ESPN suspends publication of Grantland | Hacker News Reader

ESPN suspends publication of Grantland

espnmediazone.com

62 pointsdanso47 comments

For those asking why HN should care about a "sportsball blog", here are some pretty great Grantland articles that made a splash on HN:

The Board Game of the Alpha Nerds: http://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-th... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7913183

The greatest juggler alive quit to open a construction business: http://grantland.com/features/anthony-gatto-juggling-cirque-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7671214

The Coach Who Never Punts: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9970245/grantland-channe... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6728821

The Gracie jiu-jitsu story: http://grantland.com/one-hundred-years-arm-bars-gracie-jiu-j... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6728821

---

More here: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=grantland.com&sort=byPopularit...

I'll never understand what they were thinking getting rid of Simmons. Ego's calling the shots is never a good thing.

Can't wait for him to start up something new, Grantland was really great.

ESPN has a history of making sure the talent don't get too big for their britches. Simmons, Keith Olbermann (twice), Dan Patrick, are three guys who had great personal brands and didn't hesitate to criticize The Worldwide Leader when they felt ESPN management acted without integrity.

BTW, I worked for ESPN.com for 2.5y.

Lefsetz wrote a pretty good one when this happened: http://lefsetz.com/wordpress/index.php/archives/2015/07/22/b...

He's started his podcast:

http://thebillsimmonspodcast.tumblr.com/

Thanks, the word hadn't reached my sector.

> Can't wait for him to start up something new, Grantland was really great.

He's with HBO now and his podcasts are back too. I think his show is starting next year and he's hired some of the ex-grantland staff too.

"Ego's calling the shots is never a good thing."

Are you talking about Simmons or the ESPN bigwigs?

He already has a deal with HBO and still has his own podcast.

Grantland was not making money, and Bill Simmons snobbery did not help him either.

But Simmons has made a career of snobbery. He wouldn't be him without it.

It's my understanding that Disney is reigning in ESPN's spending.

This is disappointing news, as I felt like Grantland was a good one stop shop for things to read during lunch, but it was clear that it was already on its way out. Some of my favorite contributors had already left. Wesley Morris, Chris Ryan, and Juliet Litman to name a few. Ill be waiting to see where they end up (yes I know Morris is going to the New York Times).

That's a shame. They did some really good work. So good that I've broken down and bought their dead-tree Grantland Quarterly in the past.

There was a story earlier this year about the guys in Boston that started the Yankees Suck t-shirts, and another article about bare-knuckle prize fighting in the 1800s that was some of the best writing I've seen.

Best website since Saving Private Ryan...

This is a shame. IMO, Zach Lowe's the best basketball writer out there.

> Grantland distinguished itself with quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun.

Unfortunately, this bodes poorly for FiveThirtyEight, also owned by ESPN, and also prides itself on long form content.

Although it seems like ESPN is extremely desperate to eliminate its costs, I doubt they bail on FiveThirtyEight heading into a US presidential election. Past that, I'd be surprised to see it last. Nate Silver is still a pretty good brand and he'll regain his spotlight over the next 12 months.

Wow that's decently big news considering how big it was, and how broad the topics it covered were. Shows that it's the writers/personalities/analysts that readers want to hear from, not necessarily content on from specific publication.

I was a fan of Simmons's writing but there were still plenty of good writers left (Zach Lowe & Bill Barnwell being two).

Hopefully Bill can just bring everyone over to his new thing and continue producing the same kind of content.

Perfect opportunity for Simmons to start a Grantland like site...

I don't think he'll try and do a site as big as Grantland again. I would expect him to so something on a smaller scale, however.

A lot of the non-sports people he brought in have also left or will be leaving. I don't see why ESPN would now have any use for pop culture writers. I've enjoyed Zach Lowe's NBA writing and hope he either keeps his voice with ESPN or moves on somewhere else, though I'd guess they'll try and keep the Grantland sports folks.

On one hand this makes complete sense. ESPN wants to appeal to the largest possible audience, which means lowest common denominator coverage (basically shallow analysis and gossip, IMO).

On the other hand, ESPN is large enough that if they gave a crap about providing anything a bit "smarter" for snobs like me they could easily keep Grantland afloat.

Very disappointing and not the least bit surprising.

Pretty dissapointing.

After growing up on sportscenter, this was one of the only ESPN created products which was still watchable/readable.

No reason to go to espn anymore. No zach lowe with the NBA season just starting? His tweets are funny at least.

Pardon the Interruption. Best show in television.

"Effective immediately we are suspending the publication of Grantland."

... however, I just went to grantland.com and it works just fine and has new content as of today ...

I guess they really want Vice Sports to do well...

Why is this even being upvoted on HN?

They did cover more than just "sports-ball."

In some sense, they were the PARC-Xerox or Bell Labs of ESPN. Except with extended Boogie Nights metaphors...

Interesting because I'm familiar with the site but why is this here?

Besides Grantland stories popping up frequently on HN, ESPN is an interesting and significant company...not just because of its pure size and near monopoly over sports entertainment, but because of its willingness to invest money in non-profitable media ventures, like Grantland...Grantland was a great example of what happens when you hire the best writers and give them room to work.

I'm not sure I see the hacker news connection myself. It's a news site about sports. They weren't really doing anything particularly innovative besides the popular editor and good writers.

"They weren't really doing anything particularly innovative"

Well, better get back to posting about the next "unicorn" with no business plan.

A big part of it is that Grantland was seldom accused of writing "clickbait" or churning out low-quality content. They had talented writers producing good longform material. If ESPN couldn't make that profitable, it's a blow to the argument (often seen on HN) that people are willing to pay for quality journalism.

See a piece like this:

http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/silicon-valley-hal...

Not about sports, informative, and thoughtful.

I think the story of passionate people pouring their hearts into their work for several years, believing they were creating something great, only to see in crumble in a few short months, would resonate with this crowd.

I really don't understand the unending complaints about why stories are submitted to HN. The title is 5 words:

   ESPN suspends publication of Grantland

You couldn't ask for a more succinct title. Just how hard is it to skip that story if you're not interested? I skip the majority of stories on HN. It's not hard to do.

I blame cordcutters slashing ESPN's profits. Content ain't free.

So...you're saying if we want great sports reporting from a web publication like Grantland then we should pay Comcast for cable?

Yeah, that doesn't make sense. I dont know how Grantland was doing financially, but its unrelated to cable. In fact, things like Grantland could be viewed as diversifying away from reliance on cable viewers.

ESPN just did a round a big layoffs last week and dropping TV revenue was a big reason for that. Grantland was never really expected to turn a big profit and was always the concept car of ESPN's journalism enterprise. It was about branding, prestige, and "doing good work" and was never about money. But when it comes time to lay people off and cut costs, it is hard to justify keeping a project that will continue losing money for the foreseeable future.

Where do you imagine their financing came from?

I think he's being sarcastic or trolling.

Aren't cord cutters the one watching the ESPN app on apple tv roku etc? I blame the ESPN digital guys for not selling the ads on those channels and running house ads constantly, despite ample, growing audiences.

at the very least, comcast could buy the ad space and try to persuade cord cutters on the merits of paying $150+ / mo for stuff you can watch on the internet anyway.

Maybe cordcutters don't need/want ESPN?

ESPN is the reason a lot of people take to long to cut the cord. Fortunately you can watch it online if you have a friend who is still paying for cable.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com