Bill Simmons announced several new hires for his newly announced website, The Ringer, and given that there are "former Grantland staffers who are free agents as well those currently at ESPN with upcoming contracts expiring, it’s a fair guess that Simmons could add more of his former staff in the upcoming months," according to Richard Deitsch of SI.com. Simmons' recent wave of hires includes Bryan Curtis, who "covered sports media and college football at Grantland and two former Grantland editors: Ryan O’Hanlon and Danny Chau." Amanda Dobbins, an editor at New York Magazine’s Vulture blog and Glamour, "will oversee the new site’s culture coverage." Author James Andrew Miller said, "In the digital world, Simmons will now become ESPN’s Kryptonite. They knew this was coming; will try and ignore it; won’t say anything bad about it; but they will be following The Ringer metrics closer than they follow their paychecks. This will be a fun battle to watch for years to come." Deitsch noted The Ringer is "part of larger content umbrella that includes the B.S. Podcast Network as well as a production company for scripted and non-scripted content." Simmons last year hired former NFL Exec Producer Eric Weinberger and Geoffrey Chow "as lead executives for the Bill Simmons Media Group" (SI.com, 2/17). DEADLINE's Jeremy Gerard wrote Simmons' reveal of his plans for the site signifies his "determination to keep the spirit of his National Magazine Award-nominated journal alive." Grantland in the course of its four-year run "developed a wide readership for both its exhaustive sports reporting and commentary and similarly thoughtful and provocative pop-culture commentary" (DEADLINE.com, 2/17).
