Former ombudsman rips ESPN for shutting down Grantland, '?a beacon in a field of sludge'
The latest comes from sports journalist Robert Lipsyte, who served as ESPN's ombudsman in 2013 and 2014, and he doesn't hold back.
He also went too far.
In a column for The Nation, Lipsyte says farewell to Grantland, a website he refers to as "ESPN's home for actual sports journalism" and "a beacon in a field of sludge."
And those are just in the headline.
Lipsyte does spend much of the column praising what Grantland was and how they did it. But there was still room to criticize the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports:
Last Friday, ESPN announced it was chopping this proud pinky off its ham hand, only a few months after declaring its commitment to Grantland despite having just fired Simmons. Without its beneficiary and editor-in-chief, ESPN had no need for an entertaining and prestigious niche that made little or no money ... Earlier last week, ESPN had laid off more than 300 employees. It was facing an annual $1.4 billion bill for NBA rights alone. Perhaps that made it too hard to justify maintaining its class act.
Lipsyte goes on to criticize what ESPN has become:
On a daily basis, ESPN's main energy seems directed toward cranking out trade rumors and coaching change speculation to keep fans engaged, while its top broadcasters engage in squabbling packaged as debate ... Perhaps it's simply naïve to expect a network that actually owns bowl games, has entire channels devoted to major college sports conferences, and runs a revolving door for sports figures who want to try their voice at broadcasting, also maintain a reliable journalistic presence.
This has been the focus of much of the criticism of ESPN's decisions to shut down Grantland. ESPN jettisons a strong journalistic presence while at the same time keeping things like the highly criticized "First Take," their sports debate show on ESPN2 with partners-in-loudness, Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith.
However, the criticism may also be too simplistic.
A show like "First Take" represents such a small percentage of everything that is aired on ESPN's family of networks and to point only to that one show is to ignore a lot of the great things ESPN does, such "Outside the Lines," "30 for 30," and segments on "SportsCenter" that go beyond highlights. It also passes over all the excellent long form stories written at ESPN.com and in ESPN the Magazine and many of Grantland's writers will continue write under those banners.
It also ignores the simple fact that ESPN embraces debate on shows like "First Take," because that's what people want.
ESPN executive editor John A. Walsh appeared on Bill Simmons' podcast "The B.S. Report," back in 2012. Towards the end of the interview, debate shows came up:
"What's really developed here is that [First Take] has hit a nerve because it has developed a debate personality ... it's hit ratings. And the reason is that these two personalities have clicked ... I do think that there are places that debates can go that they haven't gone so far. It will be something we should be looking at."
At the end of the day, Grantland was shut down because it wasn't making any money at a time when ESPN was being forced to make cuts. It is fair to argue that ESPN should have continued to subsidize the venture as a worthy cause. But it is unfair to suggest ESPN got rid of the website just because they prefer to pay people to scream at each other.