The Ringer

Okay . . . let's try this again.

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A_B
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The Ringer

Post by A_B »

May was well have a new thread.

They have been running some "previews" ahead of European Championships highlighting certain players in defense, midfield and up front. And they have all been about 1/3 as long as they probably should be. No real information at all. Like they wanted to do soccer but didn't really have the heart to do it right.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Pruitt »

A_B wrote:May was well have a new thread.

They have been running some "previews" ahead of European Championships highlighting certain players in defense, midfield and up front. And they have all been about 1/3 as long as they probably should be. No real information at all. Like they wanted to do soccer but didn't really have the heart to do it right.
Check out the Guardian's Football Weekly podcast. They are always entertaining and spent an hour on groups A, B and C. The other three groups covered tomorrow.

Plus the Guardian's Guide to Every Team And Player in the Tournament

As thorough as you could expect.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Brontoburglar »

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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

Simmons mentioned somewhere (probably his pod around the time that the Ringer debuted as a site) that he didn't like that Grantland was known as just longform, and that they're trying to do something different with The Ringer, more mobile-friendly, etc.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by mister d »

That was the appeal of Grantland to me.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

mister d wrote:That was the appeal of Grantland to me.
Agreed. When I heard him start to talk about, "studies show people read a lot of the internet on their phone...", I groaned.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by tennbengal »

Also, I can read longform, quite happily, on my phone. I don't get that as a reason to dumb down or make the articles shorter. I agree that the first few soccer columns have been disappointingly short.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Johnnie »

Was it to dumb down articles and make them shorter?

I read that as the website itself wasn't conducive, in his opinion, to be read on the phone. I must have misinterpreted.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

Johnnie wrote:Was it to dumb down articles and make them shorter?

I read that as the website itself wasn't conducive, in his opinion, to be read on the phone. I must have misinterpreted.
Maybe. Each article comes with the length of time to read on the top with the Byline.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Ryan »

Oh, so I guess you guys aren't interested in OVER 5000 WORDS¹ ABOUT THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN TELEVISION AND CULTURE FROM CHUCK KLOSTERMAN?!?!

¹669 of them are in the footnotes
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Re: The Ringer

Post by L-Jam3 »

I personally liked the longform, and I had no issues reading Grantland on the phone, on the shitter.

I do like the estimated reading time. And with the articles, I've read the same type and frequency as before.

Articles about sports, especially with a statistical and quantitative bent or quality entertainment? Read

Articles about reality tv, cuntmuppets, or long-ass articles from authors known to just puke words on the screen like Klosterman? Pass.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by DSafetyGuy »

The only thing I noteworthy in this article is that Kevin Durant is apparently the subject of trade discussion.

Otherwise, there's a whole lot of slurping going on.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

Four articles on the game last night from 4 different guys, each about 250-300 words or so. Holy shit this thing is a blog, not a media site.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Johnnie »

mister d wrote:Couldn't have pegged me better.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Johnny Carwash »

Thing that happens to me regularly: getting a new e-mail notification and hoping it's one of you guys' Swampcrash answers, then being disappointed to see it's the Ringer newsletter.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

I enjoy everything Shea Serrano.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

govmentchedda wrote:I enjoy everything Shea Serrano.

He's good. Not Zach Lowe good but different good.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

Hot Chicken! Great piece.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

govmentchedda wrote:I enjoy everything Shea Serrano.

Great piece on Kaepernick and talking to kids about it.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

A_B wrote:Hot Chicken! Great piece.
The hot chicken piece was good. Reminded me of the Korean chicken place that Oiler took me to a few weeks ago in K-town.
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Post by rass »

I felt aswirl with warm secretions.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by tennbengal »

Nice write-up on the sadness that was the second game last night (including that paragraph on the good part of the game offensively):

https://theringer.com/rams-niners-stake ... .krgbg8pgt
Though he proved himself to be an adequately athletic quarterback (a point that Steve Young took care to emphasize, over and over and over again), the 49ers quarterback Blaine Gabbert seemed to make a habit of either over — or under — throwing his receivers. At the start of the Niners’ second touchdown drive, Gabbert had accumulated quite the stat line: 7-for-10 for 36 yards. In the third quarter, which lasted a small eternity, both teams combined for 48 yards of offense on 30 plays, and at the start of the fourth quarter, Keenum and Gabbert both had a staggering 81 yards to their name. It seemed as time wore on that this game kept finding ever deeper and more profound lows.

All this to say: It was bad, you guys. Really fucking bad.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by A_B »

govmentchedda wrote:
A_B wrote:Hot Chicken! Great piece.
The hot chicken piece was good. Reminded me of the Korean chicken place that Oiler took me to a few weeks ago in K-town.
I got some hot chicken from Big Shakes today. Got the level 4 of 6. I could not finish it. Didn't really have anything other than heat. No real flavor. Disappointed, but know I have only myself to blame.
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Re: The Ringer

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Re: The Ringer

Post by sancarlos »

I think it would be fun to watch a game with Magary.
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Post by A_B »

sancarlos wrote:
I think it would be fun to watch a game with Magary.

I agree with that but I also liked the Simmons Article
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Re: The Ringer

Post by L-Jam3 »

He threw his all-time staring five of Peaks of Magic, LeBron, MJ, Bird, and some random center. That's laughable that Bird is in that group. Peak KG or Duncan get that spot over Bird, and that's just recent dudes. I could argue Peak Mailman over Bird, too, and again, that's just recent. Malone or Duncan man the 4 with LeBron as the Swiss-Army knife, or throw LeBron with Garnett in the frontcourt to wreak havoc. All those guys I mentioned are miles better on the defensive side than Bird. What a fucking homer.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Pruitt »

Cited in that column was a Ringer column that made my brain hurt. It is so beyond parody that it may have created a new category of writing.

2,500 words on Jennifer Garner's Capital One ad
And maybe that’s corny, but it feels like a lesson. Jennifer Garner took a medium so stigmatized that most don’t even consider it one, and turned it into a breakout role. She took a concept as throwaway as “discounts: very good,” and turned it into a humanizing character sketch. She took a series of 30-second commercials for a credit card that [NOPE; STILL DON’T KNOW WHAT IT DOES], and turned it into something moving.
Jennifer Garner took a supertext as relentless as celebrity heartbreak and turned it into — well, heartbreak.
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But hey, it didn't cost me anything to access, so I can't get to uppity here.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by Joe K »

Looks like we can add Simmons to the list of people whose careers have sputtered after leaving ESPN. HBO announced that they're cancelling Any Given Wednesday and that next week's show is the final episode. Simmons has always sucked on TV, so this isn't exactly a surprise.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by tennbengal »

I think the Ringer has been awfully good since launch. Not as good as Grantland (can't really replace Lowe, Keri, Wesley Morris, Andy Greenwald, Holly Anderson and Rembert easily) but a pretty good option in its stead. Hope that operation can continue for the foreseeable future.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by bapo! »

tennbengal wrote:I think the Ringer has been awfully good since launch. Not as good as Grantland (can't really replace Lowe, Keri, Wesley Morris, Andy Greenwald, Holly Anderson and Rembert easily) but a pretty good option in its stead. Hope that operation can continue for the foreseeable future.
I've been wanting to ask everybody's opinion on this for a while. I had given up on The Ringer over the summer. (I made it official by mentioning it in an email once.) Then I checked back in August or September and found a handful of very good, long football articles. So, it's at least back in my rotation, but I don't click on links every day.

I stay away from the culture side. There doesn't seem to be anything there for me. I'm willing to admit that that's as much my fault as the writers'/editors' fault. But I like the sports stuff, as long as it sticks to sports and not, like, comparing NBA players to Drake songs or whatever.

How about the rest of you guys? How many of you read it? How much do you enjoy it?
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Re: The Ringer

Post by rass »

I follow enough associated writers on Twitter that I just go ahead and read any article that gets promoted that looks interesting. I very rarely hit the main page directly. I tried but haven't been able to make the NFL picks column weekly reading.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by brian »

rass wrote:I follow enough associated writers on Twitter that I just go ahead and read any article that gets promoted that looks interesting. I very rarely hit the main page directly. I tried but haven't been able to make the NFL picks column weekly reading.
Pretty much this for me. It's a pale imitation of Grantland, but it doesn't mean there isn't occasionally interesting stuff. Just not a bookmarkable/must-check option for me.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

I've got a lot of Grantland/Ringer ideas but little time to put them into words. Loved Grantland, have no time for Ringer. Never watched AGS past ep.1. I'd probably put myself on Simmons fanboi side of the Swamp spectrum, but really wasn't grabbed by AGS, and think all Ringer stuff is too short/aimed at millenials with no attention span. Really happy for feeds that send Wesley Morris, Shea Serrano, and Rembert Browne stuff my way.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by govmentchedda »

I also give no fucks about NFL, so that may affect my enjoyment. Really feels like Ringer was too Silicon Valley funded, and aimed at clicks, and completely missed the mark. Grantland felt like it had way more editorial freedom, but also good editors as well. Essentially editorial freedom and restriction at the same time.
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Re: The Ringer

Post by rass »

Can't tell if he's joking, or waaah? Keri did credit him in the currently available version of the article.

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Re: The Ringer

Post by brian »

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Re: The Ringer

Post by rass »

OK, this is a quick turnaround, but Simmons maybe has a point here. The column format is pretty specific. Maybe this could have been handled differently, friend to friend, or editor to editor? Or maybe that was attempted and this was a last resort.
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