The Death Of Sports Illustrated

Growing up, I waited for Thursdays the way the other kids in school yearned for Friday. On Thursdays I knew Sports Illustrated would be waiting for me in the mail. I’d snatch every copy as if it were the last piece of bacon at a breakfast buffet, jump face first on my blue comforter and dive in. Sports Illustrated accounted for a large percentage of all the reading I did as a kid.

It bewildered teachers why I wouldn’t open up The Canterbury Tales or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer but would read every word of a 5,000 word opus by Frank Deford about a high school football coach I didn't know existed or turn to Peter Gammons to learn exactly why my New York Mets hero Dwight Gooden had lost his fastball. Then there was the “illustrated” part: Photos by legends such as Walter Ioos, Jr. brought the games alive for me in bracing color that popped off the page. This was all back when ESPN was just a trailer and a satellite dish. Tom Sawyer couldn’t hope to compete

These writers were my version of “the great works”: They were literary, acerbic, and, for me, total catnip. Sports can make for storytelling gold, and it’s no coincidence that some of our finest writers also lent their talents to writing about sports. For people from George Plimpton to David Halberstam to Ralph Wiley, writing about these games we play, including writing for Sports Illustrated, was where they sharpened their craft and even made their names.

Sports Illustrated was where I also learned about how issues of race, sexuality, class, and gender intersected and invaded the games we love. The legends of greats such as Muhammad Ali or Billie Jean King were only burnished when presented through the eyes of these writers. This is not to say that there weren’t blindspots, or articles so dated they make you cringe, but that was part of it as well. Even when SI faceplanted, it put issues on the table, and the magazine was taken seriously. 

When I worked with SI, briefly writing an online column, I was dancing on air. It felt like wildest dreams fulfilled. That my time there did not work out was fine with me. I was proud to just have my name in the mix with the alums of the mag who had made so much magic.

That is why it is an absolute tragedy to hear on Friday that 70 years after its first iconic first cover which featured future baseball Hall of Famer Eddie Matthews, Sports Illustrated may be dead. We are not talking about another reduction in talent or a decline in quality. (Layoffs have plagued the magazine in recent years. Then there was the recent scandal where it was revealed Sports Illustrated was using AI-generated stories and fake bylines and eschewing journalism for poorly worded drek around which to frame ads.) We are talking dead as a doornail, dead as a roasted San Diego Chicken. A corporation called Authentic Brands Group, bought SI in 2019 for $110 million, has laid off all the writers and editors.

Authentic Brands Group, it must be said, is a chilling name in an inauthentic age where brands are more valuable than human beings. ABG has reportedly ended its agreement with another umbrella company called Arena Group to publish the mag. Sports Illustrated for Kids is also being killed off. According to A. J. Perez at Front Office sports, Arena told SI employees in a Friday email that it had been “notified by Authentic Brands Group (ABG) that the license under which the Arena Group operates the Sports Illustrated (SI) brand and SI related properties has been officially revoked by ABG. As a result of this license revocation, we will be laying off staff that work on the SI brand.”

Unionized staff has reportedly been given 90 days’ notice. Non-union workers were to be fired immediately.

The union, known as the Sports Illustrated Guild, wrote on X : “We have fought together as a union to maintain the standard of this storied publication that we love, and to make sure our workers are treated fairly for the value they bring to this company. It is a fight we will continue.”

The timing of the loss of Sports Illustrated is terrible. This week we learned that the NFL, which already employs journalists via the NFL Network, is aiming to buy a piece of ESPN, throwing the independence of “the WorldWide Leader In Sports” into doubt. We desperately need a national, well-funded, and trusted sports media, that doesn’t have to answer to the professional sports leagues themselves. Sports has always been about far more than just sports. Today it’s billion-dollar, taxpayer funded urban development projects whose impact is felt well beyond the stadiums themselves. It’s fights over the appropriate posture during the national anthem and militaristic cheers for the next war. It’s corruption that demands to be ferreted out. It’s issues of marginalization and oppression and how they reflect or are fought in this influential world. It’s a cabal of billionaires in charge who prefer to do their business in shadows.

Sports Illustrated used to spotlight the darkness. Now it is just a feature of the night.

The news of SI’s demise comes the same week news broke that the chair of Sinclair Broadcasting – the right wing media empire – is purchasing the legendary Baltimore Sun newspaper with clear plans to gut the paper under the leadership of right wing flame thrower Armstrong Williams. The stories of SI and the Sun are different but also the same. Just as I grew up waiting on Sports Illustrated every Thursday, generations of people have depended upon the Baltimore Sun for the latest on local politics, police corruption, and the treasured sports franchises of the city. 

Now the Sun will be a paper, if Sinclair’s history is prologue, aimed at attacking the city itself. Expect divide and conquer politics, a war on truth that will benefit the wealthy who believe they should live above scrutiny, or “total immunity,” to borrow a Trumpian phrase. 

What’s happening in Baltimore is a reminder that the American press as a whole is greatly endangered. What’s happening to SI is a reminder that sports journalism in particular is, as well. An independent press in the world of sports has never been more needed. It has also never more been in doubt. I am sad the chapter is closing. I’m also sad for my son who looks forward every week to getting Sports Illustrated for Kids. This was the year he was graduating to the actual mag. Yes, SI is not what it was, but a thin gruel is preferable to an empty bowl. As a kid I never could have imagined that the mag would go away like this. Now I can’t imagine what could, in this media environment, possibly replace it.