If you’ve tuned into The Bill Simmons Podcast or some of The Ringer’s other podcasts in recent weeks, you may have heard promotion for ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence agent from OpenAI.
The Ringer is far from the only podcast network to run ads for chatbot services or similar ones. Not too long ago, OpenAI itself bought up one of the biggest tech business podcasts to use it as a promotional tool.
Yet judging by the growing number of comments on The Ringer shows’ episode pages, in their Reddit communities, and on social media, the Simmons-founded network’s embrace of ChatGPT has not gone as well as they might have hoped.
This is not merely Simmons’ repeated use of the chatbot on The Rewatchables to spit out a review styled after the late Roger Ebert’s work (though fans have revisited these activations with skepticism more recently). On Simmons’ show and The Ringer Fantasy Football Show, the chatbot has become a top sponsor and occasional on-air reference point.
In the latest episode of his show, Simmons prompted ChatGPT to determine the defining game of Russell Westbrook’s career during a conversation on the future Hall of Famer’s retirement. The sponsored segment was replete with an ad read for the service.
The top five Spotify comments on the episode were all either teasing or raging at Simmons over the segment, with hundreds more listeners liking and replying to them. One user wrote: “Respectfully, continuing to have ChatGPT as a sponsor is loser behavior.”
In the r/BillSimmons subreddit, the top post from Tuesday was titled: “The ChatGPT of it all kind of makes me want to stop listening.” Another, from immediately after Simmons published his Sunday-evening episode, questioned whether the audience can “take Bill’s content in good faith anymore.” Listeners cited a recent segment on youth sports with “Cousin” Sal Iacono as possibly AI-generated.
Many of the top podcasts on YouTube shows have easy-to-notice integrations with other AI chat services. Late last year, both Joe Rogan and Theo Von began partnerships with Perplexity. The superstar hosts refer to the chatbot’s name when searching for details on topics that come up during the show.
In a handful of recent episodes of The Ringer Fantasy Football Show, the hosts have riffed through a sponsored segment that uses ChatGPT to find information on NFL players’ average draft positions in fantasy football, as well as other statistics, for listeners to evaluate players for their teams.
On both shows, ChatGPT is described as the podcast’s “AI sponsor.”
As a more high-brow, self-serious content company, the Spotify-owned Ringer is always more likely to be criticized for its editorial decisions than places where the bar is lower. Detractors of the technology need look no further than the very same podcast network for plenty of incredibly critical coverage of the AI industry. With a podcast as big as Simmons’, there is also, of course, a massive silent majority of people who do not care that he partnered with OpenAI.
Still, at least half of respondents to a Pew survey about Americans’ views of AI have, for three years running, said they are more concerned than excited about the technology’s impact on society. Passionate fanbases are especially reticent about the use of AI in art and content.
Though Simmons and The Ringer are certainly not hiding the deal, the backlash is likely swifter and more intense than the company predicted.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is an Editorial Lead at Awful Announcing overseeing digital content and special projects. He lives in Phoenix and has covered sports media for Awful Announcing since 2023.