gourimoko
Fighting the good fight!
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Amen Jack. Took the words out of my mouth. Simmons needed ESPN's capital because couldn't have launched the Grantland universe as successfully on his lonesome. Bill definitely needed ESPN to finance and launch the Grantland digital universe. In an ironic twist, this is exactly what happened to Sonny Vaccaro. Great Grantland piece, as well as Ibaka's "son of the congo." Check em out.
Guys... again.. the bolded is false.
He did not need ESPN to start Grantland. He could've driven 2.5M clickthroughs / 30 days by negotiating various deals with other outlets, organically, through social media, and through paid-advertising (from investments). Yes there would be substantial costs, but much of those costs could be offset, and the remaining portion could be paid by investors.
He did not need ESPN to own Grantland outright simply to drive traffic and pay production costs.
He'd have been better off starting smaller, and growing organically, rather than ending up 4 years later without ownership or control over what he's built.
I say this from expertise - growing these types of businesses online is what I do for a living. I do this every single day. Not from a marketing standpoint, but from a development and analytics standpoint.
Grantland isn't as big as some folks here think.. The amount of traffic they are getting could be replicated without the need for millions of dollars of investment from ESPN.
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