The Death of Sports Illustrated
And what it means for the rest of sports journalism.
Dear readers,
Although we usually comment on the outside world of sports and politics, sometimes something happens within the sports media ecosystem that’s too interesting to pass up. In this case, it’s something that’s been happening for many years — though reached a nadir this week.
As young(ish) members of the media, it’s basically impossible not to be nostalgic about the Golden Day of Print Media, when glossy print magazines held real sway over American culture and writers got paid generously to write 10,000-word features. We even look back with longing at a slightly earlier internet age, when the internet was still exciting rather than frightening, new possibilities for journalists were opening up, and valuations were sky-high (for little reason). But amidst all of the strife in our industry today, maybe the most depressing development is what’s going on at Sports Illustrated. That’s our story for you today.
-Ian and Calder
For sportswriters of a certain generation, the story of how they became successful almost invariably either begins or eventually passes through the story of a single magazine: Sports Illustrated. Throughout the second half of the 20th century, SI consistently produced the sort of magisterial, literary sportswriting that helped define the genre: sweeping profiles of beloved sporting heroes, immersive looks into the unseemly underbelly of professional sports, and even the occasional foray into the space where sports and politics collided. The bylines scattered across its pages could also be found in the best non-sporting magazines of the day — names like George Plimpton, Joy Blunt Jr., and, on a few occasions, William Faulkner. As recently as the early 2000s — when the two of us were becoming literate sports fans — Sports Illustrated remained the go-to magazine for thoughtful, sophisticated, writing on American sports.
Suffice it to say that Sports Illustrated has fallen from the lofty literary heights that it used to occupy. But SI — which at this point is really a content factory/blog with a monthly print magazine attached — reached a new editorial low this week when it published verbatim a press release from the Atlanta Braves.
The release, which was filed under a contributor’s byline, highlighted the economic benefits that the Braves’ have generated for the greater Atlanta area, complete with a nifty Braves-branded infographic. SI’s writer added no independent commentary or context to the release, aside from a one-sentence disclaimer at the bottom: “(The above is a press release from the Atlanta Braves.).”
You don’t have to be a working reporter to know that this is, uh, not a journalistically-sound thing to do. Of course, there are probably lots of very sappy-sounding reasons that SI decided to do this: the writers and editors who toil away in the depth of digital content mills like SI are chronically overworked and overtaxed, and what they’re ultimately rewarded for producing is clicks — not high-quality content — so it doesn’t really matter what random collection of verbiage you toss onto your site, as long as it draws some eyeballs.
But SI’s decision to publish the unabridged press release begins to seem even more negligent, if not downright nefarious, when you consider the release’s content. The purpose of the release was to draw attention to a study of the economic growth that the Braves and their ballpark, Truist Stadium, have generated for the city of Atlanta. ($38 million in tax revenue during the 2022 fiscal year! Higher taxable property values! 7,500 jobs!) This might sound all nice and dandy, until you step back and realize that the real purpose of the report was to justify the roughly $300 million in public funds that the city of Atlanta agreed to spend on the construction of the new ballpark (formerly known as SunTrust Park), which opened in 2017.
The debate over public funding of sports stadiums is well-trod territory. Advocates say that stadiums are engines of economic growth that pay for themselves and more over time. Opponents argue it’s an inappropriate expenditure of tax dollars that ultimately redounds to private economic interests rather than the public good. In Atlanta’s case, dueling economists have issued competing studies arguing both sides of the point.
But what ultimately matters from a journalistic point of view is that the economic impact of Truist Park is contested, and that the Braves’ press release is a strategic move in that contest. The team’s release doesn’t even go to great lengths to hide the fact that it is, essentially, propaganda for public funding of other stadiums: The end of the release reads, “[This] is why cities all over the United States are attempting to replicate what we have built.” Substantiating this claim would require doing some actual reporting, which is, after all, what magazines exist to do.
In some respects, it’s hard to get too mad at the folks over at SI. It’s no secret that these are tough times for digital media — as the recent end of BuzzFeed News (which won a Pulitzer two years ago) and the bankruptcy of Vice underscore — and Sports Illustrated has certainly not escaped those hardships. In 2018, the magazine was sold by its long-time owner Time Inc. to a licensing company, which has used SI’s intellectual property to spin off a whole university of lifestyle and entertainment products while simultaneously shrinking the footprint of the actual magazine. Today, its most popular product is also its worst: the proudly sexist swimsuit edition.
For nostalgia’s sake, we hope that SI rediscovers its former glory and pulls through. But if it’s going to become a dressed-up messaging board for corporate press releases, maybe it’s better if it doesn’t.
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
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. . . what the hell is going on with the best basketball player in the world? “The Bucks’ Playoff Defeat Has Caused Giannis To Massively Think” by Giri Nathan in Defector (May 11, 2023).