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Listening to Simmons over the last year, it is clear that part of Grantland's failure was being under the ESPN umbrella and not chasing what ESPN considered "sm
by mcgrath_sh 9y ago
Listening to Simmons over the last year, it is clear that part of Grantland's failure was being under the ESPN umbrella and not chasing what ESPN considered "small dollar" advertisements and partners. In a recent podcast, Simmons said that his BS Report podcast (an iTunes Top 10 mainstay) was just thrown in with the Subway deal for years.
It is also my interpretation that had Grantland and Simmons not been so intertwined, it may have had a better shot at surviving the messy Simmons/ESPN divorce.
- pitt1980 9y agoTheRinger seems significantly more 'short form' than Grantland did not sure what that says about the economics of long form sports journalism
- mcgrath_sh 9y agoSimmons has touched on that in the past. He talks a lot about some of what happened at Grantland, ESPN, and decisions he made re: The Ringer on the July 12, 2017 of the Bill Simmons Podcast titled, "Inside the Evolution of ESPN With Jim Miller and Bryan Curtis." Here is the link to his podcast section on The Ringer: https://theringer.com/bill-simmons-podcast-d3868264a984 https://theringer.com/bill-simmons-podcast-d3868264a984
- Touche 9y agoIf you'll notice nearly everything he talks about is in relation to their podcasts, not the long form articles. There was a businessweek article a few weeks back that says The Ringer makes nearly (or perhaps all) of its money on podcasts. I'm not sure it's fair to compare The Ringer or Grantland to other sports journalism websites because The Ringer is a podcast company that happens to also write some articles.
- Touche 9y agoThis article speaks to the economics pretty well I think. The Ringer should do the same thing. From what we know they make nearly (all?) of their money on podcast ads anyways.