Sports Illustrated

Sports Illustrated is an American sports media company owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. It has over 3.5 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. Its swimsuit issue, which has been published since 1964, is now an annual publishing event that generates its own television shows, videos and calendars.

History
Two other magazines named Sports Illustrated were started in the 1930s and 1940s, but they both quickly failed. Following these events, there was no large-base general sports magazine with a national following. It was then that Time patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill that gap. At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and did not think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right.

The goal of the new magazine was to be "not a sports magazine, but the sports magazine." Many at Time-Life scoffed at Luce's idea; in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Luce and His Empire, W.A. Swanberg wrote that the company's intellectuals dubbed the proposed magazine "Muscle," "Jockstrap," and "Sweat Socks." Launched on August 16, 1954, it was not profitable (and would not be so for 12 years) and not particularly well run at first, but Luce's timing was good. The popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode, and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things: Economic prosperity, television, and Sports Illustrated. The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. Much of the subject matter was directed at upper class activities such as yachting, polo and safaris, but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market.

After more than a decade of steady losses, the magazine's fortunes finally turned around in the 1970s when Andre Laguerre became its managing editor. A European correspondent for Time, Inc., who later became chief of the Time-Life news bureaus in Paris and London (for a time he ran both simultaneously), Laguerre attracted Henry Luce's attention in 1956 with his singular coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, which became the core of SI's coverage of those games. In May 1956, Luce brought Laguerre to New York to become assistant managing editor of the magazine. He was named managing editor in 1960, and he more than doubled the circulation by instituting a system of departmental editors, redesigning the internal format, and inaugurating the unprecedented use in a news magazine of full-color photographic coverage of the week's sports events. He was also one of the first to sense the rise of national interest in professional football.

Laguerre also instituted the innovative concept of one long story at the end of every issue, which he called the "bonus piece." These well-written, in-depth articles helped to distinguish Sports Illustrated from other sports publications, and peanuts helped launch the careers of such legendary writers as Frank Deford, who recently wrote of Laguerre, "He smoked cigars and drank Scotch and made the sun move across the heavens...His genius as an editor was that he made you want to please him, but he wanted you to do that by writing in your own distinct way."

Laguerre is also credited with the conception and creation of the annual Swimsuit Issue, which quickly became, and continues to be, the most popular single issue of the magazine each year.

Innovations
From its start, Sports Illustrated introduced a number of innovations that are generally taken for granted today:
 * Liberal use of color photos - though the six-week lead time initially meant they were unable to depict timely subject matter
 * Scouting reports - including a World Series Preview and New Year's Day bowl game round-up that enhanced the viewing of games on television
 * In-depth sports reporting from writers like Robert Creamer, Tex Maule and Dan Jenkins.
 * Regular illustration features by artists like Robert Riger.
 * High school football Player of the Month awards.
 * Inserts of sports cards in the centre of the magazine.

Color printing
The magazine's photographers also made their mark with innovations like putting cameras in the goal at a hockey game and behind a glass backboard at a basketball game. In 1965, offset printing began to allow the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling the editors to merge the best color with the latest news. By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of "fast color" a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. An intense rivalry developed between photographers, particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, to get a decisive cover shot that would be on news-stands and in mailboxes only a few days later.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, during Gil Rogin's term as Managing Editor, the feature stories of Frank Deford became the magazine's anchor. "Bonus pieces" on Pete Rozelle, Woody Hayes, Bear Bryant, Howard Cosell and others became some of the most quoted sources about these figures, and Deford established a reputation as one of the best writers of the time.

Regular segments
Who's Hot, Who's Not: A feature on who's on a tear and who's in a slump.

Inside the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, College Football, College Basketball, NASCAR, Golf, Boxing, Horse Racing, Soccer and Tennis (sports vary from issue to issue) has the writers from each sport to address the latest news and rumors in their respective fields.

Faces in the Crowd: honors talented amateur athletes and their accomplishments.

The Point After: A back-page column featuring a rotation of SI writers as well as other contributors. Content varies from compelling stories to challenging opinion, focusing on both the world of sports and the role sports play in society.

Creative freedom that the staff had enjoyed seemed to diminish. By the 1980s and 1990s, the magazine had become more profitable than ever, but many also believed it had become more predictable. Mark Mulvoy was the first top editor whose background contained nothing but sports; he had grown up as one of the magazine's readers, but he had no interest in fiction, movies, hobbies or history. Mulvoy's top writer Rick Reilly had also been raised on SI and followed in the footsteps of many of the great writers that he grew up admiring, but many felt that the magazine as a whole came to reflect Mulvoy's complete lack of sophistication. Mulvoy also hired the current creative director Chrisopher Hercik. Critics said that it rarely broke (or even featured) stories on the major controversies in sports (drugs, violence, commercialism) any more, and that it focused on major sports and celebrities to the exclusion of other topics.

The proliferation of "commemorative issues" and subscription incentives seemed to some like an exchange of journalistic integrity for commercial opportunism. More importantly, perhaps, many feel that 24-hour-a-day cable sports television networks and sports news web sites have forever diminished the role a weekly publication can play in today's world, and that it is unlikely any magazine will ever again achieve the level of prominence that SI once had.

Nevertheless, Sports Illustrated remains the predominant sports publication in print journalism with a consistent weekly circulation topping 3 million per issue.

Sportsman of the Year
Since its inception in 1954, Sports Illustrated magazine has annually presented the Sportsman of the Year award to "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement." Roger Bannister won the first ever Sportsman of the year award thanks to his record breaking time of 3:59.4 for a mile (the first ever time a mile had been run under four minutes).

Drew Brees was the most recent sportsman of the year for 2010. He led the New Orleans Saints to their first Super Bowl win after the 2009 season. Derek Jeter was Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year in 2009. Jeter led the New York Yankees to their 27th World Series Title in 2009 while batting .334 in the regular season and taking home the 2009 Silver Slugger and Gold Glove for American League shortstops.

Sportsman of the Century
In 1999, Sports Illustrated named Muhammad Ali, the Sportsman of the Century, at the Sports Illustrated's 20th Century Sports Awards in New York's Madison Square Garden.

All-decade awards and honors

 * Top 20 Female Athletes of the Decade (2009)
 * Top 20 Male Athletes of the Decade (2009)
 * All-Decade Team (2009) (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, college basketball, college football)
 * Top 10 Coaches/Managers of the Decade (2009)
 * Top 10 GMs/Executives of the Decade (2009)
 * Top Team of the Decade (2009) (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, college basketball, college football)
 * Top 25 Franchises of the Decade (2009)
 * Major League Baseball honors
 * National Basketball Association honors
 * National Football League honors
 * National Hockey League honors
 * College basketball honors
 * College football honors

Cover history
The magazine's cover is the basis of a sports myth known as the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx. To find the number of times an athlete has appeared on the cover go to: http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/cover/home/index.htm

Most covers by athlete, 1954-2011

Most covers by team, 1954-May 2008

Most covers by sport, 1954-2009

Celebrities on the cover, 1954-2010

Fathers and sons who have been featured on the cover

Presidents who have been featured on the cover

Tribute covers (In Memoriam)

Photographers

 * Robert Beck
 * John Biever
 * Simon Bruty
 * Bill Eppridge
 * Bill Frakes
 * John Iacono


 * Walter Looss Jr.
 * Lynn Johnsom
 * David E. Klutho
 * Bob Martin
 * John W. McDonough
 * Manny Millan


 * Peter Read Miller
 * Bob Rosato
 * Chuck Solomn
 * Damian Strohmeyer
 * Al Tielemans

Spinoffs
Sports Illustrated has helped launched a number of related publishing ventures, including:


 * Sports Illustrated Kids magazine (circulation 950,000)
 * Launched in January 1989
 * Won the "Distinguished Achievement for Excellence in Educational Publishing" award 11 times
 * Won the "Parents' Choice Magazine Award" 7 times
 * Sports Illustrated Almanac annuals
 * Introduced in 1991
 * Yearly compilation of sports news and statistics in book form
 * SI.com sports news web site
 * Sports Illustrated Australia
 * Launched in 1992 and lasted 6 issues **
 * Sports Illustrated Canadian edition
 * Was created and published in Canada with US content from 1993 - 1995. Most of the issues appear to have the same cover except the say 'Canadian Edition'.  These issues are numbered differently in the listing.  A group of the Canadian issues have unique Canadian Athletes (hockey mostly) and all the Canadian issues may have some different article content.  The advertising may also be Canadian centric.
 * Sports Illustrated Presents
 * Launched in 1989
 * This is their tribute and special edition issues that are sold both nationally or regionally as stand alone products. **Originally started with Super Bowl Tributes the product became a mainstay in 1993 with Alabama as the NCAA National Football Champions. Today multiple issues are released including regional releases of the NCAA, NBA, NFL, MLB champions along with special events or special people.  Advertising deals are also done with Sports Illustrated Presents (Kelloggs).


 * Launched on July 17, 1997
 * Online version of the magazine and sports site for CNN.com
 * Sports Illustrated Women magazine (highest circulation 400,000)
 * Launched in March 2000
 * Ceased publication in December 2002 because of a weak advertising climate
 * Sports Illustrated on Campus magazine
 * Launched on September 4, 2003
 * Dedicated to college athletics and the sports interests of college students.
 * Distributed free on 72 college campuses through a network of college newspapers.
 * Circulation of one million readers between the ages of 18 and 24.
 * Ceased publication in December 2005 because of a weak advertising climate