Effective immediately we are suspending the publication of Grantland. After careful consideration, we have decided to direct our time and energy going forward to projects that we believe will have a broader and more significant impact across our enterprise.
Grantland distinguished itself with quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun. We are grateful to those who made it so. Bill Simmons was passionately committed to the site and proved to be an outstanding editor with a real eye for talent. Thanks to all the other writers, editors and staff who worked very hard to create content with an identifiable sensibility and consistent intelligence and quality. We also extend our thanks to Chris Connelly who stepped in to help us maintain the site these past five months as he returns to his prior role.
Despite this change, the legacy of smart long-form sports story-telling and innovative short form video content will continue, finding a home on many of our other ESPN platforms.
A friend of mine on Facebook cited a rumor saying that they were ~$200m in the hole. I don't know if that's true, but if so, that must have had something to do with it.
I think it is probably true that Grantland lost a *lot* of money. Wouldn't be surprised if that $200m number was correct or close to being correct. Grantland arrived with a splash, hired a bunch of people, rented lots of office and studio space, etc., but they didn't have much of a revenue stream. A few ads here and there and sponsorships; that was about it. Sadly in today's internet economy, that doesn't really bring in the huge bucks, even if the site was popular and had a lot of readers.
ESPN themselves didn't do even close to all of the things they could have done to help promote and improve Grantland, like featuring their content in the main site or giving them a mobile app. But I think even with such help, the site still would have been badly hemorrhaging money. With the site's leader and creative figurehead gone and many of the talent and staff leaving with him, it makes a lot of sense to me to shut it down and fold some of its staff back into the main company umbrella. But it still sucks that they did it so suddenly without warning to the employees.
I hope Simmons smashes then at HBO and hires away all of their good people. I am already listening to Simmons' new podcast and love it. I also love Zach Lowe's NBA podcast and also sometimes like the Jalen (Rose) and Jacoby NBA podcast, so I hope those guys get back on the air in some form soon.
i stopped following the grantland twitter just 3 days ago... because i noticed they not doing "nba after dark", hollywood perspectus pod, and do you like prince movies podcast anymore.
Mori Chu wrote:
I think it is probably true that Grantland lost a *lot* of money. Wouldn't be surprised if that $200m number was correct or close to being correct. Grantland arrived with a splash, hired a bunch of people, rented lots of office and studio space, etc., but they didn't have much of a revenue stream. A few ads here and there and sponsorships; that was about it. Sadly in today's internet economy, that doesn't really bring in the huge bucks, even if the site was popular and had a lot of readers.
That just seems insane to me in today's world. They didn't have office space and support staff available at ESPN HQ? Or they couldn't just let the writers write from their homes? How often were they even in the office anyway, given they were probably traveling quite a bit to chase down stories?
It's almost like the dot-com era when all of these supposed whiz kids would wow investors, get a ton of investor capital, then blow it all on pinball machines or swanky office space and never actually put out a product.
Dan H wrote:It's almost like the dot-com era when all of these supposed whiz kids would wow investors, get a ton of investor capital, then blow it all on pinball machines or swanky office space and never actually put out a product.
Speaking directly from Silicon Valley, I can tell you that such behavior is absolutely still going on. The startups and companies do put out a product, but they don't usually make money. Bubble hasn't (re-)popped yet, but it's probably coming. Too many companies get too much money to build things with no particular business model or revenue stream.
