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A New Ringer Podcast Looks Awfully Similar to an Existing Podcast
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Where do you go for the hottest sports takes? Twitter? Crossing Broad? Sports talk radio?
Maybe you listen to the not-entirely-serious Art of the Take podcast, which was started last September by 94 WIP program director Spike Eskin, evening host Joe Giglio, and producer Jack Fritz. The logo features a guy in a suit with a fire emoji on top of his head, which seems like apt artwork for a tongue-in-cheek program.
The “take” itself is not necessarily proprietary, since everybody does takes these days, but when The Ringer introduced a new podcast this week titled “The Hottest Take,” we officially entered stepping-on-toes and perhaps blatant ripoff territory:
Podcast description:
Bill Simmons and his friends from The Ringer will debate, defend, and parse a controversial opinion on a pressing topic of the day. In a series of short episodes, the takes will cover timely matters from the worlds of sports, movies, TV, food, music, and the internet. Is Home Alone actually a Christmas movie? Are sweet potatoes maybe … terrible? Hear us out!
The Hottest Take is available exclusively on Spotify. Listen to the trailer here and subscribe before the first episode premieres on September 16.
I imagine the show going something like this:
“I’m Bill Simmons, and on today’s episode, we’ll debate whether or not a hot dog is a sandwich! But first, here’s Pearl Jam.”
Spike’s response via Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SpikeEskin/status/1171447410939138056?s=20
https://twitter.com/SpikeEskin/status/1171557705733070849?s=20
Spike has had Ringer personalities on Rights to Ricky Sanchez in the past. John Gonzalez, Jason Concepcion, and Kevin O’Connor have been on the show. Other staff writers are “banned,” which I guess is some sort of bit that stems from the Process days. There’s a lot of running joke/inside joke kind of stuff on RTRS which isn’t very serious.
But yeah, seems like a concept that was pretty much stolen from these guys without any sort of credit being given. I hereby declare that The Ringer ripped off Art of the Take.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com