The Ringer Seeks To Differentiate Itself From Grantland, Including Tech/Politics Coverage

Bill Simmons' new site, The Ringer, will be "more than just a sequel" to his Grantland pop culture effort at ESPN, according to Tim Baysinger of ADWEEK. Simmons in an email wrote The Ringer will "experiment with branching out from Grantland staples like sports and pop culture to other areas, but 'the DNA will be similar.'" Tech and politics will "be a major focus for the site." The Ringer Editor-In-Chief Sean Fennessey, who previously served as Grantland Deputy Editor, said, "It's just a much different entity here. There's a little bit more of a spirit of experimentation." Fennessey added, "There is a particular way of writing about these things that we felt was missing. A lot of tech reporting, while essential and important, is often very straightforward and product driven." Fennessey: "We want to try to do more food and drink. A lot of our coverage areas are very seasonal." Baysinger noted hours after the news broke just after midnight Saturday that Muhammad Ali had died, a Keith Olbermann-penned Ali tribute "went up" on The Ringer. Simmons said of the site, "It reacts a little better to news and the ‪24/7 cycle." Baysinger notes unlike Grantland, where Simmons "ran the entire show," Fennessey, The Ringer President Eric Weinberger and COO Geoffrey Chow "will take the day-to-day lead" at The Ringer. Simmons: "The HBO show has been swallowing me up for the past few months. The site needed me most from October to February as we were figuring out what it was" (ADWEEK.com, 6/6).

TIMING IS EVERYTHING: In Buffalo, Jeff Simon writes it was "tragically unpredictable" that The Ringer would debut "at almost the exact moment the sports news of the year -- the death of Muhammad Ali -- happened." There had "never been a more powerful anti-establishment figure in the world of sports." The Ringer "dealt with it by having a lead Ali piece by Keith Olbermann, the original roaring mouse to shiver ESPN’s pachydermal timbers." Meanwhile, one of the "biggest of all media wrongs in the past few years -- the absence of Bill Simmons from the American conversation -- has hereby been righted" (BUFFALO NEWS, 6/7).