Opinions

Grantland 2011-2015

Here’s the thing; Grantland should never have even existed.

Corporate machines are rarely where you find true creativity. Machines are built on keeping the status quo, making parts interchangeable and simply replacing them when problems arise. For years at ESPN that status quo was built on sports coverage and highlight packages.

But since 2011, readers of sports and pop culture (and the places they intersect) were treated to some of the best journalism writing and cultural criticism anywhere on the Internet. Grantland was a true anomaly within the corporate world of ESPN.

What really set Grantland apart was also what ultimately ended it.


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ESPN, the owner of Grantland, is a corporate giant living in the service of another corporate giant in Disney. And after four years of accolades and acclaim, ESPN finally pulled the plug on the website on Oct. 30.

Grantland went against everything that its parent company seemed to be interested in. In a world of sports news is designed to tell you everything you need to know in a single tweet or 20-second highlight, Grantland was gloriously excessive.

It gave its writers the freedom and space to write about the things in this world that truly fascinated them. Whether it was what life has been like for Noel Gallagher after Oasis, a visit to a porn convention in Las Vegas or an analysis of all the conspiracy theories surrounding the JFK assassination, Grantland was always willing and eager to drag its audience down the rabbit hole with them. Making their obsessions our obsessions.

It is no surprise then that the genesis for Grantland came from a person that made a career out of writing about his obsessions.

Grantland started as simply the vanity project of former ESPN columnist and podcaster Bill Simmons. Certainly a polarizing figure in sports writing, Simmons built a large audience out of passion for his Boston sports franchises.

While Simmons certainly ceased to be the biggest draw behind Grantland, with its dozens of writers and podcasters, it was his ousting in May that ultimately led to the crumbling of the site.

Reports about dissatisfaction with the new editor-in-chief and uncertainty over ESPN’s support of the site culminated in a half-dozen writers and editors leaving over the past month.

It is easy to say that the loss of Grantland certainly won’t leave a hole in the Internet, that all the writers and editors will go on to other projects and good writing is still readily available for those that want to find it.

But that misses the magic that Grantland actually created. More than great individual articles, it was a place that seemed like the smallest germ of an idea could grow into something greater.

The most fun sports podcast that I listened to was Grantland’s NBA After Dark, in which Chris Ryan, Juliet Litman and Andrew Sharp discussed the off-the-court activities of professional basketball players. From breaking down the Instagram profile of Golden State Warriors players to their love of all things Boogie Cousins, NBA After Dark unapologetically discussed basketball as the soap opera substitute that it is.

And it is easy to see how that could have grown from three people sitting around the office one day discussing what Dwight Howard just said on Twitter.

It was a place that would devote an entire week to the works of Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most enigmatic directors of my lifetime. It was a place that would tackle the hard-hitting question of “what is the current state of robots in this country?” or “how are the San Antonio Spurs changing the way we understand the aging of athletes?” or “what is the value of Albert Hammond Jr. to The Strokes over a replacement musician?”

It was a place that brought together writers like Chuck Klosterman, Malcom Gladwell, Brian Koppelman, Chirs Connelly and Charles Pierce.

It was a place that best-selling authors, Pulitzer Prize winners and MacArthur Award novelists wanted to write for.

It was a place that gave Zach Lowe and Jonah Keri the room to not just tell me about sports, but really explain what I was seeing in a way that went beyond platitudes. That merged the ideas of team chemistry and conventional wisdom with the statistical revolution that has taken place over the last 20 years.

It was a place that truly embraced the new, often mixing articles with Tweets from the athletes themselves, or Vines from the game the night before or memes that sprung up around a surprising moment.

Most of all, it was a place that I would have wanted to work at. A place that put a value on great writing and experimental ideas above the bottom line of page views and ad traffic.

Because even though Grantland should have never worked, the last four years were an absolute pleasure.


Ten things to check out on Grantland

by 49er staff

Oral History of the Malice at the Palace

by Jonathan Abrams, March 20, 2012

While the oral history has been in vogue over the past five years, this one about one of the most insane nights in sports is a must. When the barriers between fans and athletes crashing down that night, it was fascinating to read nearly everyone’s voice that was involved that night. Also, Ron Artest really asked, “Do you think we are going to get in trouble?”

The Front Lines of Ferguson

by Rembert Browne, Aug. 16, 2014

The Michael Brown saga that played out in Ferguson, Missouri, is one of the most important civil rights events of this century. Grantland’s Rembert Browne visited the front lines of the protests there and wrote about the experiences of being a persecuted black man in the middle of a heated exchange between protestors and police.

Wu Tang, Atomically

by Amos Barshard, March 19, 2014

Wu-Tang was one of the most influential artists in rap, and nearly 20 years after their first album, Grantland’s Amos Barshard detailed the lives of its members as they made their way in the world outside the group.

The Consequences of Caring

by Bill Simmons, June 8, 2012

Sports is ultimately meaningless, we all know this. And yet despite this fact, sports fans just can’t seem to help getting overly invested in the fates of our favorite teams. This article by the former Editor-in-chief parallels his 8-year-old daughter’s first experience having her heart broken by a sporting event with the game that Simmons still can’t get over.

30 Rock landed on us

by Wesley Morris, Jan. 31, 2013

Sparked by a small exchange between two characters on “30 Rock,” Wesley Morris examined the history and politics of African American characters on TV.

“Sole Man”

by 30 for 30 films, April 2015

Though produced under ESPN’s 30 for 30 films, this documentary about Sonny Vaccaro was released in six parts on Grantland. The film chronicled the life of the man who originally signed Michael Jordan to Nike. What made it fascinating was how the competition to sign the next great athlete bled into college and eventually high school athletics, and Vaccaro’s realization at the exploitation he created.

NBA After Dark: The DeAndre Saga

by Chris Ryan, Juliet Litman and Andrew Sharp, July 9, 2015

In addition to many great articles, Grantland was also known for its podcasts on topics like sports, movies, reality TV and food. NBA After Dark followed the lives of NBA players off the court through news articles, Twitter, Instagram and rumors. This episode detailed the day Clippers center DeAndre Jordan reneged on his agreement to sign with the Dallas Mavericks through the emojiis of the players on the team.

The Winner’s History of Rock and Roll

by Steve Hyden, January 2013

A seven-part series detailing of the exploits and impacts of the biggest bands on the planet, Steven Hyden tried to explain why Led Zeppelin or Metallica or Linkin Park may not have been the best bands, but dominated their eras in a way other contenders could not.

The White Album

by Chuck Klosterman, Jan, 31., 2013

This article detailed just how much trouble professional sports has in dealing with the mental health issues of its work force. The article is told through the prism of Royce White, a former Houston Rocket who’s troubles with mental illness famously kept him from his professional career.

The goodbye banner

Oct. 30, 2015

“It was a good run.”

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