When ESPN announced in October that it was shutting down the publication of its acclaimed sports and pop-culture website Grantland, nobody thought it would be the last we saw of its ousted creator, Bill Simmons. And indeed, Simmons has since launched a highly successful podcast network. Then there were murmurs of a television show (which we now know is Any Given Wednesday, premiering June 22 on HBO). And then, in February, Simmons announced he would be returning to the website world.
Wednesday marks the launch of Grantland 2.0 — or rather, The Ringer — but with some politics, tech, and heavy doses of Game of Thrones thrown into the sports/pop-culture stew. With a blinking header (presented by Miller Lite?) and electric green accents, it The Ringer might not know exactly what it is yet, but it sure seems to know where it's going.
The site is hosted by the publishing platform Medium, which has also lured over The Awl, Pacific Standard, The Blacklist, Electric Literature, and Femsplain. As a result, The Ringer already has elegant, if familiar, longform pages — like this one, on 3-pointers. And with Medium's built in "read time" predictor, you know when you're settling into a 20-minute profile on Joe Buck, or a 3-minute takedown of Riley Curry.
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Simmons has a nose like a bloodhound for picking out young, talented writers, and while many Grantland alumni have already signed on to the project, there is some promising fresh blood in the mix, too. Check out The Ringer here.
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