Last Friday, ESPN announced that it was shutting down Grantland, its critically acclaimed sports and culture website. The move was not entirely unexpected, given that ESPN decided not to renew Bill Simmons’ contract in May.

Simmons was Grantland’s founding editor and its biggest source of traffic — without him the site would never have existed. ESPN is also going through broader cutbacks — besides Simmons, the company parted ways with television personalities Colin Cowherd and Keith Olbermann in recent months — and Grantland was a natural place to save some money.