Looks like the Grantland website is toast...

[WVUCOOPER]

Not sure it stood a chance anyway, but Chris Connelly?? That guy was a creepy old douche @ MTV when I was in college. Good grief.

In the five short months since ESPN president John Skipper bounced Grantland founder and boss Bill Simmons out of ESPN, many on the Grantland staff have experienced five long months of chaos and aftershock. Last week saw the exodus of five key Grantland editorial figures, and that followed the departure in September of Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Wesley Morris, who just last year, turned down a job offer from The New York Times to continue working at Simmons’s side. Morris is now critic at large at The New York Times.

If that wasn’t enough, multiple sources have confirmed that one of the staffers who left, deputy editor Sean Fennessey, was offered Simmons’s old job as Grantland’s editor in chief, the post currently held by Chris Connelly. Fennessey turned ESPN down, deciding instead to join Simmons in a new digital venture, along with other ex-Grantlanders Juliet Litman, Mallory Rubin, and Chris Ryan.

For an ESPN management team that has been struggling to find the right moves in the aftermath of the Simmons explosion, Fennessy’s “thanks but no thanks” has to be a frustrating, and arguably humiliating, rejection. Despite declarations of support from Bristol Central, it leaves Grantland facing more uncertainty than ever.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/espn-grantland-problem

 

[RichardPeterJohnson]

Not sure it stood a chance anyway, but Chris Connelly?? That guy was a creepy old douche @ MTV when I was in college. Good grief.

In the five short months since ESPN president John Skipper bounced Grantland founder and boss Bill Simmons out of ESPN, many on the Grantland staff have experienced five long months of chaos and aftershock. Last week saw the exodus of five key Grantland editorial figures, and that followed the departure in September of Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Wesley Morris, who just last year, turned down a job offer from The New York Times to continue working at Simmons’s side. Morris is now critic at large at The New York Times.

If that wasn’t enough, multiple sources have confirmed that one of the staffers who left, deputy editor Sean Fennessey, was offered Simmons’s old job as Grantland’s editor in chief, the post currently held by Chris Connelly. Fennessey turned ESPN down, deciding instead to join Simmons in a new digital venture, along with other ex-Grantlanders Juliet Litman, Mallory Rubin, and Chris Ryan.

For an ESPN management team that has been struggling to find the right moves in the aftermath of the Simmons explosion, Fennessy’s “thanks but no thanks” has to be a frustrating, and arguably humiliating, rejection. Despite declarations of support from Bristol Central, it leaves Grantland facing more uncertainty than ever.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/10/espn-grantland-problem

I hate to hear that. I know Holly Anderson who's one of their writers. Good girl and good family. She'll land on her feet nicely, I'm sure with her impressive resume. Her dad is from WV and Holly has covered many WVU games.

 

[COOL MAN]

I read the other day that Simmons is currently aligned with.....or perhaps working outright for.....HBO and is in the process of developing an entire new platform there.

Speaking of Simmons, I myself never had a good feeling as to his true status over time at the WWL. While I admit I may not be literate on his tenure immediately after commencing the Grantland project, I certainly got the impression.....if perhaps inaccurately.....that he became viewed as a monstrous loose cannon by the suits, and anything but a team player by Bristol over the past year or so. I also get the impression he's extremely full of himself; perhaps justified based on his history and previous success, but arguably making ESPN......always loaded with full-of-themselves on-air talent.....the ideal spot for someone like him.

Meanwhile, and this has nothing to do with Simmons, but arguably the single biggest ESPN-related belly laugh I've gotten this entire year thus far was reading thefinal accounts of the disastrous Jason Whitlock "Undefeated" abortion. Talk about someone overplaying his big fat hand.....

 

[JLW71073]

Speaking of ESPN, I heard this morning on the way in to work that the network is laying off approximately 350 people due to declining viewership and some other reasons as well.