Sports on Earth writers and editors laid off

[3_Octave_Fart]

We won't know unless we saw ESPN's analytics, but it would be interesting to note the click disparity between today's Kevin Love story and the best Grantland piece of the day.
Something that took 30 minutes to put together vs. something that might have taken weeks.
Not to mention the cost benefit associated with both.

 

[Alma]

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?

It was an excerpt of a book.

 

[steveu]

People have time to read books these days? ;)

 

[da man]

People have time to read books these days? ;)

What are these ... "books" ... you speak of?

 

[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?

It was an excerpt of a book.

Point stands.
Who has time for these pieces every day?
I have finite time on this planet, in a workweek, and especially for entertainment.
And if I want to read a book, I will just do that and skip the digital longform.

 

[DanOregon]

My next internet venture: "10 Things to Know" about long-form articles. Will include sample passage, nut graph, small factoid buried deep within, point (if any) in the article when post people will bail out and summary.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

The tablet was supposed to rescue magazines.
That never happened.
Don't look for the mobile device to save longform.

 

[FileNotFound]

Fart's point about folks not having time is well-taken. On a daily basis, I read for leisure at roughly the same rate that I did 25 years ago. The only significant difference is the availability of different material. For instance, I still spend about 45 minutes in the morning reading news. I'm just not reading it on a piece of paper that was produced in my city of residence. I spend a few hours a week reading magazines. Those, oddly, I still do read on paper. I spend a few hours a week reading books; I just might be reading on the Kindle, not binding-and-paper. If I really want to read something and I have to pay for it, I'll pay for it, within reason. Having many more millions of words freely available to be read has not in the least expanded the amount of time I have to read them. So they need to be worth my time.

 

[Dick Whitman]

How is the New Yorker doing, financially? Is there an audience for general interest "longform" that doesn't exist for sports?

The problem with building an audience for sports "longform" that can be monetized is that it's too niche, first of all. Also, there is entirely too much breaking news to compete for eyeballs with. Imagine if there was a slate of House and Senate elections to report on, every day of the year. That's sports.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Also, I think there is still a big audience for stories, even lengthy stories, that are interesting to people. And, in particular, stories where they learn something new. Think of the Manti Te'o story in Deadspin. Combination of breaking news and long-form storytelling. I bet a whole lot of people read every word in one sitting. Something like KVV's story on the San Diego State running back that ran on ESPN.com, while we all agreed it was tremendous and compelling, probably drew a much smaller audience because, well, people don't care about the weird San Diego State running back as much as they care about the Heisman Trophy runner-up for the BCS runner-up team.

This doesn't mean that I don't hope there is an economically feasible place for both, of course.

 

[CD Boogie]

Also, I think there is still a big audience for stories, even lengthy stories, that are interesting to people. And, in particular, stories where they learn something new. Think of the Manti Te'o story in Deadspin. Combination of breaking news and long-form storytelling. I bet a whole lot of people read every word in one sitting. Something like KVV's story on the San Diego State running back that ran on ESPN.com, while we all agreed it was tremendous and compelling, probably drew a much smaller audience because, well, people don't care about the weird San Diego State running back as much as they care about the Heisman Trophy runner-up for the BCS runner-up team.

This doesn't mean that I don't hope there is an economically feasible place for both, of course.

Bottomline I think you have to balance the long with the short. Grantland has its Triangle blog, which is quick hits on breaking events. I thought SOE was in a sense too self-serious. Sports is entertainment, and yeah it's great to reflect on it with purple prose on occasion, but I'd like to see a little more humor associated with it.

Considering Leitch made his bones at Deadspin by posting drunk pics of pro players, you'd think the senior editor would have understood that link bait consists of quick-hitting things that can draw people in -- and then maybe they hang around for the longer reads. Sure as hell no one was going to Deadspin in the early days to read Leitch wax poetic about the Cardinals.

 

[Morris816]

Also, I think there is still a big audience for stories, even lengthy stories, that are interesting to people. And, in particular, stories where they learn something new. Think of the Manti Te'o story in Deadspin. Combination of breaking news and long-form storytelling. I bet a whole lot of people read every word in one sitting. Something like KVV's story on the San Diego State running back that ran on ESPN.com, while we all agreed it was tremendous and compelling, probably drew a much smaller audience because, well, people don't care about the weird San Diego State running back as much as they care about the Heisman Trophy runner-up for the BCS runner-up team.

This doesn't mean that I don't hope there is an economically feasible place for both, of course.

Bottomline I think you have to balance the long with the short. Grantland has its Triangle blog, which is quick hits on breaking events. I thought SOE was in a sense too self-serious. Sports is entertainment, and yeah it's great to reflect on it with purple prose on occasion, but I'd like to see a little more humor associated with it.

Considering Leitch made his bones at Deadspin by posting drunk pics of pro players, you'd think the senior editor would have understood that link bait consists of quick-hitting things that can draw people in -- and then maybe they hang around for the longer reads. Sure as hell no one was going to Deadspin in the early days to read Leitch wax poetic about the Cardinals.

It's a valid point, but I think some sites tend to get too dependent on the short stuff. As one analogy I remember goes, the barker may be the one who gets the people to come watch the circus, but you can't make the circus entirely about the barker.

 

[Versatile]

Sports On Earth had a blog used similarly to The Triangle.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Sports on Earth's problem, as compared to Grantland, is the same problem as Fanhouse had, as compared to Grantland: It is not linked to and promoted on the one site that 99 percent of sports fans go to every day.

 

[Songbird]

What SOE didn't do was tweet well to draw traffic in. As of this post it has 8,030 tweets.

Every day my feed was full of Grantland (17.1K) and SB Nation tweets (140K).

Lo and behold, the feed has been full of SOE tweets since the massacre.

 

[CD Boogie]

What SOE didn't do was tweet well to draw traffic in. As of this post it has 8,030 tweets.

Every day my feed was full of Grantland (17.1K) and SB Nation tweets (140K).

Lo and behold, the feed has been full of SOE tweets since the massacre.

I wasn't aware that SOE ever had a blog like the Triangle, which probably says as much about my regular visits to the site as it does the site's marketing and outreach. Did the blog contain one-off things like quirky videos or Tweets from athletes? Or things like Metta World Peace changing his name? Ya know, the kind of inane **** that drives traffic.

BTW, the editor of Sportsgrid wrote the following piece about why SOE failed in the current climate. Basically, he said it didn't have enough T&A.
http://www.sportsgrid.com/media/jerry-jones-paulina-gretzky-and-why-im-not-surprised-sports-on-earth-was-downsized/

You might not have heard of Sportsgrid, but I think the guy has a decent point about the use of lowbrow stuff. Of course he completely undermined his argument by not reaching out to Leitch for a comment.

 

[GAPrintDino]

What SOE didn't do was tweet well to draw traffic in. As of this post it has 8,030 tweets.

Every day my feed was full of Grantland (17.1K) and SB Nation tweets (140K).

Lo and behold, the feed has been full of SOE tweets since the massacre.

I highly doubt social traffic drives THAT many pageviews, or enough to make a huge difference anyway. It's part of the pie, I'm sure, along with direct traffic, search referral, partnership deals, etc.

But I would wager SOE's problem is that it isn't driving enough direct traffic and not creating enough loyal brand users.

 

[Songbird]

You have to create that loyalty by hammering them over the head every day with tweets and FB posts etc etc. And by having the RT's. I don't think people are going to automatically remember, "Oh, I have to go check Sports on Earth now" especially when the name was rather tepid to start with.

People remember "Grantland" and in SB Nation's case it's because they hammer you over the head every day.

The numbers add up, create daily loyalty. It's not the end-all be-all but it's important.

 

[Alma]

You have to create that loyalty by hammering them over the head every day with tweets and FB posts etc etc. And by having the RT's. I don't think people are going to automatically remember, "Oh, I have to go check Sports on Earth now" especially when the name was rather tepid to start with.

People remember "Grantland" and in SB Nation's case it's because they hammer you over the head every day.

The numbers add up, create daily loyalty. It's not the end-all be-all but it's important.

People remember Grantland because it's a must-stop for NBA fans (it's the one thing the site does truly well) and Bill Simmons is behind it.

SBNation has what seems like 1,000 little sites and an underdog/mumblecore mentality.

 

[dreunc1542]

I'd say Grantland also does baseball really well, especially now that Lindbergh is on board. Keri, Lindbergh, Baumann, and (occasionally) Jazayerli is a strong group. But yeah, as a big NBA fan, that's the main reason I go there most days.