Grantland is taking a swing at video. The Bill Simmons-controlled website launched a YouTube channel Wednesday.
The year-old ESPN-owned site is bringing its blend of sports and pop culture news into video form with three series: The Best BS, Animated Archives, and Hockumentary. The channel boasts more than 10,000 subscribers.
In Simmons’ quixotic introduction video, he jokes that he’s dreamed about having a YouTube channel since he was a child, and complains about how much he hates talking into a camera.
“I lost the will and intensity to do this,” he mumbles at the end of the introduction.
Hockumentary, the first show to premiere, is a short documentary focused on Iowa State basketball player Royce White prior to the start of the NBA draft. The eight-minute show is a candid look into White’s life. It’s tightly produced, professionally edited, and feels like a segment from ESPN’s newsmagazine, E:60.
If sports aren’t your thing, Simmons’ superb pop culture knowledge shines through in the The Best BS, which is a podcast in video form. The channel features interviews with comedian Louis C.K. and actor Jack Black, and “lost” footage from his March interview with Pres. Barack Obama.
On Animated Archives, memorable bits from Simmons’ podcasts get, well, animated. Similar in format to the The Ricky Gervais Show on HBO, the first episode features Chapelle Show co-creator Neal Brennan describing the one time he partied with Prince.
Photo via Grantland/YouTube
