So, first of all, you’re not exactly wrong if you think that Pop Thruster, this here website you’re reading right now, is at least a little bit Ringer coded.
In fact I: I’ve had conversations in which I’ve mused that Pop Thruster aspires to be a “weird Ringer 2.0.”
In fact II: I may or may not be in a Slack channel at work called The Ringerverse, where we chat and gossip about the doings of Bill Simmons and his crew over at The Ringer and his podcast empire.
If you’re a fan of The Ringer in some form, you’re likely aware of who Chris Ryan is. While his title is Editorial Director, in public-facing form he’s the Swiss Army knife of pop culture and sports wizardry who pops up on an array of podcasts, including as co-host of the outstanding The Watch and regular appearances on The Big Picture, a bunch of sports pods like The Mismatch, and Bill Simmons’ flagship pod, The Bill Simmons Show.
There’s a good reason for this. CR, as he’s popularly referred to, combines encyclopedic knowledge of the pop culture realms with an innate affability and on mic presence. He’s also flat out hilarious. If you’re a fan of Jon Bernthal’s performance as Wayne Jenkins in We Own This City – which places you in elite Ringer target demo territory if you are – you owe it to yourself to listen to Ryan’s hysterical impression of Jenkins at least once.
Recently, in what I believe is a first for a Bill Simmons-fronted podcast that has been ongoing in some form for nearly 20 years, Simmons tapped Chris Ryan to take his place as guest host. Ryan was well within his wheelhouse in a two-parter that included an extended discussion of the World Cup, followed by a long form conversation with Ringer staffer Sean Fennessey about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey.
Fennessey and Ryan are longtime colleagues and friends, and within the Nolan segment, Fennessey openly mused about the reasons behind their boss positioning CR in this way. While Ryan demurred when Sean pressed him lightly on the notion that Simmons may be setting him up to host his own podcast, I came away thinking that something more could be in the works.
Intriguingly, two episodes later and with Simmons back in his hosting chair, BS (as he’s sometimes known) brought Ryan back for another extended conversation examining the respective careers of Matt Damon (star of The Odyssey, of course) versus Leonardo DiCaprio.
Not only is such a segment catnip to this Ringer-pilled cat, but once again I found myself thinking about Ryan now being put into the spotlight twice in close succession on The Ringer network’s flagship pod.
The trick would be to give a CR-hosted show its own “thing” that’s differentiated from not only the BS pod, but also The Watch, The Big Picture, et al. Maybe it could just be a great interview show, where Ryan can go deep with personalities that would appeal to the Ringer-loving populace. I could get down with that.
Perhaps this is all simply ephemeral summer machinations, with Simmons taking advantage of a lull in the relentless sports and pop culture calendars to get a break (and maybe the odd cig), with The Odyssey being the biggest pop culture story going as an added kicker.
I’d be pretty excited to see a Chris Ryan Show of some sort launch, personally. Short of that, I’d love to see the return of Music Exists, an incredible limited series music-focused podcast that featured Ryan going deep with Chuck Klosterman, famous writer and legendary Ringer “friend of the pod” in his own right.