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Grantland Shutdown

Smart move by ESPN. They had some awful writers there.

What probably did it in was that really bad article written about Zach Lavine not long ago. A lot of people there had no idea what they were talking about. Zach Lowe in particular was terrible.

Never liked reading that garbage anyways.
 
This was a great website for three and a half years. It's a shame to see it go.

Zach Lowe will probably get folded into espn.com/nba. He'll just be another Kevin Pelton level writer among the many, although obviously with better material.
 
Sirkickyass said:
This was a great website for three and a half years. It's a shame to see it go.

Zach Lowe will probably get folded into espn.com/nba. He'll just be another Kevin Pelton level writer among the many, although obviously with better material.
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That would be a damn shame if they bury him as an "insider" writer. I think Lowe will go away from ESPN actually.
 
King Cy said:
That would be a damn shame if they bury him as an "insider" writer. I think Lowe will go away from ESPN actually.
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That's unlikely. It's rumored (as in I've read a handful of places but no one ever has the numbers) that Lowe is VERY well compensated by ESPN. To a degree that it would be difficult for him to match his current salary other places.
 
Red Jazz Fan said:
It's like ESPN is trying to commit suicide.
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Supposedly Grantland had really bad ratings. It was great stuff, but the facts are the masses just want to watch "First Take" videos and here Skip Bayless argue with people about the "it factor".
 
Sirkickyass said:
That's unlikely. It's rumored (as in I've read a handful of places but no one ever has the numbers) that Lowe is VERY well compensated by ESPN. To a degree that it would be difficult for him to match his current salary other places.
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IDK, I feel like it might be a emotional thing though. Like they got rid of Simmons now this. Maybe someone will come out and offer him a great deal to hurt ESPN? Or maybe he joins Simmons?
 
King Cy said:
Supposedly Grantland had really bad ratings. It was great stuff, but the facts are the masses just want to watch "First Take" videos and here Skip Bayless argue with people about the "it factor".
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No one will ever really know the truth about that topic and "bad" is obviously relative.

I think the issue was that the cost to produce the content was probably higher than the traffic generated justified. Simmons has demonstrated in his own venture that he's able to get a lot more sponsors (and presumably revenue) for his podcasting than ESPN ever was. It could be that ESPN was crappy at monetizing the golden goose of high end content. Grantland is going to be something that, in ten years, young people are going to get really tired of hearing about. It will effectively be a legend from a different time.

It's going to be our generation's version of the National sports Daily

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Sports_Daily
 
Sirkickyass said:
No one will ever really know the truth about that topic and "bad" is obviously relative.

I think the issue was that the cost to produce the content was probably higher than the traffic generated justified. Simmons has demonstrated in his own venture that he's able to get a lot more sponsors (and presumably revenue) for his podcasting than ESPN ever was. It could be that ESPN was crappy at monetizing the golden goose of high end content. Grantland is going to be something that, in ten years, young people are going to get really tired of hearing about. It will effectively be a legend from a different time.

It's going to be our generation's version of the National sports Daily

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Sports_Daily
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Simmons is obsessed with the National. His first piece at grant land was an oral history of the national. He wanted to work there or be a Boston Globe sports writer while in college. He probably didn't understand his potential.
 
I'm a huge Grantland fan. Combining Pop Culture and Sports the way they did made for many interesting reads. I have all of the Grantland Quarterly hardcovers. I'll probably keep them forever.


grantland.jpg
 
Hack said:
Smart move by ESPN. They had some awful writers there.

What probably did it in was that really bad article written about Zach Lavine not long ago. A lot of people there had no idea what they were talking about. Zach Lowe in particular was terrible.

Never liked reading that garbage anyways.
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Sarcasm?
 
ESPN destroys Grantland

I was pretty ticked hearing this news. I read all of Zach Lowe's columns and listened to all of the podcasts. It was the most detailed and informative analysis I could find on the NBA. I'm gonna miss it. I'm sure lots of you feel the same. Anyways, I'm posting to ask if anyone knows has any other good sites, podcasts, or writers who I can follow now to fill this gap in my NBA fandom?

Recommendations would be great. Thanks.
 
b_line said:
Lol. I read a comment on Simmons Facebook page that said he should start landgrant.com
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True Story. I had the facebook.com/billsimmons name for about two years. I grabbed it in the big facebook land grab figuring that I could cybersquat it just like the old wild west days of the internet.

Nope. Out of nowhere I had my URL seized and was informed that usernames had to be tied to your actual name (there is no such rule in Facebook's TOS). It's pretty clear he complained and decided he wanted the URL and facebook accommodated him. I've never forgiven him. I wanted this to be my twins.com moment.
 
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