Don't agree. ESPN would have let it stay a vanity place. Simmons wouldn't. He tried to equate his site to ESPN The Magazine, which it isn't, not on any level, especially from a journalism perspective. Plus, Simmons acted like a jerk on other ESPN media settings. Grantland is dead because Simmons simply couldn't stand medium significance. He blew it - for himself and all those writers. He blew it. Maybe he can reclaim it wherever he's going, but he blew it at ESPN.
Grantland's site was fine. Fine! But a lot of people, if given the latitude to write like that at their own media sites, could write some of that stuff. They're not given the latitude. They're locked up by editors and publishers, and locked up by a fear that some tinhorn, thin-skinned coach will get all riled up over what they read. Which they might. But who cares.
The lesson to Grantland is: Very little of it is hard to replicate at a local level. It can be done. Sometimes, it is done. But you have to have people willing to turn their staff into something more than drones from the teams. Too many writers still conduct themselves like PR firms, spewing cliches, rattling off meaningless feature stories about some guy's work ethic. Perhaps that was useful when you got great access and could tell some great, un-politically correct stories. You don't get that anymore. It's time to stop.
