4 ms·

I'm not a huge sports fan. I'd rather play than watch but I did have a SI subscription as a kid. As a teen, I thougfhrly enjoyed the swimsuit editions. Howev

I'm not a huge sports fan. I'd rather play than watch but I did have a SI subscription as a kid. As a teen, I thougfhrly enjoyed the swimsuit editions. However, IMHO the article has missed it. Article claims that SI is a failure because "Real Journalism" is dying and SI should have used real writers. I don't think so, SI has been falling (like a lot of print) since the internet. Sports people want to read and talk about sports, SI was that outlet and they've lost the marginal subscriber. Now there are limitless places to go for a sports fix. SI was doomed from the beginning and lack of "Real Journalism" wouldn't have saved it. The real interesting question is does the brand still have value (Maybe not 1M/month) and what to do with it now.

ghaff 3y ago
I don't remember during exactly what period I had an SI subscription (I was much more into sports long ago) but at one point I probably was subscribing to 20 magazines. Today I don't pay for one. (Though I do have a couple of digital subscriptions I pay for.) And I probably dropped many of them before the quality deterioration became obvious. They just didn't fill a real need any longer and they were just piling up on my coffee table.
tqi 3y ago
Sports journalism has also never been a paragon of "real journalism." While there are certainly examples of great investigative pieces, much of what is written is dependent on access to and cultivating relationships with the subjects themselves (who in turn needed the media outlets for public exposure). With the internet and social media, athletes seem have decided to cut out the middleman via a slew of their own podcasts/yt channels/IG feeds.
- CM30 3y ago
  Yeah, the latter is an important point people tend to overlook. Originally the only way to get news about companies/product announcements, sports, art, music, media, etc was through third party middlemen in the way of news organisations and magazines. Now none of those need said middlemen anymore and can just reach their fans/customers/users directly through their own sites and social media profiles. So there's arguably no real value proposition for most subject specific news outlets anymore.

ghaff 3y ago

I don't remember during exactly what period I had an SI subscription (I was much more into sports long ago) but at one point I probably was subscribing to 20 magazines. Today I don't pay for one. (Though I do have a couple of digital subscriptions I pay for.) And I probably dropped many of them before the quality deterioration became obvious. They just didn't fill a real need any longer and they were just piling up on my coffee table.

tqi 3y ago

Sports journalism has also never been a paragon of "real journalism." While there are certainly examples of great investigative pieces, much of what is written is dependent on access to and cultivating relationships with the subjects themselves (who in turn needed the media outlets for public exposure). With the internet and social media, athletes seem have decided to cut out the middleman via a slew of their own podcasts/yt channels/IG feeds.

CM30 3y ago
Yeah, the latter is an important point people tend to overlook. Originally the only way to get news about companies/product announcements, sports, art, music, media, etc was through third party middlemen in the way of news organisations and magazines. Now none of those need said middlemen anymore and can just reach their fans/customers/users directly through their own sites and social media profiles. So there's arguably no real value proposition for most subject specific news outlets anymore.