In late September, I put the higher ed administrator hat away for a hot second and geeked out at Blogs With Balls, the seminal national conference on new sports media.
BWB4 appropriately featured panelists from Grantland and an entire panel about Deadspin. I qualified that with “appropriately” because deep down inside, writers at both publications have all have achieved the pinnacle of every insomniac sports blogger – they make a living writing both ridiculous and serious sports nuggets. (Also, they can wear jeans and faux faded vintage sports tees to work.)
In the Deadspin panel, amongst the discussion of Brett Favre and his privates, there was a discussion of Deadspin‘s long form, non-sports specific work. And within that (all too brief) discussion, Deadspin editor AJ Daulerio mentioned that they want to find a place for that “men’s magazine” style of writing. He specifically called out “men’s magazines,” and didn’t just say “long-form.”
During the first week of October, Grantland announced a collaboration with humor publication McSweeney’s to offer a “best of” compilation entitled Grantland Quarterly. The topics covered will span sports, entertainment and social commentary. Readers will be able to subscribe to a year worth of the publication, or order individual copies for $19.95. Each issue will be edited by site founder Bill Simmons and former GQ editor Dan Fierman, and will include a few print-only exclusives. In a quote to the New York Observer, Fierman says,
“If our site has a problem it’s that we move so fast that readers miss stuff,” he said. The print journal serves up the site’s greatest hits in a medium better suited to long-form journalism.”
