Fuck Grantland.

So if you don't know what "Grantland" is - LUCKY YOU - and you should probably stop reading, now, before I ruin your day. But first, let's back up with a little history lesson. Seriously, stop reading if you don't want your brain to melt. So there was once a little boy named "Bill", "Bill Simmons" to be exact, who ran a little sports-based website and referred to himself as "The Sports Guy". Well, being moderately clever, a devoted sports fan, moderately knowledgeable about sports, and dedicated/innovative enough to sports writing, his little website wound up getting him hired by the "Worldwide Leader" in sports, ESPN.com. This is where the story changes. Bill Simmons is the "2 and a Half Men" of sportswriters who has confused his popularity with quality and mistaken pageviews for a demand for MORE OF THE SAME. Much in the same way that CBS shows get high ratings because people are lazy and just come home from work and turn on shows with laugh tracks because they don't require "interpretation", "participation" or "analysis" (it's much easier to just go along with "dialogue, dialogue, joke, laugh, dialogue, joke, joke, LAUGH" than it is to have to understand nuance or reference), people read whatever is talking about boobs and cracking wise on ESPN.com because it's an innocuous and universally accepted website. It's safe, it's inoffensive, it's easy. OF COURSE Bill Simmons blew up.. he was on ESPN.com, prolific, moderately clever, knowledgeable and clearly passionate. That's Simmons' one undoubtedly valuable contribution to sportswriting and the internet, he brought a fan's passion and perspective to a genre (sportswriting) that was becoming dominated by sappy twits more concerned with playing up their insider status than entertaining or even informing their audiences. That's the true hallmark of the internet/social media age, the narcissistic individual being elevated to the role of arbiter. Judge, jury and executioner all in one dose. While a personalized narrative/commentary is much less informative than what we would call traditional journalism, it's a take. It's a point of view that can be actively agreed with or violently disagreed with, and either way it's more involved and fun to read than a simple passive reporting of events.

So Simmons blew up due to largely anticipating the entire blog movement. His easy to read word vomit made nonsensical pop-culture references, seems risque if you only read mainstream websites, seems intelligent if you only read mainstream sports reporting and substituted personal experience and opinion for anything quantifiable. His high point at ESPN was his involvement in the "30 for 30" series of documentaries, which brought in talented filmmakers to tell sports-related stories from the last 30 years in celebration of ESPN's 30 years of existence. Simmons served as Executive Producer of the 30 for 30 series and according to those in the know, was one of the main forces behind their production. In light of this and Simmons' clearly wanting more than simply his column on ESPN.com, ESPN agreed to bankroll a new site, "Grantland", of which Simmons would serve as Editor-in-Chief and which promised to be a "Sports and Culture" website, promising to bring in talented and original writers to write on pop culture, sports, and the intersection thereof.

I was cautiously excited for "Grantland", in light of "30 for 30", I (mistakenly) believed that Simmons wanted to build something high-brow, that would use the considerable resources at his disposal to raise the bar for sportswriting on the internet. Instead, Simmons, like the lazy, self-absorbed asshole he is, turned the entire website into one big Simmons column, only one where they can throw in "fuck" to come off as "edgy". For every well-written, thoughtful analysis (see: Barnwell, Bill), there is a post about "The Bachelor" or one where Simmons attempts to name who "movie stars" are based on... ? The whole thing is disappointing and a little embarrassing, frankly. The world doesn't need another blog for people who are too lazy to seek out KissingSuzyKolber, Deadspin or bloggers who actually take risks. With Simmons' clout and ESPN's resources, Grantland could have been (and IS, all too rarely) a place where thoughtful sports and pop-culture discourse took place. Much like 30 for 30, it could have been the best parts of new-style sportswriting, with some pop culture thrown in. Instead, it's a mess.. like Simmons' worst, egocentric instincts, it's completely scatterbrained. Does it want to be the AV Club, Videogum, ESPN.com, TMZ, or the Classical? Mixed in with say, Bill Barnwell's thoughtful and informative NFL columns are "Souper Bowl" brackets, idiotic and contrived "Reality TV Fantasy" Leagues, youtube "commentary" and the kind of lazy, less amusing nonsense that is literally EVERYWHERE on the internet today. It's simply not able to be all of those things. So shame on you, Simmons, for squandering what was an opportunity to build something truly unique and important to build something derivative, lazy, half-assed and often downright sloppy. This isn't a college kid's blog. It's something with the financial backing of ESPN led by someone who should know better.

So, in short, fuck Grantland. Not because of what it is, even though that's bad enough, but because of what it could have, and maybe should have been. You could have been the best of us, Bill, instead, you took your worst star fucking instincts and built a temple of slop. Kudos.