Cons: Subscription$, sexist swimsuit issue, proliferation of tobacco & liquor ads, few women athlete covers
The Bottom Line: SI is for dedicated sports enthusiasts. Action photography is first rate-so is journalism. Get insightful opinions/perspectives from sports experts. Get insider information on athletes as only SI can deliver.
glomarrone's Full Review: Sports Illustrated Magazine Subscription
Most male Sports illustrated (SI) readers are eagerly awaiting the Swimsuit Issue due out shortly. The Swimsuit Issue began in 1964 to fill the lull between Super Bowl and Spring Training. I was originally going to wait for the new Swimsuit Issue to write my review, but decided to submit this now in order to participate in the Sports Write Off by jetbluefan1 and frostiepekkle. Our family has been subscribing to SI since the late sixties. We are big sports fans who watch baseball, football and golf & are avid Yankee fans. I also enjoy watching the New York Knicks. I began following the team in the late 60s when my cousin, a NBA player & coach, would give us game tickets. SI is especially interesting because I know the former editor-in-chief & taught in the same NYC school as his wife. Here’s my take on SI from a woman’s point of view.
Overall content
SI is a sports magazine that celebrates athletic achievement. It is filled with sports insights, previews and predictions. It captures major sporting events & the popular sports figures with spectacular photography, in-depth analysis & commentary. At the start of the season, for each major league sport, SI gives an analysis of the strengths & weaknesses of each team & predicts the eventual champion. As the season progresses, it concentrates coverage on the athletes & teams most newsworthy to readers. The magazine does a great job on covering the main sporting events such as The World Series, The Super Bowl, The Masters, The Final Four, The NBA Finals & The Olympic Games. It does well with all popular sports. It also offers in-depth coverage of golf plus NCAA basketball & football. There is less coverage on amateur sports. Special issues include: NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup, World Series, & NASCAR. Read other articles on auto racing, wrestling, boxing, soccer, skiing, horseback riding & Demolition Derby, et cetera.
The slick covers of SI are usually dramatic action shots of macho looking athletes taken during games. Others are posed portraits. On rare occasions, a female athlete is featured. This past year Sarah Hughes (March 4, 02) was the only woman so honored. In 2000, Olympic Gold Medalist swimmer Megan Quann was featured on the Sept 25th cover; Anna Kournikova appeared on the June 5th cover. A few other rare covers contain mainly a dramatic heading. Recent examples are: “The Cover NO ONE Would Pose For-Is SI Jinxed?”- Jan 21, 02 (refers to athletes allegedly becoming unlucky after appearing on a SI cover) & the June 3, 02 Special Report Issue on “Steroid in Baseball.”
The magazine is widely acclaimed for its striking photograph, which bring alive all the drama, excitement & emotion of the articles. Photographers have sports backgrounds & succeed in getting right to the very heart of stories capturing & freezing eventful moments, preserving them in pictures. The inside cover stories do not disappoint fans eager for information. Many have in-depth coverage - getting inside the minds of players, coaches & referees. The combination of the insightful stories & superb photography make SI so exciting to read. The magazine content is cleanly laid out on a single page & attractively illustrated. Why can’t more magazines do this? The magazine is divided into Departments, Inside… & The Lineup. Ads comprise about 50% of pages. Most are directed at male readers. Many are related to autos, sports, travel, snack foods, motorcycle, Internet & entertainment. I object to the many tobacco & liquor ads.
Departments
The 6-page photography rich Leading Off department opens issues. The dramatic action photos span two pages. Photos of athletes, filled with emotion, determination and sweat are captured during defining moments in different sports. Sometimes the focus is on fan reaction. Catchy captions & brief explanation explain the shots. Catching Up is a fun section for loyal fans that keeps up with the lives of former athletes who have quit playing. Reader Letters are always interesting reads. Readers are quite knowledgeable about sports. Some are highly critical; others praise content; a few are funny; many request specific sports information; most just want more sports coverage. SI received more than 36,000 letters last year. It prints a good mix of sentiment. Faces in the Crowd covers promising young local athletes who are just beginning to gain recognition.
Scorecard is a multi-article department with plenty of insider information on coaches, teams & individual players. I enjoy the variety but some of the clipped stories are indeed strange. There are longer pieces such as this week’s piece on sports gambling. Go Figure has fun fascinating sports facts. For the Record gives short obits plus gossip about players’ arrests, marriages, lawsuits, tax problems & reckless driving. There’s media coverage on sports-related TV programs/episodes & movies plus a short interview with a sports figure. The best parts are the ironic, funny quotes & reports in They Said It & This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse. For example, in a recent issue we learn that three female gymnasts banned by the Romanian Gymnastics Federation for appearing nude in an adult film were offered keys to the city by the Bucharest mayor.
Air & Space is an interesting column written each week by Steve Rushin. As a woman I especially enjoyed his recent Q&A interview with the chairman of Augusta National on the topic of admitting females to the single-gender club. The 71-year old Hootie Johnson’s response to media criticism – the only thing that bothers me is being called “an old coot.”
All departments appear in the beginning of the magazine except Rick Reilly’s column The Life of Reilly which ends issues. The 44-year old Reilly has been writing for SI for close to 20 years & has won the National Sportswriter of the Year 7 times. He authored a sports book, appeared in a Miller Lite commercial & has done some crazy stunts. His weekly opinion piece covers general sports topics. I agree with most of what he writes particularly his touching piece on Jake Porter, the mentally challenged 17-year old on the Northwest High Football team who was permitted, with consent of both coaches, to score a touchdown instead of just taking a knee fulfilled his lifelong dream. Another piece speaks about how ironic it is that the NFL fines players for violent hits but encourages it in its licensed video games. Last year around this time he wrote a funny piece on lip reading coaches’ plays. Others concern the lack of media coverage of women athletes & coaching his daughter’s basketball team. This week he weighs in on the LeBron James issue. I think he’s pretty funny, interesting & inspiring.
Inside… covers all the week’s important sports stories. Whether it’s the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, College Sports or Motor Sports, SI is there with insightful analysis & information. Read informative & entertaining comments on the players, teams, important plays, strategies & referee calls. Sometimes there are personal stories about players' families. Some of the best sports writers write in the section – Peter King (NFL,) Tom Verducci (Baseball,) Phil Taylor (NBA) & Jaime Diaz (Golf.) Over ½ of the magazine’s content is The Lineup’s features about a particular athlete or team in a variety of sports or special reports on High School Sports.
Fans of SI magazine will enjoy the SI Website, www.cnnsi.com for scores, interviews, highlights & Stats. Read player & team profiles plus pre-game previews & insider analysis/commentary by the best SI reporters & writers. Read the Top Stories of the Week; view outstanding SI photography. In addition, find comprehensive International coverage of World Sports, Extreme Sports, Outdoor & Winter Sports plus Golfonline with Golf magazine. Check out the Sportsman of the Year section. Relive some of sports greatest moments through the database of SI back articles. Check out City Pages for headlines, stories & information about local pro & college teams. For fun there are Fantasy Sports games. For kids there are Games & Funny Pictures. Sign up for the CNN NewsPass (fee) & upgrade to RealOne SuperPass for greater benefits. The site is easy to navigate & loads quickly.
Time, Inc publishes the weekly SI magazine. There are occasional combined, extra or expanded issues. There is an extra issue in February & two combined issues in July & year’s end. Subscribe online - get 4 trial issues & a free stadium blanket. If satisfied, receive 36 more issues for just 85¢ per issue (40 in all.) Save 75% off the cover price. Cover price is $3.50. The full subscription price is $81.95, which, unfortunately, is too expensive for most teens. Although SI is a magazine for different ages, the main audience is young males. SI has an average readership of 23 million readers each week – 86% is male. The median age of readers is just over 36. Issues average under 100 pages-the current issue has 94 pages.
My Final Thoughts.
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has now become a media event with TV news shows reporting when the issue appears on newsstands. SI produces a special video on the making of the Swimsuit issue & it sometimes appears as a TV Special. Personally, I don’t think the Swimsuit Issue belongs in this serious sports magazine - especially now that there is non-stop sporting events. It has now become so popular & profitable with circulation doubling for the issue that SI will never eliminate it. I think the whole issue is silly, sleazy and demeaning to women. Many of the suits are impractical & uncomfortable to wear; poses are too erotic. The models really do not look like the girl next door no matter what the magazine says. Although the magazine has toned down the issue a bit & eliminated children from shoots, it still can do more. Even many SI male readers express disapproval. At least SI has eliminated those insulting ads questioning the manhood of male reader protesters.
SI should remain true to its mission of covering sports achievement. Instead of an issue devoted to supermodels clad in ridiculously skimpy swimsuits, I think SI should instead devote the yearly issue to a celebration of women athletes’ achievement. Less than 10% of sports content in SI is devoted to women. There are many more newsworthy stories of women athletes that SI could cover and doesn’t. Perhaps the reason SI Women failed is because women sports enthusiasts & athletes didn’t want a separate sports magazine filled with beauty & fashion fluff. They want to be taken seriously & given equal treatment inside SI. They want to be pictured in action shots not in cute little suggestive outfits. Now that SI Women has folded, I hope that SI picks up the slack By including more women athletes.
Sports Illustrated has one of the highest youth readerships – 5.2 million young readers. It also contains one of the highest numbers of alcohol and tobacco ads & they are increasing. In the current issue, 14% of ads are for alcohol & tobacco. Are these advertisers targeting our youth? What is especially peculiar is that alcohol & tobacco are actually detrimental to sports performance.
I am always surprised at how quickly after the sporting event, SI hits the newsstands with spectacular photographs plus insightful & in-depth commentary. There is more sports information inside SI than in its competitor Sporting News. The journalism, photography & sports coverage is also more superior. Sporting News, however produces more issues – 60 yearly. If you want more insightful coverage on sporting events than is delivered on TV, Radio & in newspapers, pick up SI.
Sports Illustrated magazine is a weekly magazine that is the sports authority for American sports. SI magazine features quality photographs and news a...More at Magazines.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.