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The Ringer
Bill Simmons (founder and managing director)
By now, Bill Simmons’ journey is almost as much a part of sports media lore as the subjects he has written about. He started out dreaming of being a local newspaper sports columnist, and was on his way to doing just that as a high school sports writer for the Boston Herald in the mid-1990s. When he sensed that path was blocked by too many veterans who might never leave their posts, he pivoted and eventually began writing for a now-defunct website affiliated with AOL. That got him noticed by ESPN.com, where he soon became a star columnist, then the brains behind the creation of “30 for 30,” a panelist on “NBA Countdown” and, ultimately, the creator and top editor at his own sports and pop culture off-shoot, Grantland.
When Simmons left ESPN in 2015, Grantland was soon shuttered. So Simmons started another one and imported much of his top talent — including Sean Fennessey (now head of content), Juliet Litman (head of production), Chris Ryan (editorial director) and Mallory Rubin (head of editorial) — to help run it. The Ringer debuted in 2016, and while its writing has remained creatively strong, what immediately helped set the site apart from Grantland was its equal emphasis on a wide variety of podcasts. The most prominent, then and now, is Simmons’ self-titled show, which ranked as the most popular sports podcast in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2023 and the No. 30 most popular podcast overall, according to Edison Research.
Like the rest of his company, Simmons doesn’t limit himself to sports. So while The Ringer has podcasts on the NBA, the NFL and even just New York sports, it also offers “The Rewatchables” (favorite old movies), “Plain English” (news and current events) and “60 Songs That Explain the ’90s” (music).
The formula proved so successful that in 2020 Spotify bought the company for $250 million.
Music has since served as the subject for The Ringer’s most ambitious dive yet into films: The Music Box series that debuted on HBO in 2021 with a six-episode first season starting with a film on Woodstock ’99 and concluding with one on late rapper Juice Wrld. Season 2, opening with Jason Isbell, debuted earlier this year.
Its upcoming offerings include a new documentary on the 2022-23 NBA G League season, produced in conjunction with Religion of Sports, that will premiere on Prime Video. — Ted Keith
