Bill Simmons Sells His Podcast Empire to Spotify in Blockbuster Deal

Joe Bel Bruno
Joe Bel Bruno is dot.LA's editor in chief, overseeing newsroom operations and the organization's editorial team. He joins after serving as managing editor of Variety magazine and as senior leadership in spots at the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and Associated Press. He's a veteran journalist that loves breaking big stories, living back in L.A., a good burrito and his dog Gladys — not necessarily in that order.
Bill Simmons Sells His Podcast Empire to Spotify in Blockbuster Deal

Talk about comebacks.

Bill Simmons, who was let go by ESPN in 2015 in an at times bitter separation, may have just made a huge payday selling his The Ringer podcast network to Spotify. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but there have been numerous reports this year that Simmons was shopping the company with a $200 million asking price.


The Los Angeles-based sports and pop culture website's slate of 30 podcasts — including The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Rewatchables, and The Ryan Russillo Podcast — will now be streamed on Spotify. The Luxembourg-based company, which also has a huge presence in L.A., hopes to build out the franchise's content.

"Spotify has the unique ability to truly supercharge both content and creator talent across genres," Simmons said in a statement on Wednesday. "We spent the last few years building a world-class sports and pop culture multimedia digital company and believe Spotify can take us to another level. We couldn't be more excited to unlock Spotify's power of scale and discovery, introduce The Ringer to a new global audience and build the world's flagship sports audio network."


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Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

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https://twitter.com/samsonamore
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Samson Amore

Samson Amore is a reporter for dot.LA. He holds a degree in journalism from Emerson College. Send tips or pitches to samsonamore@dot.la and find him on Twitter @Samsonamore.

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samsonamore@dot.la
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