Sports On Earth goes live

The name is an umlaut away from being the spiritual equivalent of a silly metal band name. And the black flag and he'd font smacks of a 1980s weekly. And Posnanski's piece as the site's launching point doesn't say" designed with the Internet reader in mind"

 

I'm just glad it brought Chuck Culpepper back stateside.

 

Hater.

 

Grantland's biggest advantage, other than Simmons simply writing the same stuff he always did for a new landing page, is that it's able to hire so many different writers, novelists, poets, gadflys and critics, that some of them are bound to hit. Weinreb had another this week, I noticed.

Sports On Earth will have to be consistently strong in a crowded market. There is a lot of sheer sportswriting talent there. Hopefully, they find roles, stick to them to fiercely, and go after it.

Posnanski on baseball is a good place to start. Set the Paterno stuff aside or don't set it aside, on that sport, he's a destination.

I'll be curious to see how it plays on the NFL and CFB. That's a crowded market.

 

It's interesting, I get the impression that both Grantland and SoE are trying to become something like an Atlantic of Sports.

 

Don't forget, though, he's also the editor-in-chief. He's getting all those 'gadfly' types. His presence can't be understated. You can hire a witty writer, but you can't go out and get another one of him.

It's tough.

 

On the Net, a cult of personality goes a long way, as Simmons shows. I'm not sure what well-regarded, non-Net-snarkmeister writer could be the COP for something like SOE. Maybe Pierce?

 

Non-Net, snarkmeister, loves to insult other cities?

Simers.

But I would be surprised if SOE goes for anything like that. They may well play it straight, without attempting to be "edgy" and such.

 

I was going to make a snarky post suggesting the entire audience for Sports on Earth consists of sportswriters who boast that they've never read this Simmons fellow.

Then I saw that SoE put my Ducks number one in its preseason ranking, and predicted they'll win the national championship.

So, I'll amend my snark to say... SoE is brilliant, and will revolutionize online sports journalism.

 

You misunderstood me, Norrin. I wasn't wanting a snarkmeister, at least not one whose bones were made primarily on the Web.

 

... Who Simmons currently has writing for Grantland.

 

Better still; Pierce probably has some idea of the workings of Grantland and can apply stuff from that if someone would give him free rein and enough of a budget to get good writers. There are some people who wouldn't read that site because of Pierce's politics, but I guarantee it would be a lively site.