RIP Sports Illustrated?

Today Sports Illustrated laid off their entire staff. The once mighty publication is no more. Why? Because the world changed. And because Sports Illustrated changed.

I read SI as a kid, and all through college at the Baptist Center. When I landed my first real job after graduation I rewarded myself with a subscription of my own. I subscribed from 1983 until 2017 and saved each issue – over 1700 of them. I ordered the official navy blue SI binders to hold 6 months of them. Eventually I started saving them in cardboard boxes.

What set SI apart from its competitors was both the photography and the writing. I would read each week’s issue pretty much from cover to cover. You got to know the athlete as a person, not just an amateurish rah rah puff piece. I would read articles about athletes I’d never heard of, just because the writing was so good. Not just baseball, football, and basketball players, but also hockey players and runners and soccer players and jockeys. Articles about teams. The writing was timely and fresh and detailed, because the magazine was published each week.

Over the years the size of SI decreased. Kept getting thinner. When the internet came along, younger fans took to the websites and ESPN SportsCenter. SI subscribers were loyal, but growing older. Out of the key demographics. Subscriptions declined.

Great writers like Frank Deford, Rick Reilly, Paul Zimmerman, Rick Telander, and others jumped ship. They were replaced by less experienced youngsters far less talented. These writers were more liberal, and Sports Illustrated went from covering sparts, teams, athletes, and games to the issues of the day – not exactly topics the majority of subscribers (like me) wanted to see. Tonight I'm reading dozens of others saying the exact same thing.

I kept my subscription out of habit. Loved to read it, but life was busier. Kids, work, wife, etc. Unread issues piled up. So many articles and covers were unappealing. The last straw was a severely biased article filled with untruths and inaccuracies about the Braves move to their new ballpark, unfavorably comparing the Braves to Atlanta United’s early success in Mercedes Benz Stadium, the place the City of Atlanta helped build. I cancelled my subscription.

Sports Illustrated went from a weekly publication to twice monthly. SI was sold, the new owners running it on an ever decreasing budget. It became even more liberal. In 2023 the swimsuit issue feathered a transgender person on the cover. Now less than a year later, Sports Illustrated is no more.

Last year I finally cleaned out my SI collection. Saved many iconic issues: Ali, Jordan, Tiger, UGA, GT, Braves, Herschel, the Atlanta Olympics, and others. LeBron’s first “The Chosen One” cover. Tried to sell the rest for cheap on Facebook Marketplace. No takers. I was ready to throw them into a dumpster, but got a comic book store to pay me $50 for them. As always, life goes on.