Bye Bye S.I.?

[MFS62]

The entire Sports Illustrated staff has been fired.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/spo ... 04337.html

NY Post says it, too:
https://nypost.com/2024/01/19/sports/sp ... e59JTZM820


Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

I thought this was going to be about Staten Island.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Might as well. SI's been essentially dead and an embarrassment for years now. Many of its online pieces read like they've been written by, no exaggeration, 10 year olds.

What a fall. I guess sports print media and journalism really is dying.

[MFS62]

Might as well. SI's been essentially dead and an embarrassment for years now. Many of its online pieces read like they've been written by, no exaggeration, 10 year olds.

What a fall. I guess sports print media and journalism really is dying.

The only people disappointed may be the collectors of the annual swimsuit issues.
Later

[metirish]

[Benjamin Grimm]

Whenever I click on an article from si.com, it's branded with something called "FanNation" and the articles are often rather insipid. Often it's written by someone named Patrick McAvoy and it's speculation on things that he thinks might happen, based on nothing but his own imagination.

If this is what Sports Illustrated has become, then its time has truly passed and it won't be missed by many.

[A Boy Named Seo]

They got busted recently for using AI writers with human names and human pictures and human interests so maybe Mr. McAvoy is one of those.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

I would say 99% of the problems with SI today are related to bad/incompetent management, even the degree to which they employ dummies like Patrick McAvoy and AI reports.

[MFS62]

A long, long time ago
I can still remember how those pictures
made me smile.
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could dream about that blonde from France.
And maybe I'd be happy for a while

But February made me shiver
in anticipation 'till they'd deliver
Bathing beauties to my doorstep
I couldn't take one more step.

So I can't remember if I cried
When I read about the end of that ride
But something touched me deep inside
The day that S.I. died

[Chorus]
So, bye-bye, I will miss my S.I.
Bathing beauties in bikinis under vibrant blue skies.
Disappointed boys'll be drinkin' whiskey and rye
Singin', "This'll be the day the mag died
This'll be the day the mag died"

Later

[metirish]

Very good , Ron

[whippoorwill]

Hubby reading to me aloud an article saying it’s because they are too ‘woke’

That vomit inducing word

Not sure how that applies here so we are ‘perplexed’

[MFS62]

The anti-wokers may be upset that SI covers women's sports a lot.
I don't know because I haven't read it for years.
Later

[Centerfield]

SI was required reading when I was a kid. Read those things cover to cover. It used to have some pretty good writing.

It’s too bad. But that’s life today. Everything is free and stupid and wrong.

[Edgy MD]

That should replace E Pluribus Unum as our national motto.

Omnia Libera et Stultorum et Iniuriarum

[batmagadanleadoff]

The Sports Illustrated Cover, a Faded Canvas That Once Defined Sports

It used to be the most coveted real estate in sports journalism. But its power to set the agenda disappeared along with its elite photographers.

Excerpt:

Maybe it was the wordless image of the United States Olympic hockey team celebrating the “Miracle on Ice.” Perhaps it was the perfect frame of Dwight Clark making “The Catch” to send the San Francisco 49ers to the 1982 Super Bowl. Or it could have been the declaration that a 17-year-old LeBron James was “The Chosen One,” 20 months before he played in his first N.B.A. game.

For sports fans of a certain age, the memory of running to the mailbox to see what was on the cover of the latest weekly issue of Sports Illustrated is indelible. For decades, the magazine’s photographers, writers and editors held the power to anoint stars and deliver the definitive account of the biggest moments in sports, often with just a single photograph and a few words on the cover. It was the most powerful real estate in sports journalism.

“When I was a kid and getting S.I., you didn’t have that immediate 24-hour news cycle just hitting you over the head,” said Nate Gordon, a former picture editor at Sports Illustrated who is now the head of content at The Players’ Tribune. “You would get that cover and you’d be like: ‘Man, this is what happened last week. That’s so cool.’”

To the extent any magazine had that power, it is severely diminished now. But the road has been particularly rough for Sports Illustrated, with its shrinking staff and reduced print frequency. Last week, most of the employees were either laid off or told their employment would be uncertain after 90 days, leaving the publication’s future in flux.

Sports Illustrated’s power to define sports discourse faded long before 2024, however. A combination of factors like growth of sports across cable channels, the presence of more team-controlled media and the ascendancy of the internet had been steadily eroding the influence of the magazine and its cover for years. But it is hard to overstate the power it once had.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/busi ... overs.html

[Benjamin Grimm]

I wasn't aware until this latest news that Sports Illustrated had been reduced from a weekly to a monthly publication. When did that happen?

[batmagadanleadoff]

I wasn't aware until this latest news that Sports Illustrated had been reduced from a weekly to a monthly publication. When did that happen?

2020.

[ashie62]

My brother was an art director under Terry McDonnell. Many have moved on the Meredith Dotdash under Kostya