The Ringer is Live

I love how polarizing Bill Simmons can be for folks, because while I don't necessarily want to read stuff he writes, I respect him a ton because of what he did and the impact he's had on the business. This NYT piece on him is incredibly fascinating and gives some good background on his start.

The thing about Simmons is the marketplace he created. I know it's been said everywhere else, but it's worth saying again. Simmons' Page 2 blog was the blueprint of success in the Internet age (aka 2005). Simmons is like Kanye West in almost every way. Kanye's style was revolutionary in the early 2000s, and now guys like Drake exist because of Kanye (I'm sure this thought is on Grantland somewhere, FWIW). What Simmons did back then is what guys like Shea Serrano are doing now, and nobody on Twitter is loved more than Shea Serrano.

But anyways, Alma, here's a quote from Leitch in the NYT post that probably answers your question.

"Before Simmons you never got a feel for what the columnist's life was like outside of the games. There was this large disconnect between reporters and their readers. Simmons threw all that out the window and said these are the conversations we're having. It felt like you were all in on a private joke together, like you had discovered something."

 

i do remember reading Bill's columns religiously back in like 2002 and 2003. Multiple friends would send me links to his stuff and I think a lot of it had to do with being a Sox fan and having people read it and think, "a sox fan I know would like that." Dude put it all together. Much respect. Tonight he has a guests on Any Given Wednesday (a name that's growing on me from a smart marketing angle) comedian Bill Hader, Mark Cuban and Malcolm Gladwell. No idea if he has spoken to Hader before or if the guy is a huge sports rooter like Ben Affleck, but he obviously knows Cuban and Gladwell well. Can't begrudge him that move; he was definitely comfortable busting Barkley's balls in the premiere. I just hope the topics are a little fresher than Deflategate and lebron's rank among the all time greats. Sound like topics chosen by a 7th grader

Edit: this is what Simmons just tweeted out about what to read on The Ringer. Not exciting

 

Nobody ever did it better, though everyone's trying (and failing).

 

I don't know who you are or what you stand for but if you hate Lost then I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

 

Sepinwall definitely deserves credit for making recapping go mainstream and I would agree with BYH that The Sopranos is where it began, but LOST is where it got stupid, and the fault there mostly falls at the feet of Doc Jensen, who was blogging for Entertainment Weekly at the time and assigned LOST (and Lindelof and Cuse) way more gravitas than it deserved. Every week, he would spin these deep theories that seemed suited for a graduate studies class on Greek Mythology, and they almost entirely turned out to be complete nonsense. No one has ever strained harder to try and make a mediocre show seem like genius than Jensen did with LOST.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5607679/12-theories-about-lost-that-were-better-than-the-actual-show

 

Weird that that NYT story claims Simmons has "no formal journalism training." He has a Masters in print journalism from Boston University and was for a time a prep sports writer at the Boston Herald.

Not sure if that was the myth Simmons was trying to propagate at the time or if the writer (Warren St. John) simply didn't do his homework.

 

Don't have HBO so I didn't see it, but the slice of Twitter I see had nice things to say about last night's Any Given Wednesday with Gladwell and Cuban. Was curious what people here thought.

 

It was certainly better than the first. Gladwell is even more uncomfortable than Simmons on TV, but then Cuban pretty much runs every room he's in.

The Bill Hader segment was formatted into a "speed round" with Hader throwing in tons of impressions, including Lorne Michaels and Arnold Schwarzenegger (but not Alan Alda, unfortunately).

The Game of Thrones riff at the end was funny.

 

Hader did a speed round of animal impressions when he was on Billy on the Street last season.

I love Billy on the Street.

 

Who is Shea Serrano?

 

A goddamn treasure, that's who.

Issue #9: In A Time Of Universal Deceit, Telling The Truth Is A Revolutionary Act

 

Glad I'm not the only one.