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I like The Ringer a lot, but I wish its content was a little more focused. You open it up and it's a shotgun of EVERYTHING. I wish they did Ringer Sports and Ringer Culture and other ways to organize a bit.

1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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11 hours ago, DG_Now said:

Am I supposed to subscribe to the Athletic now? I don't know where all of the sports is supposed to be anymore. And I'm generally in line in Deadspin's particular brand of liberal-tinged sports reporting. Their soccer coverage stinks though.

Get it, but only at a discount.

 

The lowest price I know about is $36 for the first year, which is 60% off.

 

Also why you get access the everything, don't give them a lot of favorite teams as they'll flood your inbox. Unsubscribe from alerts too.

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just ended SEC Country, Land of 10 and the rest of their "Diehards" sports verticals. They killed off the NFL one -- All 22 -- right before the playoffs.

 

I'm sure many hadn't heard of them, but they hired away legit beat writers of college teams and that makes me wonder if The Athletic is about to expand beyond pro markets (and national college sites). Still, if they really want to "replace the underappreciated newspaper sports section," I'm not sure how they get there without dipping into preps. Maybe those are the scraps that will be left to print.

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11 hours ago, McCarthy said:

Deadspin is a bunch of people who should be better who have turned into extremely online guys. I like a lot of what they do, but they also get sucked into internet bull :censored: too often.

 

What began as a necessary check on the excesses of ESPN has spread into flailing at everyone who has the temerity to not be them: last I checked, they're feuding with Barstool, Reddit, The Ringer, Vice, and now even their own parent company. I wouldn't handle my own death well either.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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40 minutes ago, the admiral said:

 

What began as a necessary check on the excesses of ESPN has spread into flailing at everyone who has the temerity to not be them: last I checked, they're feuding with Barstool, Reddit, The Ringer, Vice, and now even their own parent company. I wouldn't handle my own death well either.

 

That list is mostly garbage and I enjoy a petty feud, so I have less of a problem with that, even when it does come across as hypocritical.

 

What drives me nuts about Deadspin is their guys who ostensibly write about basketball but are really more masturbatory and off-topic than Simmons at his worst was. And all of the Arbitrary Sarcastic Proper Nouning of things, like yes thank you, I also read David Foster Wallace. What's his name, Albert Burneko? Worst offender, which is sad because sometimes he gets some proper basketball tactics talk in there. Classic example of online media's misguided belief that anyone should post anything without an editor.

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You can't write about basketball on the internet without having a very specific series of brain lesions. Deadspin's final NBA post, scheduled for August 18th, will be "LeBron James is redefining what it means to redefine The Redefinition of redefining how we redefine Redefining LeBron James. And that's fine!"

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♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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13 hours ago, DG_Now said:

I like The Ringer a lot, but I wish its content was a little more focused. You open it up and it's a shotgun of EVERYTHING. I wish they did Ringer Sports and Ringer Culture and other ways to organize a bit.

 

I like The Ringer too, but they have this way of getting so insular and what becomes important in their office is often not representative of what's happening on the large scale and they'll drive things into the ground that people didn't care about in the first place. They're going to be paying for "Patriots Week" for a long time. That was ill-advised. 

 

Also the way they cover the NBA like it's on a plane above all other sports, like the happenings on the court are more important than other sports is slightly off-putting. I think that comes from Simmons. It's a basketball league whose players sometimes speak up when it comes to social commentary, but it's mostly just a league that plays basketball. 

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6 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

Also the way they cover the NBA like it's on a plane above all other sports, like the happenings on the court are more important than other sports is slightly off-putting. I think that comes from Simmons. It's a basketball league whose players sometimes speak up when it comes to social commentary, but it's mostly just a league that plays basketball. 

 

You could just as easily be talking about Deadspin here, too. Maybe that's the true basis of their Simmons animus: they're two brothers fighting over who Daddy loves more.

♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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I think the reasons NBA gets so much coverage include:

- The NCAA is awful to its players

- The NFL is awful to its players and the world

- The NHL is the NHL

- I don't think people like baseball anymore?

- What else is left?

 

I'm being flippant, but each year it takes a bit more from our souls to follow college sports and professional football. The NBA has filled a lot of that space for people, given that it's become a 12-month league, its players are more visible than other sports, and it's more accessible than alternative sports.

 

I'm not saying it needs to be discussed as a higher moral plane -- and I do get that description and why its annoying -- but I also see why it's become the en vogue league.

 

I think The Ringer's greater success is its podcast network. They must be making so much money on those shows.

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1 hour ago, ShutUpLutz! said:

and the drunken doodoobags jumping off the tops of SUV's/vans/RV's onto tables because, oh yeah, they are drunken drug abusing doodoobags

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8 hours ago, CubsFanBudMan said:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution just ended SEC Country, Land of 10 and the rest of their "Diehards" sports verticals. They killed off the NFL one -- All 22 -- right before the playoffs.

 

I'm sure many hadn't heard of them, but they hired away legit beat writers of college teams and that makes me wonder if The Athletic is about to expand beyond pro markets (and national college sites). Still, if they really want to "replace the underappreciated newspaper sports section," I'm not sure how they get there without dipping into preps. Maybe those are the scraps that will be left to print.

Stewart Mandel has gone on record on The Audible podcast that team specific writers were coming to The All American. They've already have writers for Michigan, Michigan State, and the Bay Area college teams.

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1 hour ago, McCarthy said:

 

I like The Ringer too, but they have this way of getting so insular and what becomes important in their office is often not representative of what's happening on the large scale and they'll drive things into the ground that people didn't care about in the first place. They're going to be paying for "Patriots Week" for a long time. That was ill-advised. 

 

Also the way they cover the NBA like it's on a plane above all other sports, like the happenings on the court are more important than other sports is slightly off-putting. I think that comes from Simmons. It's a basketball league whose players sometimes speak up when it comes to social commentary, but it's mostly just a league that plays basketball. 

 

I get the sense that Grantland built on the Simmons strengths — or those of his idea/genre, not always him personally — but the ESPN structure kept it restrained. Without that, The Ringer lets that get too self-indulgent and the worst impulses end up driving.

 

agree on the podcasts though. Those have to be subsidizing the operation. It’s wild how Simmons’ instincts in audio/video content are so drifted from his writing M.O.

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1 hour ago, the admiral said:

 

You could just as easily be talking about Deadspin here, too. Maybe that's the true basis of their Simmons animus: they're two brothers fighting over who Daddy loves more.

Well Deadspin trashes all things Boston regularly so at least they're the counter there.

 

Another thing I think Simmons deserves credit for, though, is that while he was definitely the proto-basketblogger, I think his passion and his knowledge of the NBA is tough to dispute, and traditionally his basketball writing keeps the sport in perspective and appreciates it for what it is, instead of falling down the rabbit holes of NBA as social criticism and high art that the rest of them do. (I get the feeling that Burnenko knows his :censored:, too, but he's all the way down that rabbit hole.) And it's even more impressive that Simmons did that while also being the Boston guy, too, because his entire come-up happened when no one in Boston gave a :censored: about the Celtics. That's one reason that the Ringer disappoints in just being kinda generic modern NBA blogging mixed with a Celtics fan's facebook feed.

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55 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

I think The Ringer's greater success is its podcast network. They must be making so much money on those shows.

It's success is totally from podcasts. That's why they flood the market with so much stuff, they're bound to create something else a Simmons Stan will subscribe to.

 

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2018/05/07/Media/Podcast.aspx

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57 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

I think the reasons NBA gets so much coverage include:

- The NCAA is awful to its players

- The NFL is awful to its players and the world

- The NHL is the NHL

- I don't think people like baseball anymore?

- What else is left?

 

I'm being flippant, but each year it takes a bit more from our souls to follow college sports and professional football. The NBA has filled a lot of that space for people, given that it's become a 12-month league, its players are more visible than other sports, and it's more accessible than alternative sports.

 

I'm not saying it needs to be discussed as a higher moral plane -- and I do get that description and why its annoying -- but I also see why it's become the en vogue league.

 

I see no fault here! I would also say there are a couple other factors working for the NBA. First is the rise of Warriors-type basketball, which pisses off purists still (maybe?) but is more generally palatable for people who like their sports to be fast and fun and flashy. Jordan and then Kobe, as players, masked how dour the NBA was for a while there. Kobe's Lakers were totally unlikable, the Spurs were boring as hell, the Celtics had individually interesting personalities but were meh as a group, and never quite achieved dynasty status besides. Now I think the trendy styles of play are just generally more fun to watch. (Of course that also happened in the NHL simultaneously.)

 

I don't discount the element of general hipness, though, in the same way the rock kids started listening to Kanye and Clipse 10 years ago and then suddenly everyone was a rap expert all along. But I don't think white guilt and art-school trendiness fully explain how the NBA has gone global this decade, so there's a lot at play.

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One thing that I do like about The Ringer is that they cover soccer.  It's hard to find American coverage of soccer that has a comedic edge to it.

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3 hours ago, Digby said:

Another thing I think Simmons deserves credit for, though, is that while he was definitely the proto-basketblogger, I think his passion and his knowledge of the NBA is tough to dispute, and traditionally his basketball writing keeps the sport in perspective and appreciates it for what it is, instead of falling down the rabbit holes of NBA as social criticism and high art that the rest of them do.

 

Agreed on Simmons knowing his stuff on the NBA, but as long-winded as he's always been, he's not the prototype for terrible basketball writing online. That would be Bethlehem Shoals and all the FreeDarko bloggers. That was where all the metaphysical "What Steve Nash Teaches Us About Offense And The Human Condition" crap really took hold. As is often the case, it was cool when one guy did it but insufferable when it became almost a major house style.

 

 



still got it, baby

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♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫

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The Ringer’s over-coverage of the NBA is a shame because it overshadows their underrated baseball coverage. They do a better job than anyone of blending the stat-heavy (which I love) and the more journalistic-y stuff that gets the wider audiences.

GO OILERS-GO BLUE JAYS-GO ESKIMOS-GO COLTS

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