Miller tweeted that the sports writers are going to be used on ESPN "proper." All contracts will be honored.
But will those guys become Insider content? Stuff with even half the equivalent depth is pretty exclusively subscriber-only on the Mothership.
If the site was making gobs of money, I would imagine they would have kept it. I still like Bill Simmons, but the world wasn't clamoring for long form sports journalism it turns out.
Simmons is one to point out that if you write something really well, the internet will help the rest of the world find it. Then out of the other side of his mouth, he blames ESPN for not giving the site enough promotion on the home page. Little hypocritical IMO.
This comparison doesn't make sense to me. Writers can write and write and write until they make it. Sites have significant and immediate costs. They have to pay salaries and expenses immediately, even before they generate any content. They can't just keep writing until their stuff spreads through word of mouth. There's nothing hypocritical about the complaint. Whether it was a valid complaint or not I don't know, but no hypocrisy IMO.
Sorry it wasn't clearer - Simmons on his podcasts says that good writing doesn't need promotion in this day and age. If the writing is good, then people will find it and it will happen through word of mouth/social media. (This is not my position, this is his.)
This isn't worth getting into, but Grantland would have been profitable (its was breakeven) if ESPN's honchos had sold the product better to advertisers. They left 5 million (Simmons has said that's what his podcast will generate in revenue this year) on the table with just his podcasts.
I won't be too surprised if Lowe, Barnwell, Mays, Keri, maybe a couple of other guys end up working for Simmons doing pods, producing content for his TV show, and maybe writing. Simmons already has 4 editors, so he seems to be itching to do something.