Executive Briefing
What The Ringer got right
Also: David Chang’s Momofuku Vegas expansion, and one more thing about the Harry’s situation.
By Dan Frommer on Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 12:45 pm
Spotify announced this week that it is indeed buying The Ringer, the sports- and culture-focused media company founded in 2016 by Bill Simmons, the former long-time ESPN columnist and pioneering podcaster.
Spotify has been buying up podcast businesses for the past year — the Gimlet Media deal was a year ago this week — and while The Ringer publishes an excellent website and does video projects, its soul is its podcast network, bringing more than 30 shows to the Spotify portfolio.
Terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed or reported, but people who generally know what they’re talking about are tossing around numbers like $200 million. If that’s remotely accurate, this is a huge outcome for Simmons, who had raised little outside financing, and a win for modern digital media.
Why did — does — The Ringer work?
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