Sports on Earth writers and editors laid off

[Boom_70]

I hope that Starbucks gives MMQB a small stipend for all the publicity
that King gives them.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I think the staff is just King, Bedard, Vrentas and Klemko. I'm don't think anyone else writes only for the site unless it's on a freelance basis.

I'm not sure if Bedard, Vrentas or Klemko write regularly for the magazine. I think Bedard has had a couple things in the magazine, but I don't read it as often as I used to.

Is Benoit still writing for them? Maybe unrelated to the exact question at hand, just curious.

But yeah that's still a small core contingent, and I still don't know that Klemko is a major name - not a knock on him or his ability, just still relatively new to the scene - so I expect that operation is fairly cost-efficient. Probably pays for itself with the actual MMQB column itself. Anything else is just icing on top.

Good for them, now that I think about it. That's the way to do it.

He does, but he's not listed on the side the way the other four are. I know Staples writes regularly for the site, but he's not on their staff either.

I would love to compare clicks and payroll of MMQB to Grantland.

I love both sites, but I typically spend more time on MMQB than I do on Grantland.

 

[silent_h]

All,

Very interesting thread. Both on SoE and the economics and state of our profession in general. Thanks for the kind personal words, and thanks for reading and caring about SoE. I can't offer any meaningful information or insight regarding the site's inner workings or top-level corporate management/politics, but I can say that content and audience-building-wise, the challenges facing SoE were remarkably similar to the ones facing the business as a whole. It seems like many of you recognize that.

Anyway, carry on.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

What lasted longer, SOE or FanHouse?

 

[Dick Whitman]

I think that there will still be sports writing in 5, 10, or 20 years, even deeply reported, longer pieces, and incisive analysis.

I suspect, however, that paid work will mostly be handled by an army of talented freelance hobbyists, rather than full-time employees at sites like Grantland, SOE, SB Nation, etc., etc.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I'm just wondering what happens to Grantland when these writers age and/or mature.
Is there a new harvest of people committed to writing about esoterica and cultural flotsam?
It's like the guy in The Wedding Singer who correctly notes that nobody wants to watch a 50-year-old guy hitting on chicks.

 

[Steak Snabler]

I'm just wondering what happens to Grantland when these writers age and/or mature.
Is there a new harvest of people committed to writing about esoterica?
It's like the guy in The Wedding Singer who correctly notes that nobody wants to watch a 50-year-old guy hitting on chicks.

Yeah, they'll hire a new crop. I've made the argument before that Bill Barnwell moved to Vegas that first year essentially because Simmons wanted to live vicariously through a younger guy who didn't have a wife and kids to keep him from doing the same.

 

[GAPrintDino]

I think that there will still be sports writing in 5, 10, or 20 years, even deeply reported, longer pieces, and incisive analysis.

I suspect, however, that paid work will mostly be handled by an army of talented freelance hobbyists, rather than full-time employees at sites like Grantland, SOE, SB Nation, etc., etc.

I don't think SB Nation deals primarily with full-timers, at least for their longform work. Can almost guarantee that is all freelanced worked. Really good freelance work, granted.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I'm just wondering what happens to Grantland when these writers age and/or mature.
Is there a new harvest of people committed to writing about esoterica and cultural flotsam?

A new harvest of 20-somethings committed to channeling their inner-Chuck Klosterman?

Yeah. I think there'll be no shortage.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

I assume Grantland and MMQB have access to ESPN and SI's design folks, servers and tech folks for things like posting flow, coding and troubleshooting. That infrastructure isn't the obstacle it once was but I don't think it should be ignored either. It has to help, especially in terms of profitability, cutting down on overhead costs that can be folded into the parent site.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I'm just wondering what happens to Grantland when these writers age and/or mature.
Is there a new harvest of people committed to writing about esoterica and cultural flotsam?

A new harvest of 20-somethings committed to channeling their inner-Chuck Klosterman?

Yeah. I think there'll be no shortage.

I don't know why that would be assumed when recent events have suggested the market won't support this type of journalism.
The future is all about the mobile device.
Not part of it, not some of it.
Klostermann's viscous goo is not so easily consumable in the format.

 

[Walter Lippmann]

What will be the ratio of profit NFL Now will earn compared to SOE or Grantland?

 

[GAPrintDino]

I'm just wondering what happens to Grantland when these writers age and/or mature.
Is there a new harvest of people committed to writing about esoterica and cultural flotsam?

This is correct.

A new harvest of 20-somethings committed to channeling their inner-Chuck Klosterman?

Yeah. I think there'll be no shortage.

I don't know why that would be assumed when recent events have suggested the market won't support this type of journalism.
The future is all about the mobile device.
Not part of it, not some of it.
Klostermann's viscous goo is not so easily consumable in the format.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I'm biased because he's one of my favorite writers. I think he sort of gets wrongly blamed anytime a young writer tries pulling off a Klosterman impression. Which is as misguided as blaming Gary Smith when you get mad reading someone at your local daily do a 3,000-word psychological dive on a JUCO QB.

That said, I don't quite understand why Klosterman wouldn't be popular on mobile devices. People will scroll down to read.

When he was at the Fargo paper, a lot of people didn't think readers would like him or that his writing translated well in a midwestern paper. It did, and readers liked him.

When he decided to write Fargo Rock City, people thought no one would care about the subject. It made his career.

Same thing when he started writing for magazines.

People like reading him. Not sure why having to read him on a phone would turn people off. He'll continue to be popular -- deservedly so, because I think he's still one of the most original writers and thinkers you'll read -- and continue to be hated by Mark Ames and others.

 

[GAPrintDino]

Does anyone really have the attention span for Klosterman in a mobile world, though?

Not dismissing the thought at all, just asking. I think we're going to see more and more mobile content shift visual. Less text, more graphics, infographics, videos, moving images, etc. The emphasis will be on the easily-digestible.

I can see catching up on Klosterman's latest on a train ride, but as the demographics shift mobile and young, I also think we're talking about the crowd waiting for someone outside a college classroom, the guy waiting at the Apple store, the grocery check-out line. It's just hard to imagine this rapid-fire info-processing reality where Klosterman is a popular read, for me at least.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I assume Grantland and MMQB have access to ESPN and SI's design folks, servers and tech folks for things like posting flow, coding and troubleshooting. That infrastructure isn't the obstacle it once was but I don't think it should be ignored either. It has to help, especially in terms of profitability, cutting down on overhead costs that can be folded into the parent site.

One would also assume that the people who sell advertising for SI and ESPN also do so for Grantland and TheMMQB. That can't be ignored either.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Does anyone really have the attention span for Klosterman in a mobile world, though?

Not dismissing the thought at all, just asking. I think we're going to see more and more mobile content shift visual. Less text, more graphics, infographics, videos, moving images, etc. The emphasis will be on the easily-digestible.

I can see catching up on Klosterman's latest on a train ride, but as the demographics shift mobile and young, I also think we're talking about the crowd waiting for someone outside a college classroom, the guy waiting at the Apple store, the grocery check-out line. It's just hard to imagine this rapid-fire info-processing reality where Klosterman is a popular read, for me at least.

I don't think long form journalism is dead. But, I think it's something that over the next decade or so is going to largely be limited to magazines and websites.

Maybe I'm biased as a former features writer. I just don't see longform in newspapers much anymore, with the possible exception being some of the national papers.

 

[CD Boogie]

Does anyone really have the attention span for Klosterman in a mobile world, though?

Not dismissing the thought at all, just asking. I think we're going to see more and more mobile content shift visual. Less text, more graphics, infographics, videos, moving images, etc. The emphasis will be on the easily-digestible.

I can see catching up on Klosterman's latest on a train ride, but as the demographics shift mobile and young, I also think we're talking about the crowd waiting for someone outside a college classroom, the guy waiting at the Apple store, the grocery check-out line. It's just hard to imagine this rapid-fire info-processing reality where Klosterman is a popular read, for me at least.

Maybe not as popular as he was prior to Twitter, but the novel ain't dead and neither are people who actually enjoy reading **** that takes more than two seconds to digest.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

It's not about ones biases.
It's about the dictates of the market, and what it will bear.
Yesterday I read a lengthy Grantland reappraisal of Tom Cruise's part in Magnolia.
It was superb and it also checked in at 4,190 words.
Two questions: Who has time for this on a daily basis? And was it really necessary?

 

[GAPrintDino]

It's not about ones biases.
It's about the dictates of the market, and what it will bear.
Yesterday I read a lengthy Grantland reappraisal of Tom Cruise's part in Magnolia.
It was superb and it also checked in at 4,190 words.
Two questions: Who has time for this on a daily basis? And was it really necessary?

And this is what I'm getting at, too. It's not what I/you want. It's not suggesting that the "premium" consumer is dead. It's not suggesting that there is no audience. It's about recognizing the shift in audience and being realistic about investment vs profit prospects for that kind of content.

I think, more and more so, you'll see the outlets that best balance critical and commercial success will likely have elements of longform/premium content AND elements of shortform/blogging/quick reaction/media-heavy/"digestible" content.