by Charles Kuykendall
Bill Simmons is one of my favorite writers. I own him several debts -- no, not gambling debts (inside joke for other readers of Simmons). Debts of another kind. He showed me that writers could, and sometimes should be, comedians. He's given me reason to smile after many a long day. He's taught me something about how to make reader's smile. It is a pleasure to read him.
Yet, his writing remains for me a guilty pleasure. I disagree with him on lots of his takes on sports and life. Notable exceptions are his response to the Tiger Woods scandal, the WNBA, and his vision of the writer (the hard work of joy). I lament his tendency to laugh at, instead of with, people. His mocking of Isaiah Thomas went too far. The moral vision of his work (gambling, using the F* bomb for freedom's sake, view on marriage, glorification of immorality) especially disturbs me. At one point, I had to take a break from reading Simmons. His world and work started to make me a little nauseous -- too much like a dirty bar room at 3 a.m., replete with the smell of stale beer, stogies, and evaporating lives.
All the same, I had high hopes for his new website: Grantland.com. I liked the idea of a culture/sports/good writing combination, and Grantland held out promise to be just that. Yet, early on, things are not going well. The reviews are in, and Grantland is not what we hoped it would be. Simmons mocked Spider-Man: Turn Out The Dark. Everyone did. It had such high expectations, and such a build up. It erred in creating those expectation with a big budget, and way too much sound and fury. Well, I fear that Grantland is about to become the internet version of that.
My first impression of Grantland was mild dislike. I really just wanted to read more Simmons, and I think this is the basic problem with Grantland. People who go there -- at least at first -- just want to read more Simmons. They want to hear more of his takes on pop culture. They want more movie reviews. And, of course, more sports columns. Yet, Grantland promises not more of Simmons, but less. He is, afterall, busy now administrating and editing a culture/sports/world web bonanza. That's hard work, and time consuming. That leaves little time for writing. So, Grantland means we will probably get less of Simmons the writer. Simmons himself seems to know this, and bemoan it (see below). Less of Simmons the writer means one and only one thing: most who go to Grantland will be disappointed. So, ironically the very thing that will compel people to Grantland will repel them.
I gave Grantland a fair chance. I visited it 5-6 times. Each time, only to see if Simmons had written anything new. I may not go back. If I do, I'll only do so to check and see if Simmons has written anything new. Simmons always impresses on a first read. Grantland doesn't. It just lost one reader.
If Simmons wanted to set off in a new venture -- why not a writing venture? Why not write more books? Or, write more screen-plays? He's already written at least one. Why not write, write, write? He faces a similar dilemma as the Apostles in Acts chapter 6. They were being diverted from their primary calling by something good. Instead of abiding this diversion, they moved to remedy it. They wanted to focus. They couldn't do both well, and so they let someone else do that other "good" thing. They refused to do both. I believe Simmons, when faced with a similar version, decided to try and do both. Life very often serves us up opportunities. It is hard not to try and do both. It is hard not to try and do everything -- especially in the throes of success, fame, and fortune.
I fear that Grantland will die a slow death over the next several years. This will probably involve upset over content: too racy for a Disney affiliated enterprise, and the F* word for the sake of freedom gets old. This will probably involve rumors of writers and staff quitting. This will probably involve "cash-flow" problems. This will probably involve Simmons stepping down as editor to focus on "other things." Then, Simmons leaving the site altogether midst rumors of "bad blood." I wonder how Simmons, who has so often mocked colossal failures, will deal with this.
The "cash-flow" issue will come up when people stop going to the site. That hasn't happened yet. Yet, the site already seems over-mortgaged. It publicly enlisted elite writers, and famous editors (think, Dave Eggers, Malcolm Gladwell). It had an apparently big budget, a big send off, and big expectations, ala Spider-Man: Turn Out the Dark. This reminds me of Turn Out The Dark, but also those big-budget Hollywood movies that spend lots of money making the movie. They hire big name actors. Then, it leaks out how much it cost to make the movie. It all becomes about the cost. Predictably, the movie fails (think Waterworld). It fails, not because it didn't have money or talent, but because it had too much of both. Movies are, after all, about good stories. When a movie becomes known for it's budget and talent there's trouble in the offing. Grantland is already known for it's budget and talent, and not especially for it's writing. Yet, it is supposed to be a website about good writing. This is ominous.
Also, Grantland seems expensive, and this will be off-putting to the average internet browser. Are they really spending that much money on an internet site?
Money will be a problem in other ways. How are you going to pay all those elite writers? You'll have to add more advertisements (more giant subway banners blocking your entry to the site). Money problems will shift focus away from content, and onto revenue. Thus, content will suffer. Simmons may start writing more, but it will be an act of desperation. So, the quality of his work will suffer as well. He will find himself caught up in a machine, with a big budget. Such machines don't got to sleep, and they don't care about good writing. They don't care. One of the first signs of trouble will come when a few writers have to be let go, or else leave over "creative differences" -- the reality will be "financial differences." This is, by the way, one danger of "hired gun" writers. Everyone gushes about the talent of Grantland, but why are these particular writers there? Is it because they believe in the vision? Is it because they care about the venue (excellent writing on the Internet)? Or, is it about the payday? If it is about the payday, it won't matter how good they are, how talented, or how well-known. Their writing will suffer.
A better tack for Grantland would have been to hire relatively unknown, but hungry, writers, and give them a shot (this seems to have been the original goal, actually; see below under bethlehemshoals). Grantland might have been a nurturing venue for writers like Simmons who started out as relative unknowns, but with lots of talent. Had Grantland done this, then the readers would have been satisfied. Why? Because they would have gotten more of Simmons. Not Simmons himself, but versions of his talent. They would have gotten fresh and dissident voices. I don't doubt that the writers on Grantland are good at what they do. But the pieces I've read so far have not impressed me. I feel like the writers are trying to constrain themselves to a certain style. This style happens to be Bill Simmon's style. No surprise. Yet, the appeal of Bill Simmons style is that it is unique -- it is his style. It is fresh. Grantland threatens to make it stale. This would have been another advantage of hiring younger, hungrier, unknowns. Assuming they aren't sycophants, you never know what you are going to get from such people. Freshness would have been on the menu every day.
So now, on this 30th day of June, 2011, when it is only a week old, I am already mourning the fall of Grantland. Actually, I'm not mourning. I'm rooting a little bit for Grantland to fail. Because, if it does, maybe Simmons will go back to writing. That's what we wanted all along.
Here are a several other perspectives:
From: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/bill-simmonss-grantland-is-doomed-even-before-launch/240095/
Yes, Grantland's "murderer's row of talent" is ("HOLY ****") impressive, but that's just another reason why it's going to fail. These people are way too expensive for what Simmons is trying to do. If the site does succeed it won't be because of the level of talent that he's brought in -- it will be despite it. Simmons -- well, ESPN -- is essentially overpaying, because of their experience, old guys to act like new guys. Established sportswriters that will have to pretend they don't have that experience ESPN is paying them for. These are smart, literary writers. Simmons is anything but -- and he wouldn't disagree.
***
Chris Jones doesn't write like that. But Bill Simmons might want him to. Expect another of Simmons's fits as he tries to mold Grantland into his own shape, one that will conflict with ESPN's wish to draw an elite audience and conflict with the aspirations of the writers he has attracted. If Bill Simmons wins the war and ESPN sheds some of the expensive talent it's already promised a position on the masthead, the site might eventually work. It might actually be something new.
***
But Simmons will lose this battle -- the rebellious teenager still relies too heavily on its parents for support -- and ESPN will drive this site into the ground. It's only a matter of time before he leaves. "I don't know, I think I have one more big sellout of my career," Simmons told Mahler. Well, at least ESPN didn't name the site The SimmonsPost; naming it Grantland will make it easier to extract Simmons from the venture when the time comes.
From: http://www.businessinsider.com/grantland-first-impressions-2011-6:
Perhaps the one we did finish – the editor's note – sums up the biggest issue Grantland has to face? Why does it exist? Simmons himself doesn't even seem to know.
Of the four goals he spells out, two are essentially the same thing – hire good people, which is a means not an end – and the third is "make money."
Four is to make use of the freedom and format that ESPN.com doesn't allow, but Simmons doesn't seem to have thought about (or can't articulate) in what that freedom means or in what way it should be exercised.
Nowhere in his opening essay does he provide a clear vision or even a justification for Grantland existence. His other statements on the matter have been less than gung-ho about the project.
Perhaps he didn't have to think about it, because for him, there's almost nothing riding on this. The investment is all ESPN's and the writers who left day jobs to come work for him. He says he wants to focus on quality over quantity, as if none of his bosses will be keeping track of pageviews. At least he'll have plenty of time to figure it out.
From what we gathered so far, he basically likes hanging out with his (occasionally) famous friends and talking about stuff. Good for him, but will there be enough people who wants to join in that conversation.
There's no comment section, by the way.
UPDATE: Grantland has added two more posts this afternoon. Even though Simmons says he doesn't want "one person to check ten times a day; I’d rather have 10 people check once."
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/magazine/can-bill-simmons-win-the-big-one.html?
"Simmons sounded as if he was having some regrets about Grantland. 'It hasn’t been as much as fun as I had thought,' he told me. 'I’m not sure I would do it again.' Too much of his time was being spent in the office, dealing with administrative tasks, which was encroaching on his column."
***
"As far as Simmons has come since he first started searching for an audience, he wants to go much further, to create something more enduring than his column or even his books. But the drudgery of running his own publication is already intruding on the utopian world he has built for himself. And he knows that the only thing preventing him from becoming another overexposed hack, an ex-sportswriter who now gets paid to blather on TV, is his column, which can take days to research and write. 'My biggest concern about the site is that I don’t want the column to just be one of the things I’m doing,' Simmons said. "
From: http://deadspin.com/5811438/
It's the Grantland Fallacy, encoded in the site's very name: People care about sports because sports is what sportswriters write about, because sportswriters are the most interesting people in the world. That's the premise. How does Chuck Klosterman feel about the way he watches sports on TV? When did Chris Jones lose his virginity? (No, seriously, when, again?) What are Bill Simmons's thoughts about what people might think about Bill Simmons writing about hockey? It's like someone replaced the clear glass in the press box with a one-way mirror, pointed inward. Watch the writers watch themselves.
From: http://bethlehemshoals.tumblr.com/post/6326454975/grantland-launched-and-as-a-prominent-member-of
I don’t get opening with Simmons, Klosterman, and Chris Jones. Actually, I do; it’s the site’s two biggest names, and probably the most high-profile contributor. To the extent that Grantland did make a bang, or a dent, today, it was with that star power. However, Simmons was adamant about hiring “unknowns” who would be turned loose to “do their thing” and rise to prominence under his watchful gaze. The preview pieces from Katie Baker and Molly Lambert fit that bill; that was the site’s opening salvo. And then today, just the good ol’ boys. I wonder if the ambivalent response to those first two offerings inspired a change of course … or if some suit at ESPN was sick of being told that indie cred is a brand-building virtue.
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