Relevant because I really enjoyed its NBA coverage, particularly from Zach Lowe. I hope he surfaces somewhere else soon.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2015/10/30/espn-shuts-down-grantland-effective-immediately/

Hopefully all the good writers follow Simmons to HBO.

Zach Lowe was the main reason to go there.

Too bad to see, but not too surprising.

I'm sure every sports site out their is reaching out to Zach Lowe, Jonah Keri, etc. Hopefully ESPN doesn't have some contact holding them down.

Unless ESPN still has Lowe under contract, I wouldn't be surprised to see him end up at Yahoo.

"All Grantland writers will have their contracts honored. The intent is to use the sportswriters on other ESPN platforms."

https://twitter.com/espnmikes/status/660159223230263296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

As someone who read Grantland daily, I'm extremely disappointed in ESPN. Many people felt Grantland was its' best platform and now they are breaking up a great group of creative writers and reassigning them. The fact that it was a "business decision", tells you they decided to shut them down but to continue to give resources to FiveThirtyEight and The Undefeated, further proving that ESPN is caring more and more about societal issues than in-depth analysis of sports.

It is interesting they are keeping black grantland while killing grantland.

I really liked their long form narratives, Zach Lowe and Kirk Goldsberry. Their nba preview this year was quite lacking.

Loved Grantland. Damn near everything I'm interested in, they write/wrote about. Zach Lowe is the best basketball writer on the planet and it's not even close. Disappointing, but it was a matter of time. Great run.

Jason Whitlock had an interesting piece on the Mizzou Poop Swastika/FB situation (which is here), but he also has an article on the death of Grantland.

I always find it interesting to read the responses to Whitlock's work.



Short version:
Poop Swastika: "Columbia ain't our problem. Chicago is."
Grantland piece: Great writing, but it didn't make money