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.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

"Grantland distinguished itself with quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun. "

Yeah this stuff has no place anywhere in ESPN-land.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It was a clear money-loser, and based on his HBO whinings Simmons only wanted more money (both for himself, for staff, for promotion) as a result.

You'd hope ESPN would realize 'quality writing, smart ideas, original thinking and fun' could be a tenet of their actual website. They will get a little better at it if they absorb Lowe, Kheri, etc. into the main page (or FiveThirtyEight, whatever that's still around for)

Hopefully Barnwell doesn't stay with ESPN. Wouldn't he just go back to Football Outsiders?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Oh, don't get me wrong ... I think Simmons is maybe a step above schmucks like SAS and Bayless ... BUT occasionally he would bang something out that was a compelling read or there'd be a PR-motivated "leak" of an internal dustup involving him that would engender a light guffaw or two, but at least it was a break from the pablum, agenda-pushing rubbish that pervades the network on-air and online.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

damn, loved Grantland NFL podcast.

barnwell, mays and lowe hopefully get good gigs to flex their stuff.

the faggy nba stuff gladly is gone forever.

Lowe does NBA stuff, dummy.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

there lowe nba stuff and there's faggy nba stuff:
ranking nba haircuts!
importance of demarcus cousin wink gif
if spurs were captain planet and planeteers who would be what

That's their gaggle of pop culture writers that do that? I don't really ever read anything there outside of Lowe, Barnwell, Mays, and the occasional Charles Pierce piece.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

They got the Game layoff notice:

Michael Baumann @MJ_Baumann

Well that's the first time I've ever found out I was laid off via Twitter
1:04 PM - 30 Oct 2015

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/espn-e ... atest_news

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Hawaii (fuck) You

never knew what it was and now I don't have to feel bad about not knowing.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Top Deadspin comment on this...

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Too bad they couldn't find a way to make money off the site. Probably not encouraging for 538 and the future "Black Grantland" site.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

I'm not sure why Nate Sliver left the NYT's umbrella. He's an afterthought at ESPN and with the 2016 actually primaries about 14 weeks away, this should be the season for mixing big data with survey data.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1233 ... -grantland



Yeah, A Supposedly Fun Grantland I'll Never Grantland Again really had a form no one had ever seen.



deep sigh

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So in other words, they're better sportswriters because they're pinko intellectuals, as opposed to guys who are more like Ray Barone's TV character.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Enough about what LaMarcus Aldridge's shot means to the black American experience. I want to know more about how Kevin Durant is inspiring new schools of literary criticism: it's not about what you write, it's about the writing you facilitate.

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just think, if RFDC read those columns he too would sigh and then say "it's only november.... you're not starting this shit already are you?"

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1. Over the past 48 hours, my Twitter feed has functioned as the site of a mass public wake for Grantland, so this seems an opportune time to remind everyone that Grantland was never very good. At its best, it was a good place to find some mildly wonky sports analysis (Lowe, Barnwell, Mays). At its worst, it was home to some of the most deeply offensive "prestige" writing on the internet (Simmons's "limited intellectual capital" lockout column, the Dr. V saga). The vast majority of the time, it was a purveyor of self-indulgent middlebrow pablum: the Coldplay of websites.

2. With that said, Grantland at least made an effort to bring the world something more substantive than #hottakes, and (as literally everyone on the internet has pointed out by now), it is indeed profoundly disappointing that ESPN is shutting it down while pushing garbage like First Take.

3. With that said, I'm stunned that Simmons is not getting raked over the coals here. Via Deadspin:



Simmons is a narcissistic, petulant little child, and I sincerely wish him ill.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

legit lol'd at this

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

I didnt read it much and a major reason why is because Bernstein would promote it. I always have said, its hard to be on his side, even if its the right side.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

ugh, really starting to sink in that my podcast options have really dwindled without Grantland. I credit them for not missing heavy-WSCR-consumption too much.

Agreed. Enjoyed Barnwell & Mays podcast as they have great chemistry.

Couldn't Lowe, Barnwell/Mays, Jonah Keri continue doing pods under ESPN name?

What's a good NFL podcast if they stop producing them? I find Ross Tucker annoying and ESPN's NFL podcast is boring fluff.

I don't see why not, though Keri's season is over and Lowe said on Twitter he was cancelling his upcoming one.

I don't listen to the NFL one but it sounds like it had problems even before the site was pulled-> http://deadspin.com/whats-going-on-with ... 1737360062

won't bother with the links:

• Keri's finishing out the year at ESPN.com, not sure if he's staying after that.
  
• Andy Greenwald is moving that podcast (unsure about writing) to HBO under Simmons
  
• Katie Baker to ESPNW

Lowe and Barnewall popping up at ESPN.com

Kirk Goldesberry to FiveThirtyEight

@ Simmons naming his new podcast network BSPN. Kinda makes sense, but still.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I still have no idea what "Grantland" is or was, but this tells me I don't want to know.

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