The DRASTIC underestimation of the Grantland brand and feeding the so called “false narratives.”
There is no polite way to say it, but Skipper and ESPN look incredibly obtuse here. Grantland had a sizable audience with a lot of brand loyalty. It wasn’t like Sporting News’s The Sporting Blog or AOL’s Fanhouse where the audience and brand affinity wasn’t there and the audience was nominal or dependent on certain traffic sources.
Grantland was many people’s favorite site and sure, we’d love to discount that audience to a certain type, but that’s just too convenient. I found myself absolutely floored by the spectrum of people livid at ESPN for this decision. I even saw some people go unhinged on Facebook on walls of ESPN employees who were not even remotely involved in the decision.
Pulling the plug on Grantland was a powder keg of negative PR and lasting negative brand sentiment for ESPN. This decision equated to thinking it was a good idea to knock over a hornet’s nest. The worst part is it plays EXACTLY into the “false narratives” John Skipper complained about recently.
Bill Simmons has probably the largest tribe of passionate fans and loyal employees as any sports media personality. He was embraced (rightly or wrongly), as this influence of change and good at ESPN. The true reality of the motivation of the parting of ways is murky, although probably equal in terms of blame in the circumstances that led to the split. It’s not a stretch to imagine Simmons was difficult to work with, not beloved in Bristol, over-enabled, and authoritative in his demands and opinions.
But Grantland remained under ESPN’s umbrella and those in Simmons’ tribe, already irked by his ouster, could look at ESPN and see hope for the future. Multiple times Skipper and others reassured Grantland would continue. Contracts were extended and behind the scenes ESPN PR was pushing a narrative that traffic had not fallen off since Simmons’ departure.
ESPN was doing everything publicly and privately to send the message that they were committed to Grantland. Mere weeks later, the site is no more.
ESPN was doing the noble thing and the smart thing in not playing into the notion that Simmons is the only person capable of leading an effort to be ambitious and unique in appealing to a different and growing subset of fans who feel disenfranchised by what ESPN has become.
Yes, Simmons was undermining the site and there was a talent drain (we’ll get to that), but ESPN waving the white flag after having done essentially jack-shit to stop the bleeding only confirms the assumption that ESPN is a stodgy borg-like corporate giant unable to appeal to this segment of sports fans without much prodding and handholding from someone like Simmons. By making this move, you’ve confirmed the “false narrative” you’re out there complaining about in that you’re not dependent on high priced talent to make a deeper connection with sports fans.
It’s very disappointing to see ESPN give up on something with so much brand value and essentially become an evil corporate caricature rather than rolling up the sleeves and challenging themselves to turn the situation around. Stuff like this makes it so easy for a generation of like-minded sports fans to say “Fuck ESPN!” and in this case, I don’t blame them. Grantland was many people’s favorite site and THE site so many young writers aspired to write on.
Somehow, none of this seemed to register to decision makers at ESPN.
So it’s about the money yet The Undefeated and 538 have ESPN’s support?
538 allegedly loses money, but I get it. Nate Silver has a contract and it’s an election year. All good.
But what you’ll hear from many industry folks both inside and outside of Bristol is that John Skipper’s mission in launching The Undefeated is (up until this shitshow) his biggest mistake.
What started out as a hybrid attempt to A) disrupt FS1’s momentum at launch (Whitlock was working on TV concepts for the network) and B) back the noble cause of hiring minority sportswriters to have a site focused on a different perspective looking at sports, entertainment, as well as political and socioeconomic issues facing minorities, has eroded into one of the biggest ongoing train-wrecks in recent memory at ESPN.
The idea was flawed chiefly because the idea of putting Whitlock in charge of anything is terribly ill-advised and was worse, incredibly obvious for anyone who had any experience dealing with him.
This site concept has merit, but at another company and obviously not with Jason Whitlock steering the ship. Former ombudsman (another topic I’ll hit on….yes I’m not done venting), Robert Lipsyte in his piece bemoaning Grantland’s demise touched on its struggles:
“An attempt to launch a Grantland-style site devoted to African-American sports issues has been mired in what seems like bad faith and subversive mismanagement.”
Lipsyte also touches on the fact that a lot of the feedback he got from ESPN viewers came from a conservative audience who often became angered to coverage of high profile moments like Michael Sam’s kiss and Caitlyn Jenner’s ESPY award. It’s hard to see how ESPN and Disney could successfully launch a content brand looking to sink it’s teeth into complicated and politically charged issues and not disenfranchise a large audience segment that Lipsyte indentifies as “the regular ESPN regular audience”.
And yet with two years plus of flailing around with Whitlock (even as potentially going as far to trade some positive press for Whitlock for the Simmons departure scoop as Tommy Craggs insinuates below), Skipper is still pushing The Undefeated to launch despite the inability to predict what kind of success it may or may not have.
https://twitter.com/tcraggs22/status/650784162819870720?lang=en
Many believe The Undefeated will face the same issues Grantland did – infrequent content from high priced contributors and a niche audience.
I get the strong vibe having discussed this with many that even the intended audience for the site has no appetite for the brand given what’s transpired to date and that sentiment is only compounded by Grantland’s shuttering.
If it’s all about the bottom line, how can Skipper be fine spending money on a venture with essentially no path to success rather than support a venture which has achieved significant scale, praise, and inhabits a much larger content niche and audience segment. Is it because The Undefeated is his idea and not Simmons’ idea? How Disney’s board doesn’t feel the need to convey the realities of the situation to Skipper is beyond me.
A company frozen in indecisiveness?
A common pattern emerges the more you look at ESPN. Time and time again they have a way of letting turmoil fester to a point where it’s too big of a clusterfuck for them to figure it out.
We’re nearly a year into not having an ombudsman to help provide insight into the many controversies ESPN finds itself in (this vacant position comes at conveniently good time for Bristol to avoid scrutiny)
– Curt Schilling has made it clear he isn’t going to tone down his social media drivel. He’s got a year left on his contract and yet ESPN will likely just employ their normal tactic of doing nothing and hoping for the best when it’s probably going to spiral out of control into a larger story.
– The Undefeated remains unlaunched after way too long drinking the Kool-Aid that Whitlock would deliver the cohesiveness to launch that site. Not once did ESPN mention Deadspin’s reporting of the behind the scenes acrimony hindering the site’s progress to launch in their assessment in the situation nor did Lipsyte mention it in his article on ESPN’s affinity sites. We’ve been told ESPN people will not utter the site’s name acknowledging the source of the controversy in behind the scenes discussions.
– Currently the status of the Sacramento Kings 30 for 30 is unknown to the ire of many. Most believe it will never be aired but we’ll most likely see ESPN drag this one out with no decisiveness before another late Friday news dump announcing it won’t air.
– ESPN never filled the editor in chief role at Grantland when Simmons left beyond an interim basis with Chris Connelly. They never elevated core staffers to leadership positions, signaling a continued interest in the site while building trust with old guard of Simmons loyalists. Key writers and editors left along the way. ESPN never made a substantive move in any direction and in the rare case ESPN does seem to have an impulse to implement changes, the company comes off as an aircraft carrier at sea trying to make a three point turn to go in a different direction.
ESPN had no gameplan to start with.
Compounding astonishment on the handling of all of this is the fact that ESPN opted into this situation by moving on from Simmons and did so on THEIR schedule. Who knows what the working relationship was like with Simmons and Skipper and others at ESPN, as well as what backchannel discussions were going on with his agent, but it was ESPN who imploded the relationship by communicating their decision to the New York Times and allegedly with no notice to Simmons.
How can that decision be justified if true? The best effort should have been made to smooth over the exit process and more importantly, figure out a transition/operating plan for Grantland that included winning over the staff, conveying the business reality of the site, and involving the staff in making the changes to make the site viable long term.
It’s as if Skipper awoke one day with no foresight on how any of this would play out. Even if he thinks ESPN is better off without Simmons and Grantland, how can he justify extensive collateral brand damage ESPN has taken here? I’m sure they’ll spin that “Grantland isn’t really dead” and they’ll absorb a lot of those writers into ESPN.com, but the writing is on the wall that they’re incrementally moving on and unwinding the business. Slowly but surely as more and more writers move on and bemoan what has transpired, ESPN will continue to feel the incremental doses of disdain from the mishandling of Grantland’s closure and it will impact the bottom line.
Going Forward.
Grantland was the home of some of my favourite writers. No disrespect to other ESPNers, but Grantland gave that place more of a soul.
— Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) October 30, 2015
There has been a tremendous outpouring of sympathy to the talented folks at Grantland. Part of me thinks it’s odd given “contracts are being honored” and many less cool/sexy publications lay off writers all of the time with little fanfare. I strongly suspect some buyouts will be coming for many. If ESPN truly is getting out the pop culture business, a lot of these voices just won’t fit in anywhere at ESPN.com.
Also, if ESPN is getting out of the pop culture business, I eagerly await celebrities with no interest in sports no longer doing appearances on SportsCenter promoting crappy movies and entire series devoted to Snoop Dog’s son’s decision on where to play college football (spoiler alert: he picks a school and decides he doesn’t want to play so it’s a waste of time for viewers but a great advertisement for Snoop and his family).
I imagine a lot of these folks will have great opportunities in front of them, especially with the affiliation of Grantland on their resume. Simmons will likely reunite down the road with many of them and go on to great success under a new banner where they’ll likely get the last laugh.
My relationship and consumption with ESPN won’t change. I’ll watch the same stuff, read the same stuff, and so on. But while my relationship won’t change much, my opinion has. I’ll never understand this decision. I’ve lost faith in ESPN’s leadership to navigate the turbulent waters they’re entering with the company facing its biggest financial and structural crossroads in years. I don’t and won’t know the particular affliction of culture, competence, politics, and effort that led to this outcome but I now know it exists and I worry what else it will impact.
Bill Simmons and ESPN did many great things together. They needed each other to do so. With Simmons gone, one wonders if ESPN will ever find the internal drive, ambition, and taste to ever do something as innovative and cool as Grantland or 3o for 30 again. Retracing current events it’s hard to believe ESPN will ever re-capture this audience. If you work at ESPN or Disney, that should be incredibly troubling and raise the fundamental question – how could you let this happen?