This is a serious question and I need the answer before I make any other comment. How do people have so much time to listen to podcasts? Do they read one thing and listen to another? I am a reader so when would I have time to listen to podcasts w/o taking away from reading? (I realize commutes and exercise but outside of these?)
I used to read The Ringer a lot but drifted away over time. I find their good work to be too buried in insufferable content (their banner includes "MCU" and "Star Wars") but I guess as you point out that is what you have to do.
As someone who has listened to a lot of podcasts over the years I somehow never got into any of the 7,000 they offer. I feel like it is a choice overload problem.
I appreciate the thoughtful opinion though as opposed to just dunking on their shitty content/Bill Simmons as that would be far too easy.
Speaking as someone who checks The Ringer multiple times a day - as I did Grantland before it - (and God, I hate people who can only say "speaking as someone who" and now I'm doing it) I think you're spot on here. Simmons is clearly a canny guy, but there's never the slightest hint that he recognizes that he makes a very comfortable living being a professional fourteen year old. I should love his Rewatchables podcast, but I can't stand it. I don't expect him to do deep dives on silent classics or Ingemar Bergman, but all the "greatest ever" blather from guys who apparently think movies didn't exist before 1972 gives me a huge pain.
Can’t arugue with Simmons-as-talent-spotter but I don’t check the Ringer as often as I did Grantland. The former has a couple of writers I enjoy but the rest is formulaic and uninteresting and I regret having spent time reading it too often.
What analytics tell you to go for on your own 18 yard line? If you miss, the other team is basically guaranteed at least 3 points. if you make it, you're still 80 yards from the goal, not a good a field position. I agree with going for in the Red Zone etc but that seems bizarre.
This is going to be a bit rambly, so fair warning in advance. It's what happens when Simmons/Ringer/Grantland are mentioned.
For me, The Ringer is to Grantland kind of how Gawker 2.0 is to old Gawker. That's a little harsh to The Ringer, of course, but I just don't check it with the same frequency and excitement that I did Grantland. I'm not totally sure why, but I think part of it is that Grantland didn't read like everything else on the Internet did at the time. It wasn't especially politically progressive or socially conscious, and its pro-analytics voices like Lowe and Barnwell in particular had not yet totally won the battle for the soul of sportswriting. To illustrate the former point, take a look at this Wesley Morris Grantland piece from 2013: https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/black-panties-drops-the-nearly-perfect-new-r-kelly-album/
I'm not saying this is a good review, but I think it shows effectively just how different 2013 was. There were plenty of Grantland-esque sites and publications in 2013 where one could read a discussion of R Kelly's art that focused mainly on the accusations of him as a sexual predator, but it was also possible to write something like that review without becoming Twitter's main character for a week. The Ringer, to me, feels like a product of the dominant voice and way of thinking for the media in 2022, which is safe, and generally fine. But if they disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't miss the written articles at all.
Regarding Simmons: what can I say, I like him, despite myself. He is a bit of a hack, full of himself, endlessly mockable. Whenever the Deadspin / Defector guys would come after something he had written, they would usually draw blood precisely because the passage they were quoting was essentially gibberish. But despite all of that, when I would read his writing in the past, there was a certain happiness and excitement in it. The man loved covering sports and pop culture, and he wrote in a way that, even for me, was infectious. He never, thank God, woke up. The ideal Bill Simmons article, for me, would be a piece written in the aftermath of a sporting event that had gone my way.
For example, the 2011 Mavericks-Heat NBA Finals. Today, if you're writing about post-Decision LeBron and the Heat, you may well take the angle that says for the most part only white fans were pissed at him about the whole thing. The vitriol he received was either racist or racially-tinged, and the Mavs were not the "good guys." There is probably some truth in this, but honesty compels me to point out that during that finals, I was strongly rooting for the Mavs and was absolutely thrilled when Dirk won his ring and Finals MVP. In the aftermath of the game when the Mavs sealed it, still a little delirious with excitement over the fact that the team I was rooting for had won, a piece like Simmons' recap was the perfect cherry on top: https://grantland.com/features/nba-finals-game-6-retro-diary/
> I firmly believe that the Chargers and Raiders should have gone out there, snapped the ball, and stood around for 60 minutes. When an NFL team starts the season, their no. 1 goal is to win the Super Bowl. They live for this goal. They fight for this goal. They suffer brutal injuries for that goal. To achieve that goal, you have to make the playoffs—and both teams could guarantee that would happen with a tie. Why risk ruining that opportunity? As a display of fealty to the integrity of the game? The ultimate goal of the game is to win the Super Bowl—not win individual games—and clearly, tying maximized that possibility. Wouldn’t it show more integrity to do whatever it takes to ensure the highest possible chance to make the playoffs?
I'm sure Rodger Sherman would consider himself "pro-player." His columns are filled with digs at Roger Goodell, the NCAA, and the usual cast of villains. In this very column, he refers to the new Week 18 as a "cash grab."
But I think this attitude betrays such a fundamental understanding of athletes. These guys have short careers and only a limited number of games in which to apply their chosen craft. And they should just waste one because it won't help them make the playoffs?
My least favorite one of these is the lament that a bad team won a game and weakened their position in next year's draft. It's not bad enough that these guys are on a bad team. They're also supposed to embarrass themselves on the field so their team will have better players next year (when they will very likely no longer be with the team). Yeah, really "pro-player"
(Also, put aside that the ultimate purpose of a sports league is an entertainment business, and teams trying not to win might be occasionally interesting, but is, in general, lousy entertainment).
I'd also be interested in the thoughts of the non-LeBron members of the 2018 Lakers on the "player empowerment era."
I spend way too much time with the Ringer, but here are some thoughts.
I fell in love with Brian Phillips a few years ago and engraved his name among the best Internet writers. His appreciations of sports and culture are sincere and unpredictable. In the average Ringer piece, the paragraphs seem to reiterate the byline without developing insight or evidence, but Phillips builds and develops his work. He asks searching questions about the sports world without self-righteousness.
Also, I have a strong bias toward literary sensibilities online, and for my money Phillips is the sharpest literary mind for miles at the Ringer and sites like it.
Still, I have been feeling lately that his writing is a little too topical, less original than it has been in the past. That could be because my early appreciation was infatuation which of course wanes. It could be because I came to his work after Grantland folded, and so devoured his archives at a distance from the events that inspired them. Regardless, I feel fatigue, and I think it comes from the Ringer habitat more broadly. Like Pete mentioned above, I have lost the excitement I had when browsing Grantland or early Ringer. Something in the air at the Ringer is exhausting: the chattiness, the cleverness, the trappings of wisdom. I used to read Adam Nayman and Alison Herman eagerly, but I don't anymore, and I don't think it's because their quality declined. They are both perceptive critics and solid writers. Maybe it has something to do with their mere presence in an environment that's wearisome?
Another reason I'm itching for more/different from Phillips is that his book, Impossible Owls, is so smart and exciting and at points even ingenious, that his regular articles online look pretty skinny in comparison. I know some of the Owls essays appeared first online, but Phillips almost never writes pieces like that anymore. So, here's to hoping more great work, more books, are ahead of him.
P.S. In the spirit of praise in the podcast world: Ditto Re Chris Ryan--he is smart and likable. Wosny Lambre on the NBA podcast is a great personality. Chris Vernon is often a kind of a caricature, but he endears me and I prefer him to the knowitalls. And I kind of embarrass myself to say this, but I love Russillo. He's often a jock and a bro, but with real keenness and even sensitivity at times. He distrusts easy puffy "narratives" and tries to work with evidence and detail.
Fwiw, in regard to that response to your article, I didn't take it as you saying not to be an artist. I took as you saying not to be a journalist for a click farm. If your aspiration as a writer is to create art, then I don't think you care if the pay sucks. And I don't think you were denying that.
It's a little hard for me too understand how you could like Justin Charity's work. I read a few columns that epitomized the dim, cowardly wokery we find everywhere and never bothered with him again. The Ringer is fine for sports, ok for pop culture, but is fully Orthodox Woke on politics and culture war stuff.
Blog reading is my sport, with a bit of computer gaming and lots of friendly chatting with my best friend - my wife, tho she's more into books (in Slovak) than blogs. Neither of us like podcasts, not even when I'm walking alone or doing dishes or basically ever - prefer a readable transcript. My kids are OK with podcasts, but even more into short videos, even tho they often play some computer game while "watching" / mostly listening, to the video. So much infotainment; tho a good amount of info is there with the 'tainment.
The Pharmacon album cover is certainly provocative. But background screaming is, how did you phrase it about Galef, "not for me". I'd prefer "underappreciated" music, like The The:
There's more room for professional writers than for singers - and there continue to be tons of singers hoping to become pros. Which I think is fine, and also for writers - but have serious plans for a Plan B- a real job. Better yet, make becoming a pro the Plan B as a hobby. Not for 10,000 hours, but for hundreds of serious hours trying to get better, not just doing what you like.
While it's tougher to be tops, there's more folks with more time looking for cool things / fun things / thoughtful things. Maybe often even rude things. Ain't this the right place?
Not gonna lie: "Analytics-Humping Typing Penis" made me snort my coffee out my nose. Ow.
This is a serious question and I need the answer before I make any other comment. How do people have so much time to listen to podcasts? Do they read one thing and listen to another? I am a reader so when would I have time to listen to podcasts w/o taking away from reading? (I realize commutes and exercise but outside of these?)
I used to read The Ringer a lot but drifted away over time. I find their good work to be too buried in insufferable content (their banner includes "MCU" and "Star Wars") but I guess as you point out that is what you have to do.
As someone who has listened to a lot of podcasts over the years I somehow never got into any of the 7,000 they offer. I feel like it is a choice overload problem.
I appreciate the thoughtful opinion though as opposed to just dunking on their shitty content/Bill Simmons as that would be far too easy.
Speaking as someone who checks The Ringer multiple times a day - as I did Grantland before it - (and God, I hate people who can only say "speaking as someone who" and now I'm doing it) I think you're spot on here. Simmons is clearly a canny guy, but there's never the slightest hint that he recognizes that he makes a very comfortable living being a professional fourteen year old. I should love his Rewatchables podcast, but I can't stand it. I don't expect him to do deep dives on silent classics or Ingemar Bergman, but all the "greatest ever" blather from guys who apparently think movies didn't exist before 1972 gives me a huge pain.
The basketball is great, though.
Can’t arugue with Simmons-as-talent-spotter but I don’t check the Ringer as often as I did Grantland. The former has a couple of writers I enjoy but the rest is formulaic and uninteresting and I regret having spent time reading it too often.
Since this post mentions analytics...
What analytics tell you to go for on your own 18 yard line? If you miss, the other team is basically guaranteed at least 3 points. if you make it, you're still 80 yards from the goal, not a good a field position. I agree with going for in the Red Zone etc but that seems bizarre.
Damn, that guy really did not care for your piece. I hope he did not quit his day job to start the "fuck you Freddie" Substack. :(
This is going to be a bit rambly, so fair warning in advance. It's what happens when Simmons/Ringer/Grantland are mentioned.
For me, The Ringer is to Grantland kind of how Gawker 2.0 is to old Gawker. That's a little harsh to The Ringer, of course, but I just don't check it with the same frequency and excitement that I did Grantland. I'm not totally sure why, but I think part of it is that Grantland didn't read like everything else on the Internet did at the time. It wasn't especially politically progressive or socially conscious, and its pro-analytics voices like Lowe and Barnwell in particular had not yet totally won the battle for the soul of sportswriting. To illustrate the former point, take a look at this Wesley Morris Grantland piece from 2013: https://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/black-panties-drops-the-nearly-perfect-new-r-kelly-album/
I'm not saying this is a good review, but I think it shows effectively just how different 2013 was. There were plenty of Grantland-esque sites and publications in 2013 where one could read a discussion of R Kelly's art that focused mainly on the accusations of him as a sexual predator, but it was also possible to write something like that review without becoming Twitter's main character for a week. The Ringer, to me, feels like a product of the dominant voice and way of thinking for the media in 2022, which is safe, and generally fine. But if they disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't miss the written articles at all.
Regarding Simmons: what can I say, I like him, despite myself. He is a bit of a hack, full of himself, endlessly mockable. Whenever the Deadspin / Defector guys would come after something he had written, they would usually draw blood precisely because the passage they were quoting was essentially gibberish. But despite all of that, when I would read his writing in the past, there was a certain happiness and excitement in it. The man loved covering sports and pop culture, and he wrote in a way that, even for me, was infectious. He never, thank God, woke up. The ideal Bill Simmons article, for me, would be a piece written in the aftermath of a sporting event that had gone my way.
For example, the 2011 Mavericks-Heat NBA Finals. Today, if you're writing about post-Decision LeBron and the Heat, you may well take the angle that says for the most part only white fans were pissed at him about the whole thing. The vitriol he received was either racist or racially-tinged, and the Mavs were not the "good guys." There is probably some truth in this, but honesty compels me to point out that during that finals, I was strongly rooting for the Mavs and was absolutely thrilled when Dirk won his ring and Finals MVP. In the aftermath of the game when the Mavs sealed it, still a little delirious with excitement over the fact that the team I was rooting for had won, a piece like Simmons' recap was the perfect cherry on top: https://grantland.com/features/nba-finals-game-6-retro-diary/
I’m also a fan of Justin Charity.
The part of the analytics heavy NFL analysis I don't care for is this, "why don't they just take a knee?" analysis.
Here was Rodger Sherman (https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2022/1/10/22875358/winners-and-losers-week-18-chargers-raiders-colts-49ers) on last week's Raiders/Chargers game:
> I firmly believe that the Chargers and Raiders should have gone out there, snapped the ball, and stood around for 60 minutes. When an NFL team starts the season, their no. 1 goal is to win the Super Bowl. They live for this goal. They fight for this goal. They suffer brutal injuries for that goal. To achieve that goal, you have to make the playoffs—and both teams could guarantee that would happen with a tie. Why risk ruining that opportunity? As a display of fealty to the integrity of the game? The ultimate goal of the game is to win the Super Bowl—not win individual games—and clearly, tying maximized that possibility. Wouldn’t it show more integrity to do whatever it takes to ensure the highest possible chance to make the playoffs?
I'm sure Rodger Sherman would consider himself "pro-player." His columns are filled with digs at Roger Goodell, the NCAA, and the usual cast of villains. In this very column, he refers to the new Week 18 as a "cash grab."
But I think this attitude betrays such a fundamental understanding of athletes. These guys have short careers and only a limited number of games in which to apply their chosen craft. And they should just waste one because it won't help them make the playoffs?
My least favorite one of these is the lament that a bad team won a game and weakened their position in next year's draft. It's not bad enough that these guys are on a bad team. They're also supposed to embarrass themselves on the field so their team will have better players next year (when they will very likely no longer be with the team). Yeah, really "pro-player"
(Also, put aside that the ultimate purpose of a sports league is an entertainment business, and teams trying not to win might be occasionally interesting, but is, in general, lousy entertainment).
I'd also be interested in the thoughts of the non-LeBron members of the 2018 Lakers on the "player empowerment era."
I spend way too much time with the Ringer, but here are some thoughts.
I fell in love with Brian Phillips a few years ago and engraved his name among the best Internet writers. His appreciations of sports and culture are sincere and unpredictable. In the average Ringer piece, the paragraphs seem to reiterate the byline without developing insight or evidence, but Phillips builds and develops his work. He asks searching questions about the sports world without self-righteousness.
This piece about analytics as a cultural movement is a good example of his ability to crisply and convincingly make an argument, and easily transcends the average discussion about analytics in sports: https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/10/16/21519756/daryl-morey-billy-beane-moneyball-sports-analytics-stepping-away
Also, I have a strong bias toward literary sensibilities online, and for my money Phillips is the sharpest literary mind for miles at the Ringer and sites like it.
Still, I have been feeling lately that his writing is a little too topical, less original than it has been in the past. That could be because my early appreciation was infatuation which of course wanes. It could be because I came to his work after Grantland folded, and so devoured his archives at a distance from the events that inspired them. Regardless, I feel fatigue, and I think it comes from the Ringer habitat more broadly. Like Pete mentioned above, I have lost the excitement I had when browsing Grantland or early Ringer. Something in the air at the Ringer is exhausting: the chattiness, the cleverness, the trappings of wisdom. I used to read Adam Nayman and Alison Herman eagerly, but I don't anymore, and I don't think it's because their quality declined. They are both perceptive critics and solid writers. Maybe it has something to do with their mere presence in an environment that's wearisome?
Another reason I'm itching for more/different from Phillips is that his book, Impossible Owls, is so smart and exciting and at points even ingenious, that his regular articles online look pretty skinny in comparison. I know some of the Owls essays appeared first online, but Phillips almost never writes pieces like that anymore. So, here's to hoping more great work, more books, are ahead of him.
P.S. In the spirit of praise in the podcast world: Ditto Re Chris Ryan--he is smart and likable. Wosny Lambre on the NBA podcast is a great personality. Chris Vernon is often a kind of a caricature, but he endears me and I prefer him to the knowitalls. And I kind of embarrass myself to say this, but I love Russillo. He's often a jock and a bro, but with real keenness and even sensitivity at times. He distrusts easy puffy "narratives" and tries to work with evidence and detail.
Fwiw, in regard to that response to your article, I didn't take it as you saying not to be an artist. I took as you saying not to be a journalist for a click farm. If your aspiration as a writer is to create art, then I don't think you care if the pay sucks. And I don't think you were denying that.
I wonder what the certification process is for oafs…
It's a little hard for me too understand how you could like Justin Charity's work. I read a few columns that epitomized the dim, cowardly wokery we find everywhere and never bothered with him again. The Ringer is fine for sports, ok for pop culture, but is fully Orthodox Woke on politics and culture war stuff.
Blog reading is my sport, with a bit of computer gaming and lots of friendly chatting with my best friend - my wife, tho she's more into books (in Slovak) than blogs. Neither of us like podcasts, not even when I'm walking alone or doing dishes or basically ever - prefer a readable transcript. My kids are OK with podcasts, but even more into short videos, even tho they often play some computer game while "watching" / mostly listening, to the video. So much infotainment; tho a good amount of info is there with the 'tainment.
The Pharmacon album cover is certainly provocative. But background screaming is, how did you phrase it about Galef, "not for me". I'd prefer "underappreciated" music, like The The:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bErFXjUGvQ
There's more room for professional writers than for singers - and there continue to be tons of singers hoping to become pros. Which I think is fine, and also for writers - but have serious plans for a Plan B- a real job. Better yet, make becoming a pro the Plan B as a hobby. Not for 10,000 hours, but for hundreds of serious hours trying to get better, not just doing what you like.
While it's tougher to be tops, there's more folks with more time looking for cool things / fun things / thoughtful things. Maybe often even rude things. Ain't this the right place?