The End of SI?

What Will Become of Sports Illustrated?

 

That's pretty spot on. I think the biggest problem is that the readership is outside the advertising demo. Though I imagine the same could be said for The New Yorker and that doesn't seem to hurt them.

 

That piece was certainly worth a Saturday morning read with a couple cups of coffee. Like the writer states, SI readers always knew the score before they got their magazines, but SI told them why and how the game happened. We know the decline of print and the media wars that have evolved long before this piece published. But it's still interesting the way he encapsulated the decline of SI and its next steps.

 

I enjoyed parts of of this, but nonsense like this detracted from it. Gee, if only someone was willing spend millions to break even to put out a weekly sports magazine! Journalists really seem to love spending other people’s money. Even you didn't care about making profitable, there’d probably be better and more noble ways to spend your dollars.

 

Billionaire "investors" are killing it. Why shouldn't billion investors be asked to save it?

 

I loved the line about how people are reading “The Ringer” instead. Not people in my circle, I guess.

Not that they are reading SI as much any more, but that line did make me consider how rarely I see friends link the The Ringer. Could just be me circle, absolutely, but I’d be a little surprised if things were going super well for The Ringer these days.

Generally speaking, I appreciated this piece and hope the best for SI, which still stands as one of the premier destinations in this biz, IMO.

 

The sad truth is - even at every other week - their page count was only 80 last week, with an NCAA cover and a Masters preview. Maybe they are getting a higher ad rate now, but I think a subscriber now getting 160 pages a month, when they used to be able to rely 350 pages (in smaller print no less).

 

SI sent nearly 50 staffers to the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the London Olympics in 2012, but had just 28 people in Rio in 2016. There were 39 staffers in Vancouver at the 2010 Winter Games, but only 28 in Sochi in 2014, and just 12 (with only three full-time writers) in Pyeongchang this year

 

I'm trying to think of the last time I saw any magazine outside a doctor's office. The magazine rack where I shop is filled with speciality publications and what major magazine mastheads I see are "special editions," such as for the death of Billy Graham or the royal wedding. Of course, with the number of tabloids and Hollywood gossip rags, where would there be room?

 

Happily, gratefully, thankfully, there are still plenty of beautiful glossy magazines out there.

 

My mom subscribes.

 

There are 16 gun magazines at the grocery store in which I shop.