Grantland so far

I thought I saw 1.2 million page hits a month for Grantland.

I have no idea how that translates to internet money, but if you had Subway, Dial, Old Spice, Coke, Pepsi, McDonalds and some opening movie all dropping $100,000 to share the ad space each month, I could see $10,000,000 a year.

 

Yeah, I wasn't trying to say that it was $10 per month. Just that Rovell tweeted that it got $10 million in ad buys the first month. Those buys might be for ads for an entire year. Either way, I think it's clear Simmons represents a demo that advertisers covet. Whether that translates into long-term financial success or prosperity, I can't say.

 

Klosterman hasn't written about sports since early August. Jones hasn't written a story about the AL East, supposedly his beat, since July 15, and he's only written three times since then at all. Gladwell's written twice, both times on the NBA lockout. Weinreb's writing roughly once a month so far (which is perfectly reasonable given the quality and depth of his work for the site thus far, which I'm not sure you can say for the others).

In other words, it appears the "big names" were really mostly interested in lending those names and helping the site get its footing. Which is fine, really. There are enough talented lesser known writers to buoy the ship.

But I've lost interest in the site for the most part, and not for the reason I might have expected. I'm not against sifting through articles about reality TV and bad music all written with a hipster purview. I don't read those, but I get that someone might be, theoretically. What I don't like is all the content that I can find on my regular sports websites, where the thoughts would be reinforced by writers I trust and like more than John Brandon (college football) and Bill Barnwell (NFL) and Jonah Keri (baseball). That's not to say I don't like those guys, but I don't think Grantland needs to fill the role of grades for every baseball team at the trade deadline or Monday notebooks from NFL games. I didn't expect the site to fall into those traps. It's part of the ESPN picture, which reinforces those redundancies.

Sports Illustrated produces more interesting pieces each week in print, and SI.com separately produces more interesting pieces each week online. Yahoo does as well. And ESPN's best writing can be found most often in Outside The Lines pieces.

I'm not consistently finding the kind of unique content on Grantland that I hoped it would produce. I think the site is wasting its resources as a result. It's not McSweeneys or Esquire or The New Yorker for sports. It's more Sports Illustrated, minus editing and the back-of-the-mag big feature story most weeks.

 

The stories on Grantland are getting weaker. I just scrolled the list and not much jumped out. I did read Jerry West, but I did not like it. If you are in West By God Virginia with their Lord and Savior, Jerry West, you need to get some better stuff than waxing about Memphis and Golden State.

What I do love, and even it is starting to get cluttered, is the layout.

I hate going to ESPN.com or cbssports.com and getting 1,000 links, 20 ads, 5 ticker tape feeds and God knows what else every time I click on the page.

Give me a link to click for agate and scores if I want that. Let me scroll 15-20 good features at a time, no more than that needed daily, and be done with it. What more does a fucking sports fan need from a general sports site?

I can only read so much at one time, why do you hit me with 25,000 stories every day? Why do I go into a seizure with all your flash ads when all I do is click espn.com?

 

I disagree very much with this. I thought West's candid quotes were fascinating.

 

The best stuff now on Grantland are excerpts from Levy and Delillo books.

I don't think Jones has written on AL East since Francona got mad at him.

Maybe he is working on a sequel to his John Lackey redemption story.

 

If it's really you, NotYou, I hope it's coming soon.

 

Convince me.

 

clueless here.

 

http://www.esquire.com/features/barack-obama-0608

 

Bored.

 

While not particularly redeeming of most of your criticism, he did write a story on small college football offenses Sept. 9.