Bill Simmons just launched The Ringer. It's Grantland 2.0, plus politics and tech.

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last updated 1 June 2016

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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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.

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