OT: Sports Illustrated on Deathwatch

I remember the reaction 16 year old me had to this issue when it arrived in the mail:

https://sicovers.com/featured/christie-brinkley-swimsuit-1980-sports-illustrated-cover.html 

(link posted - no sexybits)

RIP

In truth today only marks SI being unplugged from the respirator; they were effectively dead once they were boughtbout by Maven (or whatever Maven rebranded into), and made into another generic content farm trading on the SI brand.

Good thing Bert Breer has his "side hustles" lined up with Boston stations.

Sports Illustrated was once the pinnacle. Michigan grad and former Daily sports editor John Papanek was a longtime writer and senior editor for SI. I was on the Daily staff in 1981 when he stopped back at the office for a visit (he was in town covering something). We all treated him like a god - he had the job and the life we all wanted.

November 12 of 1956 is pretty good, too. I have this one hanging in the man-cave.

IIRC, Harbaugh has it in his office, too.

https://www.thewrap.com/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-13-most-iconic-covers-ever-photos/

From there:

There was a time, before CATV and the advent of ESPN and the internet, when this publication was huge in the sports world. Sport magazine was also a big deal. Then again, so were Sears and Monkey Ward...

Growing up in Ann Arbor in the 1970's I went to every home football game and every home basketball game. I revered those teams and my two favorite SI covers were the Rick Leach cover (posted a couple of times already) and the one below. Rickey Green was a Michigan hoops revelation long before Gary Grant, Rumeal Robinson, Trey Burke, and others came along.

Shame, but not shocking.  As a near 60-year old, this was my life as a kid.  Subscription, with a race between boys and Mom to see who would get to swimsuit edition first.  Continues move toward crappier, Stephen A-type journalism, which is too bad.  Best part of the National Championship gig was to hear Brian say that MGB can put his and Seth's kids through college, which means more quality journalism in this space of the sports world.  

Commercial -- I'm going to hit unbeveled guilt soon, and suggest others do likewise.  This rare gem is getting even more rare.

It's sad to see SI close up but I will push back at the idea sports journalism is dying.  There are WAY more sources of information around sports available now than even a couple decades ago.  It used to be magazines like SI and SN, local and national papers, and ESPN.  but now you've got the national online outfits but also places like this site, which has amazing free-ish content for fans.  This is way better than anything Michael Rosenberg wrote about sports, for example.

So while it sucks to see places go under it also means you can do something about it by supporting good journalism.  These writers are going to go places and if you make a point to support them that's good. And maybe click on the Beveled Guilt button here as well.

Not converting that print brand into a viable website will go down as one of the great missed media opportunities.

Old enough to remember when a million plus per year to write one column per week wasn't enough to keep Reilly there. 

How has no one linked the Chris Perry cover yet? We didn't get a lot of covers in the 2000's.

Grant Wahl (RIP) worked at SI before they let him go. Enjoyed his soccer coverage: articles & podcast.

Does anyone remember Cheryl Tiegs in the fishnet swimsuit? That was an eye opener.

There is a void for true sports journalism that is disconnected from politics but we probably won't see it in our lives. Who hired the PI firm that investigated Michigan? May never get the answer to it but we will get to hear of a reporter asking a question to Todd Bowles about how his team will adjust to playing the Detroit Lions in tough weather conditions.

I feel sorry for the folks losing their jobs.  
I’ll always have a soft spot for SI.  When I was 17 they did a feature on basketball camps, one of which I attended.  The headline pic for the column had half of me in it, because some stupid coach stepped in front of me right as they took the pic.  I still have that issue packed away somewhere 😂 

https://vault.si.com/vault/1991/07/15/the-summer-game-competition-among-summer-basketball-camps-for-high-school-stars-is-so-hot-that-the-ncaa-may-have-to-step-in-to-cool-it-down

It's an industry that's gotten way too bloated...with way too much bloviating 

I subscribed for 30 plus years beginning in 1969 (and also to Sport Magazine which has been mentioned above). Some of the long form articles were incredible journalism (a Bill Gilbert piece on environmental issues before most people had ever heard of them, and another 2 or 3 part series on "the Black Athlete"). I felt like it had been going downhill for a long long time, and had quit even buying the occasional issue after I let my subscription lapse.

Aside from the great Michigan covers that others have cited, my favorite cover was "Liquori grins and wins" with the photo showing rivals Jim Ryun and Marty Liquori (I think they were the first two high schoolers to run a sub 4 minute mile). Ryun had the records but the younger Liquori bested him head to head a few times. This cover showed them in the stretch of a race and Ryun's face is contorted, while Liquori has a grin. It reminded me that my old HS cross country coach told us that it takes less effort (fewer muscles) to grin than to grimace. I have no idea if that is scientifically accurate but it always stayed with me.

In its prime, Sports Illustrated achieved greatness. Of all the great things I read in the magazine, this was the best. I’ve read it many times over the years.

https://www.si.com/high-school/2014/12/12/higher-education-perry-reese-jr-gary-smith

Such is the shift in technology - which is simultaneously cool and a bit sad. 

The only time a wrestler appeared on the cover, the great Dan Hodge for which the Hodge Trophy (Wrestling Heisman) is named after. I am lucky enough to have a framed copy. Cael got screwed...

This was my all-time favorite issue growing up...

I understand it's the way of the world, but this makes me sad. I grew up reading SI, and in the '70s/80s it was full of great writing. Deford, EM Swift, Dan Jenkins, Paul Zimmerman etc. were all icons.

I always thought a Wheaties box was a bigger deal, but YMMV

I'm sorry to see any pub go under. I'm old and miss newsprint on my hands.

Sad, but saying BIG Blue shows how out of touch they are. 

Sad to hear.  Like many others, I had a subscription as a kid and Thursdays were always exciting when the latest SI came. I didn't realize until recently that it had switched to a monthly format.  That seemed like a very ominous sign for the magazine's health. 

We certainly have more options for reading about sports than ever before, but the thing about SI was that, in its prime, everyone would read it.  It was the common ground sports fans around the country shared.  We don't really have that anymore.

Michigan never calls themselves "Big Blue."  Fail.

I used to get SI for free when I worked in the Detroit ad industry. When I moved a few years ago, I found boxes of them in the attic. I was thumbing through them before tossing them in the recycling, and ran across three articles that I remember:

1. A blurb on an Ohio basketball player who had begun making a name for himself at the high school level. His name was Lebron James. Wonder if he made it.

2. A long piece about Hank Aaron's march to 715 HRs that was written about 10 years after the fact. I remember watching Aaron hit the record-breaker in 1974 and was thrilled to be watching history. I had no idea of the hatred, threats of violence, and general racist bullshit that he endured at that time.

3. A piece by Steve Rushin about playing golf in Ireland, and hearing his caddy with the thick Irish brogue say, "Yer too farty." According to Rushin, "This either means that you're 240 yards away from the hole, or else you're excessively flatulent. Unless you're my brother Jim, in which case you're both."

HAIL, HAIL!

TAKE THAT

RIP S.I.

Long time SI subscriber. Sad to see what's become of it. I don't know why anyone thought moving from weekly to monthly was a sensible idea. And as others have noted, referring to us as "Big Blue"? Yeesh. 

"Big Blue Heaven" was the kiss of death.

Has to be the Hockey Team (for me). I was at the Sweden game and in-town for the Soviet Union game. Still brings chills/tears. The morning after the Soviet union game? Watched Eric Heiden crush the 10K Meters Speed Skating.

Michael Jordan's coming out party against the NBA all-stars prior to the 1984 LA Games

As a 60 year old, I read SI every week for 40 years. As a kid growing up, I looked forward to the mail on Thursday when this would arrive. I also fell asleep in my chair by the pool reading my magazine on a Saturday afternoon. 
 

many great magazines, I still have the 97 National Championship magazine in my drawer