ESPN Cancels Grantland
ESPN has decided to cancel Grantland.
Seth's Tweet summarizes my feelings...
The monopolistic boondoggle by which we forced the market to consume our trash is crumbling. Cancel the good stuff!
https://t.co/sYVP8OGdxc
— Seth M. Fisher (@Misopogon) October 30, 2015October 30th, 2015 at 2:30 PM ^
Problem is, the average readership of this blog is very different from the average American sports consumer. ESPN is the way it is for a reason, and it ain't by accident.
October 30th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
Listen to sports talk radio. The average sports fan listens to sports talk radio. Ergo, the average sports fan is an idiot.
October 30th, 2015 at 4:28 PM ^
is the main reason why there isn't any real reporting; I agree with you 100%. All sports radio is: troll, troll, troll and troll more. Then it's open call time when Dan from Dearborn calls in to say David Domborwski got fired because he didn't trade Rajai Davis for Mike Trout before the season started.
October 30th, 2015 at 6:52 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 4:39 PM ^
This is the truth. Sad but true.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:17 PM ^
I hope Andy Greenwald finds some place to turn up. Hopefully AV Club.
Can we get Katie Baker to come here and cover the hockey program?
October 30th, 2015 at 2:42 PM ^
Andy Greenwald is ok, and the hollywood prospectus was decent, but espn or grantland never recieved a ton of views from me anyway. Andy can stick to podcast, they seem mmildly entertaining.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:19 PM ^
Make a new one! Get the crew back together! Hang out with Jalen and just talk about random stuff! I miss you
October 30th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
This is the worst news ever
October 30th, 2015 at 3:30 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 2:29 PM ^
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October 30th, 2015 at 3:30 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
It seems too mean spirited . Lebatard, whether a schtick or not, spends 75% of his time talking about how much he hates his crew and how bad they are at doing a job that he hired them for. Actually mean spirited banter is all sports talk has become, thanks Jim Rome.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:21 PM ^
Brian needs to go save TomVH and bring us back so he can collectively hold us.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:30 PM ^
Other than the fact she is a moron, and is a brain-removed MSU Sparty enthusiast, I kind of like Jamele Hill.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:32 PM ^
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October 30th, 2015 at 2:25 PM ^
In my opinion Grantland had the best sportswriting around, bar none. Fuck you ESPN.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:29 PM ^
I would have paid an actual subscription to read it. How many websites (other than this one) can you say that about?
October 30th, 2015 at 2:26 PM ^
Anything that requires enough quality time to produce, and to consume, does not have much a chance in this instant day and age.
Stephen A. screaming about nothing is what sells, and is the easiest to produce.
October 30th, 2015 at 3:25 PM ^
Hey Stephen, what do you want to be mad at today? PIck anything. Ok,.....GO!
The topic is unimportant. He just needs to be mad.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:26 PM ^
I liked reading Molly Lambert's columns. Hope she lands somewhere visible.
October 30th, 2015 at 3:48 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 2:28 PM ^
Fuckity fuck fuck.
Grantland was the about the best general-interest website out there. As Ace put it in a tweet,
"Ok, who wants to hire 80% of my favorite writers and give them free reign?"
October 30th, 2015 at 2:30 PM ^
Whitlock's fault. Gotta be.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 3:33 PM ^
Not with Jamie Horowitz running things over there. He's the guy responsible for the Skip/Stephen A phenomenon in the first place.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^
I vote we set up an MGoFundMe campaign to hire Matt Hinton to write here.
October 30th, 2015 at 7:16 PM ^
Hinton is one the best college football writers out there.
Brian just added a Matt Hinton link under Links of Note > Football > ... I believe the Dr. Saturday link was originally for Matt. I hope the link gets updated when he lands somewhere new.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:33 PM ^
So many talented writers and contributors: Matt Hinton, Holly Anderson, Zach Lowe, Bill Barnwell, Jason Concepcion, Andy Greenwald, and on and on. I hope they're all able to land on their feet and practice their craft elsewhere.
And the message this sends is so depressing. Grantland was a site where these writers could explore stories and ideas without any concern for pagehits, clickbait, or other modern media garbage.
And, of course, looked what happened to it. With the going getting tough for ESPN, they've decided to keep their trash at the expense of their treasure. What a shame.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:42 PM ^
I forgot about Andy Greenwald!
Here is what I want: An NBA Blog led by Zach Lowe and John Hollinger, an NFL Blog headed by Bill Barnwell, A CFB blog led by Matt Hinton and Holly Anderson, and a Baseball Blog Led by Jonah Keri and Kieth Law. Also Andy Greenwald. THAT WAS (pretty much) FU*KING GRANTLAND.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:48 PM ^
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October 30th, 2015 at 2:54 PM ^
I consider him the Archetype of what I love about a sports writer. For instance, his trade columns were perfect. He would explain what the team was thinking, offer a broad over view of the players value, then critique the team on THEIR terms. I was lost for a long time after he left until I found Zach Lowe on Grantland- to the point that I was watching about 10 percent as much NBA as I had been.
Any site led by these two guys would be, in my humble opinion, the definative NBA site. I feel the same way about Keri and Law and Baseball as well.
October 31st, 2015 at 2:47 AM ^
enjoyed Ben Lindbergh for baseball as well. If I had one tiny gripe with Grantland, it would have been that College Sports seemed a little devalued. That being said, I loved it. My favorite website aside from MGoBlog.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:44 PM ^
E! spn
October 30th, 2015 at 3:30 PM ^
And Mark Titus. His weekly college hoops column was fantastic.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:35 PM ^
DB has to be on their board.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:35 PM ^
I have never even heard of Grantland.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:52 PM ^
October 30th, 2015 at 3:05 PM ^
OK. Was I supposed to know what Grantland is?
October 30th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
Yes you were.
You didn't have to read it but not to know it at all?
October 30th, 2015 at 3:45 PM ^
Well OK then, mate. I'm sorry for not knowing of something that you think I should know of.
October 31st, 2015 at 12:52 PM ^
I've never heard of Grantland either. Crazy I had to read to post 88 to find somebody else who hasn't heard of it either. I don't go to espn.com or watch espn outside of actull games so I don't know how I would know about it.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:36 PM ^
This was a site that took hockey seriously and covered it fantastically. Most everything there was well thought out coherent pieces.
They gave a week of articles to covering Detroit which was great and was not the typical "LOL, Detroit sux" you get from other media outlets.
Also, judging from the writers reactions on Twitter, their contracts were with "Grantland" and they are all pretty much out of work. However, many were either on to other things or were soon to be.
Sincerely wish them all the best.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:38 PM ^
I have (had) thee go-to websites everday
1. This here place
2. Grantland
3. DailyMail UK (think of it like Huffington Post but with much more Kardashian stuff and a ton of obligatory celeb's frolicking in bikinis. Oh...and news)
October 30th, 2015 at 3:33 PM ^
in the Daily Mail a few weeks ago. That was interesting.
October 30th, 2015 at 4:05 PM ^
What color bikini were you wearing?
October 30th, 2015 at 5:24 PM ^
I'm not sure that DailyMail qualifies as "news".
You should try to find some relatively impartial news sources. I can't stand Huff Post and their ilk. To me, they're worse than ESPN.
October 30th, 2015 at 2:43 PM ^
When are we going to get a Brian Cook postmordem on ESPN? Come on Brian, it's been a while since we've had a good MSM skewering!