ESPN suspends Grantland

[Uncle Drew]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CSlXGNtW4AAEftZ.png

What the f*ck. :facepalm Some of their best work is on there. Zach Lowe is one of the more talented writers out there. At least the way is open for him to rejoin Bill at HBO.

[FKAri]

ESPN is a sinking ship

[SwishSquared]

This was a pretty classless way to handle this. Zach seems ticked off, based on his tweets. Dude was gonna record a podcast and finish writing an article that was set to drop on Tuesday.

I get that they want to shut it down post-Simmons departure but they could/should have handled this a lot better. Idk if HBO wants to launch a sports site with high quality content but the only good that can come about is that if some of those talented Grantland staffers can now jump onto Simmons' new podcast. Loved the Lowe/Simmons pods.

I'm sure that they will try to retain some of the sports writers and move them to the main site or ESPN magazine but I think the pop culture folks are out.

Full disclosure: I read a LOT of their NBA content and listened fairly regularly to the pods done by Lowe & Simmons. Never liked "NBA After Dark."

[JimmyMcAdocious]

ESPN is a shit show. Having to layoff, what was it like 4 percent of their staff? Their tv shows are more TMZ than actual news. Their supposed actual "news" shows, like SC and OTL, constantly use false information... **** off ESPN.

I hope in my lifetime I see their fall.

[Fallen Angel]

You could have seen this coming. I was going to make a thread warning you guys, but didn't feel like it.

[RoseCity07]

I never read Grantland but I knew it had some pretty good articles. Wasn't it like the 30 for 30 of the internet? What happened?

[senelcoolidge]

What the heck happened to them? They are so politically liberal. Their shows reek, they talk about the same things like robots. Their shows aren't really about sports..TMZ like is right. They are garbage. We need a real sports network with no biases and real. I hope espn goes under or gets bought out by legit sports lovers.

[juju151111]

Espn fucled up with the deals they made with the cable company 3 years ago. Then made another mistake by paying the nba/nfl a buttload of money.

[Fallen Angel]

Grantland is nearing its closing. ESPN is bound to keep the likes of Jalen Rose and Zach Lowe, but everyone else will become expendable.

Look at HBO to become the home of whatever successor there is to Grantland.

[cranincu]

I never read Grantland but I knew it had some pretty good articles. Wasn't it like the 30 for 30 of the internet? What happened?
ESPN made terrible television deals like $1.9 billion to show monday night football like 4 years ago without realizing people were dropping television packages and watching things online. So they're bleeding money right now and need to cut practically their whole staff.

But the execs that made those terrible tv deals will still get their annual bonus and rake in millions themselves while they hold zach lowe hostage with grantland suspended indefinitely

[StephHamann]

Jalen Rose sucks anyway

[Uncle Drew]

Jalen Rose sucks anyway
Jalen is under contract with ESPN.

[ProfessorMurder]

:rolleyes: Nice spin espn. Like half of the place quit after Simmons was fired. So instead of it falling away into obscurity and proving Simmons' value, they act like they made the choice to ditch it.

[RoseCity07]

ESPN made terrible television deals like $1.9 billion to show monday night football like 4 years ago without realizing people were dropping television packages and watching things online. So they're bleeding money right now and need to cut practically their whole staff.

But the execs that made those terrible tv deals will still get their annual bonus and rake in millions themselves while they hold zach lowe hostage with grantland suspended indefinitely

I don't know how that company works but there must be a board that can dump those executives. That's not right. How can any company spend risk 2 billion on something so stupid.

[Fallen Angel]

ESPN has been looking to sell the idea of Grantland even when Simmons was an employee, now that he's gone the price of the site has been dropping (a.k.a. they're losing money). Simmons leaving really devalued the site.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRs8Vs4UsAAaaXT.png

Bill Simmons was the heart and soul of Grantland, and with him leaving and finding common ground on a network with more freedom (in HBO) he's gonna attract followers to join him. HBO has already snagged a bunch of editors from Grantland already, others are leaving for careers in with other companies.

In ESPN's eyes, the only valuable assets Grantland has are the Jalen & Jacoby podcast (which has made its way to a live ESPN Radio slot) and Zach Lowe columns/podcasts. Neither of those products need a site of their own, both can be transferred to ESPN's main website and not miss a beat.

[fpliii]

Sad to hear. Hoping GOAT Lowe continues in the same capacity for ESPN, or joins up elsewhere ASAP.

[fpliii]

ESPN has been looking to sell the idea of Grantland even when Simmons was an employee, now that he's gone the price of the site has been dropping (a.k.a. they're losing money). Simmons leaving really devalued the site.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRs8Vs4UsAAaaXT.png

Bill Simmons was the heart and soul of Grantland, and with him leaving and finding common ground on a network with more freedom (in HBO) he's gonna attract followers to join him. HBO has already snagged a bunch of editors from Grantland already, others are leaving for careers in with other companies.

In ESPN's eyes, the only valuable assets Grantland has are the Jalen & Jacoby podcast (which has made its way to a live ESPN Radio slot) and Zach Lowe columns/podcasts. Neither of those products need a site of their own, both can be transferred to ESPN's main website and not miss a beat.
I'm not as big an NFL fan as I was a few years ago, but Barnwell is pretty good too. They also have some guy who did a few oral histories (80s Rockets, 90s Magic, Kings-Lakers series, possibly others in forgetting)

[Fallen Angel]

Two week old article on Grantland's coming demise.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/espn-grantland-problem

You guys would have known this if you logged on Twitter on Oct. 16 and you would have seen Grantland trending in America. It was made sense back then that the site will be closing its doors soon.

[SwishSquared]

Jalen is under contract with ESPN.I think only through this NBA season. Or maybe 1 year after that.

He was on the SI Media pod (pretty good listen btw) and the host brought it up. He hinted, somewhat, at maybe being able to work with Bill in the future.

Lowe, I would think, will surely get an offer to write for ESPN NBA but I'm sure he feels spurned.

Again, it's not surprising it shut down, but maybe the staff shouldn't have to find out via Twitter. They did that to Simmons (unclassy imo) but the employees didn't deserve that.

[Foster5k]

The bottom line is that the average sports fan doesn't even know what Grantland is. Grantland caters to a niche of sports fans that want more insight into the game, their team, favorite player, etc. Majority of sports fans just want to watch the game, drink beer, cheer when their team scores and boo when their team loses. Occasionally, they will like to know why their team lost, and then listen to maybe 5-10mins of ESPN talking heads trying to explain, to the layman, why their favorite team failed to win the game. Then, they can go off to work and bark about what they heard from so and so analyst and act like they have a clue to what's really going on in professional sports.

Bill Simmons is a good sports writer. I liked his podcast, books, articles, etc. However, he isn't great enough to warrant some huge contract that he wanted. ESPN didn't lose ratings because Bill Simmons is gone. Also, HBO suddenly didn't gain a bunch of ratings because they acquired Bill Simmons. Simmons is good but not great enough to shift ratings to a point where his services justify a huge payday.

Lowe is also good but he falls into that Simmons category. ESPN will do fine without both for the reasons stated above. In a time where people's attention spans are super short, Grantland, no matter how great the content, was falling on deaf ears. That's the bottom line.

[Fallen Angel]

Speaking of Twitter, Grantland is trending right now.

https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/status/660163657460875265

[SwishSquared]

ESPN has been looking to sell the idea of Grantland even when Simmons was an employee, now that he's gone the price of the site has been dropping (a.k.a. they're losing money). Simmons leaving really devalued the site.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRs8Vs4UsAAaaXT.png

Bill Simmons was the heart and soul of Grantland, and with him leaving and finding common ground on a network with more freedom (in HBO) he's gonna attract followers to join him. HBO has already snagged a bunch of editors from Grantland already, others are leaving for careers in with other companies.

In ESPN's eyes, the only valuable assets Grantland has are the Jalen & Jacoby podcast (which has made its way to a live ESPN Radio slot) and Zach Lowe columns/podcasts. Neither of those products need a site of their own, both can be transferred to ESPN's main website and not miss a beat.That's bad corporate development though that Simmons was able, within 10 pods, to be establish an annual pace that would be within ~85% of Grantland's revenues. He has no ads he can sell on a site and only 1 podcast right now. ESPN has the personnel to help lands advertisers on podcasts and websites. Internet ad prices are perpetually decreasing, but that seems like there's more blame to go around for poor financial performance.

I get that Simmons provided a ton of the value for a site like Grantland, but he had an awesome staff creating high quality content that could have been monetized.

I'm not trying to stick up for Simmons b/c he did plenty of things wrong and acted arrogantly. I think ESPN really has botched a smooth transition of letting people go.

Sidenote- they lost like 3M subscribers last year. They'll be reeling if people can stream most games over the internet in the future w/o them.

[TonyMontana]

ESPN is honestly so ****ing bad. You got to remember it's owned by Disney too, which explains why their so concerend with their "Goody" image.

you can see why they got rid of Bill Simmons. Not that he would curse, or get out of control, but you can see that he would make some "adult" style comments.

local sportstalk radio stations do this too. ESPN is just TOO "goody". Can never have humor. i cant believe peepole still go to them with the options we have today.

[Fallen Angel]

Thinking back, I wonder if there was anything that could have hinted to this situation when Bill Simmons was suspended back when he made comments on the NFL back in like 2014.

[Foster5k]

Sidenote- they lost like 3M subscribers last year.
Don't know the exact figures, but that had little to anything to do with Bill Simmons. People aren't just going to subscribe to something they basically can get for free on the net.

[SwishSquared]

Don't know the exact figures, but that had little to anything to do with Bill Simmons. People aren't just going to subscribe to something they basically can get for free on the net.That had almost nothing to do with Simmons. ESPN losing cable/satellite subscribers is a huge loss to their top and bottom line, though, which is critical to their business.

They spend billions on TV rights and if people keep cutting the cord, then ESPN has a smaller base from which to broadcast content.

There's an exodus of high-paid talent from ESPN because they're cutting costs and only focusing on money-making programs. That makes sense for the masses but can alienate those small groups that tune-in to their employees who make better content.

[Heavincent]

Wonder where Zach Lowe will end up.

[aj1987]

ESPN is a shit show. Having to layoff, what was it like 4 percent of their staff? Their tv shows are more TMZ than actual news. Their supposed actual "news" shows, like SC and OTL, constantly use false information... **** off ESPN.

I hope in my lifetime I see their fall.
ESPN is a $50B+ company and the casuals LOVE their pathetic excuses for 'articles'. I doubt it ever happens.

Grantland was the bomb though. **** ESPN.

[AnaheimLakers24]

Shit was garbage along with espn as a whole.

[outbreak]

When is Bill making his own site? I heard he took a bunch of grantland writers with him when he left.

grantland was the only decent thing ESPN do

[SouBeachTalents]

ESPN is a shit show. Having to layoff, what was it like 4 percent of their staff? Their tv shows are more TMZ than actual news. Their supposed actual "news" shows, like SC and OTL, constantly use false information... **** off ESPN.

I hope in my lifetime I see their fall.

Agreed 100%. Shit like this is basically the norm at ESPN now. I honestly don't know how anybody can watch it

http://deadspin.com/5934761/sportscenter-spends-the-day-celebrating-tim-tebows-birthday

[warriorfan]

Good, maybe they can replace the pencil necked geeks with dudes that actually play.

[oarabbus]

ESPN made terrible television deals like $1.9 billion to show monday night football like 4 years ago without realizing people were dropping television packages and watching things online. So they're bleeding money right now and need to cut practically their whole staff.

But the execs that made those terrible tv deals will still get their annual bonus and rake in millions themselves while they hold zach lowe hostage with grantland suspended indefinitely


Lol dude MNF is one of the most watched shows, even amongst the 18-35 cord cutting demographic

I'm not denying ESPN has made terrible decisions but MNF is the worst example you can possibly give. They are making hand over fist on that MNF deal.

[Captvic]

its first take or nothing for FEMSPN

[salwan]

hope simmons will be able to start a similar project at/with the help of HBO.

I always listened to the BS, Lowe, jalen+jacoby and greenwald+ryan tv show podcasts and obviously read lowe's articles as well.

[wally_world]

Don't get fired Jalen

Anw screw ESPN for ruining everything good

[Foster5k]

Don't get fired Jalen

Anw screw ESPN for ruining everything good
Lmao. I'm willing to bet this guy will NOT be buying a HBO package to go watch Bill Simmons.

All this talk about Bill Simmons and yet I doubt most here will subscribe to go watch his content. Basically, this is what ESPN came to the conclusion too also.

Not to mention, majority of fans don't even know who Bill Simmons is.

[wally_world]

Lmao. I'm willing to bet this guy will NOT be buying a HBO package to go watch Bill Simmons.

All this talk about Bill Simmons and yet I doubt most here will subscribe to go watch his content. Basically, this is what ESPN came to the conclusion too also.

Not to mention, majority of fans don't even know who Bill Simmons is.

I tune in to Bill's podcasts. I'm not buying a HBO package, but neither do I have ESPN. I'm not in USA so I guess things work a little differently when it comes to getting content.

[cranincu]

Lol dude MNF is one of the most watched shows, even amongst the 18-35 cord cutting demographic

I'm not denying ESPN has made terrible decisions but MNF is the worst example you can possibly give. They are making hand over fist on that MNF deal.
that's not how it works

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/espn-made-two-critical-mistakes-132855270.html

According to Ourand, ESPN was negotiating for a $6-per-subscriber fee from the cable companies. To secure that high of a fee, ESPN had to be flexible on its "penetration benchmark levels," or the number of homes that cable companies guarantee ESPN will be in.

At the time, ESPN was guaranteed to be in 90% of cable subscribers' homes. To get $6 per subscriber, ESPN lowered that threshold to 80%.

When ESPN lowered the standard, it allowed cable companies to start introducing new cable packages that excluded ESPN. People are signing up for those cable packages, leading to ESPN's losing 8.5 million subscribers over the past four and half years, according to Ourand citing Nielsen estimates.

This falls in line with the numbers we collected recently. After three decades of growth, ESPN's place in the American home is slipping.

At the same time ESPN started losing subscribers, it started paying massive fees for sports.

ESPN is paying $1.9 billion annually to air "Monday Night Football," and other NFL content across its various platforms. That's $800 million more than the next closest competitor. Ourand says people are skeptical there was even another bidder within $500 million of that number.
After overpaying for the NFL, ESPN overpaid for the NBA, tripling its rate. It also doubled its rate for MLB rights.

They get money from cable companies. The cable companies are selling packages without espn and more and more people are buying that.

[Proctor]

Good, maybe they can replace the pencil necked geeks with dudes that actually play.
This. I'm sick of the hipster school of sports journalism that produces 600 page snoozer articles on the more mundane aspects of the sport.

[dhsilv]

ESPN has been looking to sell the idea of Grantland even when Simmons was an employee, now that he's gone the price of the site has been dropping (a.k.a. they're losing money). Simmons leaving really devalued the site.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRs8Vs4UsAAaaXT.png

Bill Simmons was the heart and soul of Grantland, and with him leaving and finding common ground on a network with more freedom (in HBO) he's gonna attract followers to join him. HBO has already snagged a bunch of editors from Grantland already, others are leaving for careers in with other companies.

In ESPN's eyes, the only valuable assets Grantland has are the Jalen & Jacoby podcast (which has made its way to a live ESPN Radio slot) and Zach Lowe columns/podcasts. Neither of those products need a site of their own, both can be transferred to ESPN's main website and not miss a beat.

The problem was pretty simple. They didn't know how to make money off podcasts and that was the bread and butter of grantland. Yes it was also the best written website...dare I say online....but the podcasts were just so much better suited to getting high dollar add revenue. The content however was a great way to bring in additional views which would lead people to the pod's.

How you can lose money on that kind of talent is just mind blowing. Simmons knows basketball, he's fun to read (not a great writer), and he's a great personality. All that said his talent is CLEARLY in hiring brilliant people. He's amazing at that and grantland was a shining example of his absurd hiring talent.

[dhsilv]

The bottom line is that the average sports fan doesn't even know what Grantland is. Grantland caters to a niche of sports fans that want more insight into the game, their team, favorite player, etc. Majority of sports fans just want to watch the game, drink beer, cheer when their team scores and boo when their team loses. Occasionally, they will like to know why their team lost, and then listen to maybe 5-10mins of ESPN talking heads trying to explain, to the layman, why their favorite team failed to win the game. Then, they can go off to work and bark about what they heard from so and so analyst and act like they have a clue to what's really going on in professional sports.

Bill Simmons is a good sports writer. I liked his podcast, books, articles, etc. However, he isn't great enough to warrant some huge contract that he wanted. ESPN didn't lose ratings because Bill Simmons is gone. Also, HBO suddenly didn't gain a bunch of ratings because they acquired Bill Simmons. Simmons is good but not great enough to shift ratings to a point where his services justify a huge payday.

Lowe is also good but he falls into that Simmons category. ESPN will do fine without both for the reasons stated above. In a time where people's attention spans are super short, Grantland, no matter how great the content, was falling on deaf ears. That's the bottom line.

For starters I know people not into sports who were fans of grantland. It was a popculture website as much if not more than sports. I know after espn turned their page into that horrid god awful white shit, that I saw a dozen posts on facebook from people who like sports but I'd not call hardcore fans that they were done with espn and they'd just go straight to grantland going forward.

It had a huge following and it's the first link on my cell phone for toilet viewing during work (the only time I really use the cell phone for the internet).

It just doesn't have scores and well people use espn to see scores...

[dhsilv]

That's bad corporate development though that Simmons was able, within 10 pods, to be establish an annual pace that would be within ~85% of Grantland's revenues. He has no ads he can sell on a site and only 1 podcast right now. ESPN has the personnel to help lands advertisers on podcasts and websites. Internet ad prices are perpetually decreasing, but that seems like there's more blame to go around for poor financial performance.

I get that Simmons provided a ton of the value for a site like Grantland, but he had an awesome staff creating high quality content that could have been monetized.

I'm not trying to stick up for Simmons b/c he did plenty of things wrong and acted arrogantly. I think ESPN really has botched a smooth transition of letting people go.

Sidenote- they lost like 3M subscribers last year. They'll be reeling if people can stream most games over the internet in the future w/o them.

You know the funny thing is back when ESPN first came along to me, which was well after they'd started. They really didn't have much as far as live sports. College games and maybe MAYBE mlb...? ESPN's reason for existing is to talk about sports and showing them is a nice bonus. Somehow they lost that vision...

[finchyyy]

This was foreshadowed pretty much before the site even launched:

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/bill-simmonss-grantland-is-doomed-even-before-launch/240095/

As soon as Simmons left, it was finished anyway.

[Fallen Angel]

The problem was pretty simple. They didn't know how to make money off podcasts and that was the bread and butter of grantland. Yes it was also the best written website...dare I say online....but the podcasts were just so much better suited to getting high dollar add revenue. The content however was a great way to bring in additional views which would lead people to the pod's.

How you can lose money on that kind of talent is just mind blowing. Simmons knows basketball, he's fun to read (not a great writer), and he's a great personality. All that said his talent is CLEARLY in hiring brilliant people. He's amazing at that and grantland was a shining example of his absurd hiring talent.
How hard is it to advertise Grantland podcasts on ESPN Radio, because they barely do it.

Matter of fact, I can't recall ESPN ever airing a commercial promoting their ESPN Radio App or their Podcast site.

[Fallen Angel]

This. I'm sick of the hipster school of sports journalism that produces 600 page snoozer articles on the more mundane aspects of the sport.
So you'd rather read illiterate articles from NBA players who have one-two meaningless years of a college education?

Or would you rather listen to a podcast hosted by a former NBA player because Shaquille O'Neal and Bruce Bowen both have one and nobody listens to either.

[JohnFreeman]

Zach Lowe is an angel

[dhsilv]

How is it to advertise Grantland podcasts on ESPN Radio, because they barely do it.

Matter of fact, I can't recall ESPN ever airing a commercial promoting their ESPN Radio App or their Podcast site.

Yet grantland was a leader in podcast views. The problem with espn is they didn't monitize(SP?) them.

[dhsilv]

This. I'm sick of the hipster school of sports journalism that produces 600 page snoozer articles on the more mundane aspects of the sport.

The problem is most people who play don't understand the sport at all. Just because you're a genetic freak doesn't make you actually knowledgeable. Worse yet you have the old school guys who don't understand how the game is changing and for the better. Jackson is an all time great as it barkely and they BOTH still don't get that 3's are an important part of the game.

[Proctor]

The problem is most people who play don't understand the sport at all. Just because you're a genetic freak doesn't make you actually knowledgeable. Worse yet you have the old school guys who don't understand how the game is changing and for the better. Jackson is an all time great as it barkely and they BOTH still don't get that 3's are an important part of the game.
Agreed. Unfortunately they all aren't Shane Battier's or Jason Collin's, I'm just sick of the new school, many of whom probably haven't picked up a basketball in their lives yet write pedantic and pompous articles.

[kunk75]

its a shame it could get a little too hipster nerd but now we will be force fed a steady diet of skip, steven a and inane stories about rhonda rousey

[kunk75]

Yet grantland was a leader in podcast views. The problem with espn is they didn't monitize(SP?) them.

yup they didn't spend any money on paid media directed to grant land nor did they drive to it from the main site. without some combination of paid and earned media, you aren't long for the world.