EZRA KLEIN v MATT YGLESIAS

espn couldve let simmons go, wouldntve been a big deal for them in the end, and grantland would probably not exist, certainly not in its present form. but espn also has soooo much more money than the post or the times or wsj that i think their calculations are pretty different

sure they couldve let him go but instead they kept him and it was a win win cause of synergies and shit

lol i mean... was it tho?

just from a bottom-line perspective i think its about even. maybe espn loves having the Cool Brand of grantland but they dont need bill simmons for that shit, they just need to hire better editors and writers for their website and magazine

simmons is as important to ESPN as any 1 person could be but grantland definitely seems like something espn loses money on just to keep him around to do other stuff

good for us though

lol i mean... was it tho?

― max, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 12:14 PM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

obvs we have no way of knowing but they def seem interested in doing more of the same type things

simmons is def a big thing for espn, their web traffic would take a huge hit if he dipped & '30 for 30' is a big thing

simmons is huge max r u living under a rock bro

yeah and the times traffic takes a big hit w/ silver gone. its not that espn would keep chugging along but that in the long term its not a big deal. there is always newer, cheaper talent

yeah simmons is prob the most popular writer on the nets, as to whether his deal w espn is working financially for them i dont know, their willingness to roll up nate silver points to yes tho

and like, simmons is WAY bigger than klein, and also WAY more important to espn's brand than klein is to wapo's

grantland itself idk it's just a website, how much money does it take to run a website? espn has enough money anyway tho you're otm about that i think

xp thats fair, idk. i think if the nyt had espn-level dough they wouldve kept silver... its kinda apples to oranges comparing a multiplatform sports brand to a newspaper

i mean grantland is pennies to espn im sure but have you seen their masthead, they have like 20 people working for that shit, and im sure their traffic is shit

the formula might be more like its not really worth paying for brand writers unless you can leverage that brand, like now all that newer cheaper talent has been infused w the sweet simmons bro-juice, i just wish they wouldnt let him on tv during basketball broadcasts

and im sure their traffic is shit

― max, Wednesday, January 22, 2014 12:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

idk man i think theyre doin pretty good, at least the sports stuff, the more pop culture things i could see absolutely no one reading

stuff that gets the espn homepage pipeline probably does pretty well yeah

~synergies~

i enjoy simmons on basketball broadcasts

omg that is so terrible, u need to go on a visionquest

the whole new yorker has always been a big red line for conde nast, afaik

i think it's just an ancient thing that owners run prestige media for their own nefarious cultural capital reasons

what kind of cool ski resort ideas summit hookup parties do the people at tv guide throw, i ask u

nyer is profitable or very nearly so over the last decade, im pretty sure! not that i dont see your point

oh huh i seem to recall a profile of remnick that said the opposite.

...that could just be that remnick himself is clueless about the NYer's numbers

i mean, i dont think si newhouse is expecting it to make money, ever

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2014/01/ezra-klein-next-roger-ailes

this is a nothing of a post so i think KD just wanted to air out that title

The only thing on Grantland I read regularly is Mark Harris on the Oscars, but I've occasionally followed links there and think, "I should read Grantland more often."

they have really good basketball stuff m/l all i read there

yeah simmons, lowe, keri is all i read there

grantland nba shootarounds are frequently awesome

eh i find those corny tbh

it's kind of weird how they got like all of knicks twitter to be contributors even though none of them really has anything to say

i hope ezra klein's new website is 100% devoted to nba basketball.

there's a guy who does longer bball features (not zane lowe type analysis) that's pretty great. i read all the nerds he brought in - barnwell, lowe, keri. the only pop cult guy i really like is wesley morris; steve hyden is fucking awful and the rest just kinda seems like warmed over vulture (by design obv)(one reason i always kinda blanche at boutique/prestige talk around grantland). love love love rembert browne. the fallout from their fuckup this past week has been interesting cuz i've always been curious at just how hands on simmons is at this point. then something like an oral history of swingers goes up...

probably most entertaining grantland thing this week was finding out that nate silver has hired a weather nerd.

what does rembert browne do, middlebrow cultural criticism? i've never read him

would've preferred "Nate Silver has hired a boyfriend"

rem does rap, race, reality tv... pop cult, i guess. great, great writer, smart kid

it's generally gawker/vulture kinda stuff though less 'here's some shit i found on the internet' than that. occasionally he does a 'but seriously folx' thing like this - http://grantland.com/the-triangle/stanford-man-richard-sherman-and-the-thug-athlete-narrative/. i'm an old man and when i find a millenial internet writer whose voice i not only find tolerable but charming (maybe entertaining is a better word there but somehow not specific enough - there's tons of interent things i find intolerable yet entertaining)(www.ilxor.com) i take what i can get. i mean i don't think caity weaver should get a pulitzer prize but when i see that byline i go 'this should be good', there's added value there beyond just the 'well here's a story i'm gonna read eventually cuz every internet outlet is gonna write their version so i might as well read this one' (which reminds me i've been meaning to start a thread about the homogenization of the internet but have never bothered enough to investigate how much my hunch there is accurate)(i mean seriously why did thinkprogress do golden globes red carpet coverage?)

i've been meaning to start a thread about the homogenization of the internet but have never bothered enough to investigate how much my hunch there is accurate

been feeling this real bad lately, like whatever happened to being able to -find- something, something fresh to you. instead the internet is like this ever-constricting circle of empty attempts to up the urgency on anything fool enough to poke its head up and become 'news'

rip geocities

yeah it's tough for me to know how real it is or if it's just i've liked/followed too many fluffy sites. i strongly suspect it's largely the latter but man i've followed junkfood internet sites for awhile and it didn't used to seem like this. i think the way upworthy has nearly destroyed the likelihood of seeing a non-obnoxious headline this decade is a factor also. i mean ppl hate buzzfeed and god knows there's evil lurking there (perpetua) and there are things there that horrify me personally (look i know the numbers and i get the demographics to understand why the entire 90s has been reduced 'man remember tgif on abc' but it still hurts *goes off to give new malkmus album another chance*), but there's a few 'good' things and they save me time finding youtube clips of dogs so i bear no ill will toward them really but upworthy man. a fucking cancer. lately it reminds me of how cable used to be really diverse and the channels had a purpose (the 'a' and 'e' in a&e meant something man) and then everybody figured out their lives would be so much easier if they just showed friends reruns.

btw global warming will likely devastate our way of life within our lifetimes

good tv shows today are way better than good 90s tv shows

no show is better than homicide

yeah i think the golden age etc is over or close enough (still rep for mad men what can i say) but agree that the yr average 'good, not great' tv show now (justified, game of thrones, whatever) is way better yr average 'good, not great' from the 90s.

it's a brand new era but it came too late

tv inequality is like income inequality, the average tv show has suffered and its quality of tv-life continues to decrease, but the top 1% of tv shows are living the good life

lol