The Ringer moving from Medium to Vox publishing platform as part of new deal

The Ringer is graduating from Medium’s publishing platform to Vox’s, thanks to a new deal with the SB Nation parent company.

Under the agreement, Vox will host The Ringer, sell revenue for the site and share in its revenues, though Bill Simmons and company will maintain editorial independence.

Thanks to @ev + @medium for helping us build and launch @ringer and thanks to @voxmediainc and @Bankoff – we're excited to work with you.

— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) May 30, 2017

“This partnership allows us to remain independent while leveraging two of the things that Vox Media is great at: sales and technology,” Simmons, who created The Ringer in 2016, said in a statement. “We want to devote the next couple of years to creating quality content, innovating as much as we can, building our brand and growing The Ringer as a multimedia business.”

The Ringer has indicated before that it planned to move off Medium, likely in response to down-sizing there, and apparently it was just a matter of finding a new partner.

As online media seeks a profitable path forward, this partnership provides an interesting template. Instead of spending gobs of money to develop and maintain a state-of-the-art publishing platform, The Ringer can pay Vox to use its already-established infrastructure.

It will be interesting to monitor whether this deal results in any sort of content collaboration between the Ringer and SB Nation or any of Vox’s other properties. Yes, The Ringer will hold onto editorial independence and operate totally apart from Vox (They’re based on different sides of the country, for one thing), but partnerships could presumably help the year-old site reach new audiences.