I have been disappointed, since what I felt was a strong start, by Grantland. To be sure there are 2-3 pieces a week that are among some of the best writing on the internet and for that, it's worth my daily visit. So when I say disappointed I mean relative to my own expectations.
Beginning with the oral histories, some excellent pieces on Boxing, Wright Thompson's southern travels and the director's cuts of classic sportswriting, I sort of got the impression that this was going to be a throw back writing site where the writing was first and foremost and where all sports, not just the NFL and Fantasy, were covered. I also came to expect a pretty high level, or sometimes just pretty funny, take on pop culture.
What I feel like we get is this; 2-3 good to great long form pieces a week (usually by the same writers), a maddeningly weird and useless entertainment blog that focuses on about 3 television shows and famous people doing silly things, tired mailbags by Simmons and someone ghost writing for Chuck Klosterman and doing a pretty bad imitation.
I love Long Reads which is a twitter/site/feed/whatever that points out some of the best long-form non-fiction (and sometimes fiction though I ignore that) on the web. I was hoping for something that I now think is a little impossible, or at least is a terrible business plan, and that was a site that featured consistently solid long form stories on sports in the Long Reads vein. They show flashes of it, but for the most part the front page is usually just littered with a mish-mash of half-thought out ideas forced to column length or a blog that repeats a familiar current story in the sports or entertainment world and has a zinger to go with it.
My disappointment doesn't come so much from Grantland itself, actually, because I've come to the conclusion, as I mentioned above, that as a business model what I want is not-sustainable on the internet. Clearly it's not much more sustainable in print, though The New Yorker does still get my money. I hope there are enterprising folks out there much savvier than me or the editors at Grantland that are working towards this because the internet doesn't have to be a hit and run medium. We've been told from the beginning that it can be whatever you want it to be, whatever you make it. Grantland, in particular, makes it just enough to wish for something better and different and when it doesn't make it, it highlights the worst of the internet and the literary culture.
