Richard Deitsch · @richarddeitsch
24th Nov 2015 from TwitLonger
On Grantland and Goodbyes.
I watched the Irish wake held for Grantland in Manhattan last night. It was a warm affair, with 20 or so Grantland staffers reading the site's work and taking questions from the audience at Le Poisson Rouge, which for non-New Yorkers is a bar/music venue on Bleeker Street in the Village. The livestream of the event averaged around 700 people or so and Michael Gluckstadt, who ran the event for Gelf Magazine, said they had about 400 people on site. That's a remarkable number of people connecting to a website that no longer exists — and connecting on a Monday night. Along with never fully understanding the loyalty of the staff to Bill Simmons -- and the distrust L.A. Grantland staffers had of Bristol -- I think ESPN management always undersold the connection a core group of 20-somethings (readers and viewers you need for the longterm) had for Simmonsville.
The night celebrated the work and the staff, and as most of these things go, the people on stage celebrated each other. It reminded me of hanging out with my SI colleagues as an Olympics came to a close. You are in a foreign city, long from home and family, you're exhausted after working 19-hour days for three weeks, and if you like each other, you end up drinking a lot, and the love and laughter starts flowing like Steph Curry on the break. Of course we still had gigs to go back to after the Olympics. ESPN management decided that Grantland would be no more. It lost some of its soul with that decision; it gained dollars to bid on the Big Ten and re-up Skip Bayless next August. And so it goes.
One of the speakers, Zach Lowe, told the story of how he was assigned by Sports Illustrated to cover everything happening at an All-Star Game a couple of years ago, and at one frantic point, he was interviewing a participant in the 3-point shooting contest while stressing about missing the dunk contest going on that he was supposed to write about it. At that point, he decided to heed the words of his very smart wife and take a damn chance on a new site that he was being asked to write for by Simmons. Lowe has since morphed into a major NBA voice and I’m left to wonder why on earth we didn't send someone else to cover those events and let Zach Lowe be Zach Lowe.
There were many other talented voices on the stage, from Brian Phillips to Rafe Bartholomew to Juliet Littman Jordan Ritter Conn to Wesley Morris. Rembert Browne told a story about attending parties at Simmons "mansion" where he chatted up Jimmy Kimmel about Prince. There was a lot of talk about Roger Federer and deviled eggs. Andy Greenwald did live TV reviews. Jason Concepcion said he was hired by Grantland because of a tweet involving masturbation and an NBA executive enjoying an offensive explosion from his top player (It was a very funny tweet.) The night was at times self-indulgent and self-important (which is what media people do when they get together including yours truly) but mostly it was an opportunity for a live audience to thank Grantland staffers and for Grantland staffers to thank its readers. When you write for a living, you always want to know that someone – anyone – is out there connecting with your work. It was nice to see Grantland staffers get that last night.