As I recently wrote to Generalissimo and Supreme Commander of the WAAGNFNP, Michael Berube, I don't particularly follow sports, but I used to enjoy leafing through back issues of Sports Illustrated whenever I visited my parents (my father had been a charter subscriber to the magazine). I always found lots of engaging well-written stuff. Now I'm reading that SI has gone down the tubes.
& Herr Doktor Professor Seven-Star Generalissimo Berube told me he unsubscribed three years ago.
Is there anything left? Is it really time for the GNF? In the words of our waterboard-lovin' Head Cheerleader-in-Chief, "Bring it on!"
5 comments:
Yeah, I jumped ship awhile ago, too, when it became clear even their Golf Extra sucked and there was little prospect for improvement. Can't tell you whether I just let the sub run out while I was in Japan or before then, though.
Think it was the swimsuits that did it?
SI was the first magazine that I actually paid the subscription for (back in high school), but I have not gotten it for years. Read it in waiting rooms now. Back in the day it was about the only real venue for thinking about sports beyond scores and home team boosterism.
Think it was the swimsuits that did it?
Well maybe only those suits (or lack thereof) on the women in that particular winter issue. It certainly was never a problem given SI's near complete lack of reporting on swimming and water polo. Unless your name was Mark Spitz, Greg Louganis, or Michael Phelps. In more than 40 years i never could bring myself to subscribe for that reason. I dare someone to find the lead stories on the 39th Annual National Collegiate Men's Waterpolo Championship that will begin December 1st after the current season is completed. What, you didn't know it was happening??? My alma mater is doing quite well thank you, currently ranked number two; another surprise this season is the Naval Academy kicking butt all over the East Coast.
And if you read SI today you wouldn't know the pre-Olympic NCAA swim season has begun, and expected to produce some amazingly fast times. Sure is a good thing we have had our own magazine for fifty years.
If by swimsuits you mean sales, maybe so. SI could have been the kind of magazine that told great stories about great achievements around the world in every sport that had them in a particular week (with a web site adding material that couldn't fit in each week's issue and allowing for a real focus on "minor" sports), but as the journalist argues, it just got more and more corporate and narrowcasted towards the wallets with disposable income. Typical story, but sad anyway.
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