Lol conclude what you want. Doesn't change the fact that Lowe actually responded to my comment but the tumbleweeds started rolling when what I said was true. How do I know it was true? Because it was info David/Bimthug provided and yes I gave credit where credit was due.
Not hating on anything else you wrote and agree with most of it, but shouldn't a professional sports writer with a Rockets emphasis know how to spell Capela's name? Thought only Clutchfans and random fans would spell it wrong.
Oh, man, if it weren't for my MS Word auto-correct I'd spell half of this league's names incorrectly. I'm useless in any other forum. Sometimes I still call Nick Collison "Nate Collison," and he was drafted back 2003.
Bill Simmons according to sources told the writers that jumped ship with him that their employment had a condition; they couldn't tell ESPN that they were leaving to hit Grantland as hard as possible
Wouldn't surprise me if Zach Lowe becomes a full time scout or front office guy. Rockets ought to snap him up, I think he's too good of a basketball mind to be a writer.
Don't worry Kelly, just because people won't agree with your Simmons/Grantland take doesn't mean we don't respect you as a journalist. I still enjoy reading your material.
Checking in after a long drive home, apparently he (it's always a "he") can't be bothered to post under his sober real name and show himself and respond. Sad stuff. Usual boy things, I wish the whole of us would try harder. I've been a part of this community since Clyde's last ("heart attack") year and on the BBS since the lockout year in the fin de siecle. Too many great people whose names you may not recognize lost jobs on Friday. Do dig deeper to understand why.
The espn d bags hate on Houston mostly because of Dwight. Totally understandable. Dude needs to stay healthy all the time to do any damage or growth.
Just wanted to say thanks to KD for continuing to make Clutchfans a regular stop despite the trolling. This is the internet, which I believe you have heard of, so our drunken trolling is still internetty. Still, Simmons's righteousness against Goodell was justified. It's not just that Goodell is a jerk. Some of the stuff he has overseen is borderline criminal. Ray Rice and Deflategate are small beans. Look at his handling of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. My sympathies go out to your friends who have lost their jobs. It's nice to think Simmons could have saved them if he had done things in a savvier way ... A very big IF in your challenging profession. Nevertheless, playing nice with Goodell is not what he should have done.
Why couldn't ESPN sell the website? It's a piece of valuable media property that someone would have paid something for.. Even just consider the amount of talent and the brand equity, why wouldn't HBO, Yahoo, Fox or AOL take a bite?
Many, many assets that don't make money get sold, especially in tech and media. Think about the Washington Post, Businessweek, Wall Street Journal... The name goes on and on. You would think Grantland for its brand equity and talent alone would garner some offers.
The only company that would want to buy it, would be HBO and then conflict of interest would rear its head (that the CEO of ESPN maybe wouldn't want to explain to the Disney board how they sacked Simmons, then sold it to someone who put Simmons back in charge, then it made money)
Completely agree with everything you wrote x1000. I disagree with everything "dharocks" wrote except the part in bold.
First of all, you are making an assumption that HBO is the only party that wants to buy it. I don't know if that's true. Acquihire happens all the time for media and tech companies. Moreover, Grantland has millions of visitors to its site. That's not a useless property. Two, even if it's true, then ESPN would be making a purely emotional decision. I am not underplaying the factor emotions play in business, but it doesn't make any sense if that's the only factor. Selling Grantland for, say, $20M would look a lot better on the balance sheet than simply writing it off. The CEO of ESPN would have to explain to Bob Iger (Disney CEO) why he shut down a liquidable asset and took tons of PR heat for it. When you can sell something rather than killing it, you almost always do it. There has to be some other reason here.
It's Simmons baby with his brand and odor all over it. I'm betting the personal vignettes and quirky writer tangents were promoted by Simons or his editors to make the good sports analysis more memorable to the avg reader. As Simmons will reboot in some time, there's an expiration date on the market (a money losing one) grantland corners now. The uncertainty with gland now plus the direct and indirect warring between Simmons and ESPN makes selling it off near impossible. Logistics and credibility alone makes discounting it a bad idea. ESPN can afford the 30-50 million write off its likely worth.
Grantland didn't make money because it wasn't really commercialized all that much. I actually think a great model for Grantland would have been to go to a subscription model if it was spun off. It essentially is a high quality magazine. I'm sure they could have ended up with several hundred thousand subscribers, more than enough to make it profitable.
