Media and Journalism, Small Law Firms, Sports

Beyond Biglaw: Goodbye, Grantland

Columnist Gaston Kroub says goodbye to a website that was loved by many lawyers.

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We all need an escape. Even at our busiest times — no, especially at our busiest times — our brains need a few minutes of distraction, to get a rest from the ceaseless demands of our personal and professional lives. Some lawyers find refuge in a post-Halloween bag of chocolate stashed in their office desk drawer. Others turn to “harder” stuff, of the liquid, powder or pill variety. For myself, respite comes in the form of reading, particularly with respect to topics that I enjoy, but do not have the luxury to immerse myself in because of my schedule. Since it launched, the sports and pop culture website Grantland was my daily escape. Its owner, ESPN, made a corporate decision to shut it down. I already miss it.

I, like many other lawyers, read constantly. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t take time to review developments in the IP world of a legal nature, in addition to market developments of interest to our consulting clients. Twitter, Seeking Alpha, the Wall Street Journal, Drudge — all are consumed daily, and often checked multiple times a day. Likewise, each day I review my morning summary emails on developments in IP law, from the likes of DocketNavigator, IP Law 360, IAM Magazine, Patently-O and Lexology. Add in daily trips to Above the Law to check in on broader legal industry news and my favorite columnists, and my daily reading plate is a full one. As much as I enjoy what I do, and find all of the above interesting and essential, these readings still bear the aroma of “work” rather than leisure. Since Grantland launched, the site was probably the single biggest daily contributor to my leisure reading. Its absence leaves a void that I have yet to fill.

I am sure that everyone reading this has a favorite type of “escape” reading, whether online or in print. The sad truth is that since my career started in Biglaw, and especially now that I am a partner at a boutique firm, having the time to sit down with a novel or book-length piece of nonfiction has been a luxury reserved for vacation time. As with many others lawyers I know, workweek leisure reading usually takes place at my desk, or while I am commuting. Firing open a browser window on my computer or phone and checking in on a favorite website is usually the easiest way for me to get some reading material. My practice with Grantland was to check in on my phone towards the end of the day and download a few articles of interest to my phone, so I could read them on the train home. I would also listen to a number of the site’s podcasts, but at least on that front most of my favorites have already been relaunched at different addresses.

Why did Grantland become a daily destination for me and many others, despite the public protestations that the site was a money-loser with a limited audience? The simplest answer is quality writing on a variety of interesting topics. As someone with a limited amount of time to “indulge” in leisure reading, Grantland’s ability to present in-depth analysis of sports and pop-culture topics in an interesting way was unparalleled. The worldview of the writers also spoke to me, as many were of my generation, and came of age in a similar way. At the same time, I appreciated that they were way more into sports, or TV, or movies than I am, but were able to write insightfully on those topics in a way that could engage someone with more casual interests. As much as I love sports, I have not had the time for many years to actually invest in die-hard support of my favorite teams, just as I don’t have the time to see every movie or watch every show that looks interesting. (The one sports exception for me is the Philadelphia Eagles, and it helps that the NFL season is more compressed and less demanding to follow than those in other sports.)

It has not been long since ESPN shut down the site, and since its founder Bill Simmons was unceremoniously let go I knew that Grantland’s existence was a tenuous one. When I click on my Chrome browser on my phone, Grantland still appears as one of the suggested sites, an indication of its important place in my “rotation” of reading material. I have yet to find a replacement, and have filled the time since the site shut down checking to see where my various favorite writers have decamped to. I am heartened to see that some of them have already found new homes, and that ESPN has decided to honor the contracts of those writers left behind. Most exciting has been the return of Bill Simmons and a portion of the former Grantland crew, now in a slightly edgier and less “corporate” form. Talent endures, and I have no doubt that each and every contributor to Grantland will continue to generate high-quality content, no matter which platform they end up submitting that content on.

In many ways, Grantland’s writers were curators of the sports and pop culture experiences of contemporary relevance, with the ability to tease out the worthwhile and interesting nuggets of information and emotion for those without the time to experience everything firsthand. Reading their work made my day brighter, and left me feeling more informed about the worlds of sport and entertainment, even if my schedule did not allow me to be as full a participant in those worlds as I was while in school. It was the one place where I could find interesting profiles, game previews, TV recaps and movie reviews served up with quality writing, passionate opinions, and a modern visual presentation. Like many worthwhile things, Grantland had its moment, and it was an all-too-brief one. In its absence, finding good leisure reading, for myself at least, just became a bit more work.

Earlier: Evil Will Always Triumph Because Grantland Is Dumb
Beyond Biglaw: When To Never Give Up (Or, What Lawyers Can Learn From Bill Simmons)
Beyond Biglaw: Lessons For Law Firms As ESPN Loses A Rainmaker

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique. The firm’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

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