.... haven’t pulled this one out in a while, but; Dear Mr. Lasner and Dear Husband of Mr. Lasner,

My theory is that they wanted it to fail and badly. They signed up for Bill Simmon’s internet brand, which regardless of what you think of him, it’s substantial. Letting him do his ego-driven show was what it took to get him to sign on.

and the Game of Thrones recap show he produced, After the Thrones, was HBO’s lowest-rated series

I’ll never understand how, with as many smart people as they have working at HBO, they still made such a colossal strategic mistake in the format of AGW. Anyone with two semi-functioning eyes could see that Simmons was less than good on TV and yet, they gave him an entire 30 minutes to anchor himself.

Shades of a David Caruso...

I was a long-time Simmons fan and avid Grantland reader, but over time, my allegiance mutated such that I was an avid Grantland reader who tolerated Simmons. That site was so stacked with talent — Lowe, Barnwell, Rem, Pappademas, Greenwald, Lambert, Ryan, Phillips, Yoshida, Lynch, Morris, Hyden, Concepcion, etc. —…

I’m not even sure it’s a talent issue though. TV is hard. Whether it’s Oliver and Maher or Wilbon and Kornheiser, all those guys had years and years of TV experience before they got their own shows (plus stand-up experience for the comics.)

Damn, I didn’t even realize Titus was writing for them ... which kind of illustrates the problem.

Damn, look how rich and educated we are.

Before he was on TV he wrote on multiple occasions that he wasn’t a TV guy. Then when he started on TV and readers pointed it out his reply was basically, ‘yeah so what, I wanna be on TV, it’s fun’

He definitely failed in the transition from “hey guys I’m just like you, only with a column” to “hey guys NBA players and TV stars come to hang out at my LA mansion, but I’m still just like you.”

Even worse, he got caught up in his newfound “stardom” and wanted to be on camera like his celebrity buds, i.e. Affleck. He reminds me of Wilbon, another guy who was extremely lucky and mistakenly attributed his success to extraordinary talent.

Seriously this no talent hack. All he managed to do was be ahead of the curve in blogging, turning his style into a medium, podcasting, and maybe having some hand in universally acclaimed sports documentaries. What have you done for me lately Bill?

Everything on the Ringer feels like it was turned in half written.

I tried to transition to his podcast once he stopped writing, but my life isn’t really conducive to podcast listening. When he did write, it always felt like he was mailing it in, so I quit. One real problem I think he encountered was that success made him out of touch with his readership. For example, how is a Townie…

They weren’t kidding about the site being an eyesore either.

Simmons is where he is not because of talent, but because he was there first. He was the first guy to toss in a hefty does of homerism, and pop culture references when writing about sports, and people ate it up. He was a half step ahead of blogs, and if he hadn’t done it, somebody else was right behind him.

Similarly…

The problem with The Ringer happened in it’s inception. When Simmons, Fennessy, Ryan, and Litman sat down to conceive the site, I feel like they fundamentally misread the marketplace. The idea that people want shorter, lighter, more disposable content to read on their phones might be true across the internet, but it’s…

yeah. The Ringer is “ok” in the sense that it’s not really good or bad, just totally useless

I heard the annotations for this article are being delivered by steamship and should arrive next week.