ESPN’s Grantland has been around for just over a year and it already has an imitator. Impressive.
At first glance, the new Sports on Earth site looks to be another version of Grantland. After a soft launch during the Olympics, the site made its full-blown debut this morning. It is a new joint development venture between USA TODAY Sports and MLB Advanced Media LLC (MLBAM).
Sports on Earth has many of the same traits as Grantland. It will feature excellent writers writing about the predictable (the upcoming college and pro football seasons) and the unpredictable (Dave Kindred’s great piece on the 40th anniversary reunion of the 1972 U.S. basketball team that got screwed out of a gold medal).
The showcase star for Sports on Earth is Joe Posnanski. The former Sports Illustrated writer, who is in the headlines for his Paterno biography, wrote the welcome for the site.
He writes:
Today, we start up here at Sports on Earth, and we feel that electricity of the opening bell. The idea here is to build a sports website around great writing. That’s not exactly a new idea. There is a lot of great sports writing out there and has been pretty much since people carved sports figures on cave walls. But we think it’s a timeless idea. There are so many ways to enjoy sports in today’s high-definition, fantasy-sports, Twitter-saturated, 3-D-glasses world. And reading a great story, laughing at a fun analysis, getting angry at an opposing opinion, picking up a small insight that helps you enjoy the game more, joining in with the community of sports believers and storytellers and jokers — we believe these are all a big part of the fun.
Later, he adds:
We all have the obvious hopes and ambitions about Sports on Earth, that it will be piercing and surprising and thoughtful and moving and ecstatic and a hundred other adjectives. But those hopes and ambitions are pregame talk, too. You know how at the beginning of sporting events they crank up “Let’s Get It Started” or “Start Me Up?” I cannot stand those songs. But at the beginning of games, I like them. Let’s get it started. Start me up.
I’m in favor of any new journalism enterprise these days, and doubly in favor of getting to read Posnanski on a regular basis. While he has taken some hits for his Paterno book, he is a prolific, insightful and entertaining writer.
Besides Kindred, the site has a piece from Leigh Montville, another one of the all-time greats. Will Leitch of Deadspin fame also is on board as a contributor.
Again at first glance, the big difference between Sports on Earth and Grantland is that Sports on Earth doesn’t appear as if it is going to veer into pop culture. Pop culture is part of Grantland’s label.
If people say Sports on Earth is another Grantland, that’s not a bad thing. Any outlet for good writers producing good, if not great, stories is fine by me.
It’s way too early to judge on one day. Let’s see how the site plays out.
Welcome to Sports on Earth. We’ll be watching and reading.