In a shocking move Friday afternoon, ESPN made the decision to shut down its Grantland website, which was originally started by Bill Simmons and had continued since he left the company.
Here’s the full statement from the Worldwide Leader in Sports:
Awful, awful news. RT @ESPNPR: ESPN statement regarding Grantland: t.co/N2HygNcRGn
The announcement immediately sent shockwaves throughout the sports world.
A number of writers for Grantland quickly took to Twitter to react to the news:
I will be tweeting more than usual this winter.
Best gig I ever had.
Those Tweets suggest that they had no idea the move was coming, and baseball writer Michael Baumann confirmed that horrifying detail:
Well that’s the first time I’ve ever found out I was laid off via Twitter
Simmons then gave his thoughts:
I loved everyone I worked with at G and loved what we built. Watching good/kind/talented people get treated so callously = simply appalling.
There’s no denying that this is a dreadful situation for everyone involved. Fortunately for those who suddenly lost their jobs, they are some of the most talented individuals in the business, so landing on their feet shouldn’t be a problem. CBS Sports’ Kyle Porter and SB Nation’s Grant Brisbee put it simply:
Grantland was great because of their great writers, who will now go make other places great. Sad and excited for them.
James Andrew Miller also passed along some encouraging news:
Nevertheless, this is something no one expected, and for good reason. Since Grantland was launched by Simmons in 2011, it had established itself as one of the most innovative sports and entertainment websites around, consistently pumping out unique and creative content. Spike Friedman perhaps summed it up best:
It’s going to be sad to see it go, but hopefully