:19 PM ^
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February 17th, 2016 at 4:22 PM ^
February 17th, 2016 at 4:49 PM ^
I'll rephrase that to say the first three books were great, the fourth one was borderline unreadable, and the fifth one was better but the magic was gone. The next book is taking forever for Martin to write, and I've given up. I'm actualy hoping the series finishes before Martin does now.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:56 PM ^
I started reading the Dragon Reborn stuff by Robert Jordan after he had finished book 5. There were only supposed to be 8 books, so I thought I was good. Instead, he dragged it out to 11 books, died, and then the next author wrote two more to complete the series. I initially thought I'd be able to read the whole series in a couple years. It ended up taking over 15 years with multiple multi-year waits between books. History is repeating with Martin. It's gotten to the point where I can't remember the first few books and I'm taking the TV show at face value assuming they got everything right. Well, almost everything.
February 17th, 2016 at 5:33 PM ^
I have entirely forgotten the books at this point--willingly, in the case of book four. And I read Dragon Reborn through book 6, then picked it up again after skipping book 7 and 8 (and guess what, it was very easy to catch up, one of the things wrong with that series IMO). but after Jordan died I quit and didn't finish. I will say that Brandon Sanderson, who finished the books for Jordan, is an excellent author in his own right with Words of Radiance (book 2 of the stormlight archive series) being one of the best fantasy books I've read ever.
February 17th, 2016 at 10:48 PM ^
With Martin the magic died for me when I picked up book five found it ended on a ton of cliffhangers and then I Found out he still had no idea where he was going in the story. At this point I'm calling the TV show the culmination of his vision and will check in with the books just to note the differences. Hell if he wanted to just quit and move on to something else while putting out a Dunk and Egg story every once in a while I'd be okay with that, too.
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February 18th, 2016 at 8:28 AM ^
with this.
February 17th, 2016 at 4:41 PM ^
Their wordmark thing is ugly as fuck. It's so bright it made my eyes hurt.
February 17th, 2016 at 5:05 PM ^