Back in February, ESPN announced it would be giving Bill Simmons, he of the megapopular podcast and sports page, his very own digital magazine that branched out beyond athletics and into popular culture. So it’s fitting that Simmons just announced that the site will be named after Grantland Rice, “the legendary sportswriter who helped elevate sports into American culture during the early 20th Century,” and whose existence we were totally familiar with before fifteen minutes ago. Mmhmm. The online mag’s masthead includes GQ’s Dan Fierman and Vulture’s dearly departed (to the West Coast) Lane Brown, and has picked up a few more boldface-name contributors like Malcolm Gladwell and Dave Eggers. Simmons says his boyhood media crushes were “The National, Spy Magazine and Inside Sports,” so expect to see their influence when the site launches in June.
All-Star Roster of Writers and Editors to Join New ESPN Web Site [ESPN]
