Having done some work with sports data in the past (with some pretty "viral" results) I know that roughly 75% - 90% of the ideas I started with ended up just not being compelling once I looked at the data.

When the pressure is to get something out every week (or more frequent) then sometimes you will have to use one of those bad ideas.

We tried to come up with something weekly and it took a TON of time (trial and error). We ended up abandoning our little blog after moderate success due to the time demands of getting quality content regularly.

It's kinda funny. I have the exact opposite reaction to Grantland. They take a tremendous amount of time and effort on long form pieces but lack any statistical or data compelling pieces. I would rather Grantland do what FiveThirtyEight does (well written quick hit posts) and FivethirtyEight do what Grantland does (well researched long form infrequent posts).

It's all backwards.