Sports Illustrated

[Shadowlight]

I typically try to avoid starting new threads from left field these days but I couldn't plug this in anywhere. I have posted about Sports Illustrated at times here and I have gotten the impression that most if not all the caste football brethren don't subscribe and or read it now.

But as usual I will plow forward anyway. As a sports hound I have subscribed for many years with barely an interruption which happened decades ago. In the last issue I received they detailed plans about reducing the yearly amount of issues. Instead of weekly, which to be honest it hasn't been strictly weekly for quite some time now, they are publishing bi-weekly starting this year. Roughly twice a month but like banks and other modern institutions in the letter they act like they are doing the subscriber A FAVOR by offering LESS. Basically a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

Give me a break. I am a long time subscriber and OF COURSE I would prefer a weekly magazine over a twice a month slightly bulgier edition. Who the hell is kidding who? And needless to say the price of the magazine remains the same. So less print for the same amount of money. Sounds like a sweet deal to me. At least according to the editor who is trying to sugarcoat the screw job. The only bone they are throwing to subscribers is the Swimsuit Issue is thrown in as a bonus edition which it has been in the past so not really a bone after all. My understanding is that some men opt out of the swimsuit edition ( they give subscribers a choice). Needless to say I can't figure out that line of thinking for the life of me. Ha.

It begs the question on how they will cover events that ended two weeks prior to their publication. In recent times they have actually skipped events like Wimbledon which back in the day when people could breath freely and smile would have been unheard of. Are they going to skip coverage of say the four major tennis and golf tournaments and give you one of those look it up on their half ass website sort of thing? Their website sucks by the way. It is slow and gets hung up but I want to read the SI magazine not their damn website anyway.

SI is really the last bastion of serious or semi serious commentary on sports in magazine print form and while it too has been infected by the caste virus, (what hasn't) for the most part they have some talented writers and once in a while they offer up illuminating stories you won't find in most newspapers. In general they are less caste oriented than ESPN. ESPN as many of you may know puts out a magazine as well and I find it to be bloody horrible. But overall SI is less caste than ESPN which isn't saying much I know but I do not want ESPN DEFINING sports anymore than they do these days so it is important that other sports media outlets like SI stay relevant and on top of things.

 

[Don Wassall]

I've read or subscribed to SI most of my life, but let my latest subscription lapse a couple of years ago. No question a lot of good articles are mixed in with the majority cultural communist flow. I have many fond memories of SI from when I was a kid, but not so many as an adult.

Cutting back the number of issues is a sign of the times. Print publications have dropped precipitously in circulation over the past decade and there is no end in sight to that trend. Same with all-important advertising revenue. I've published a political newspaper for 33 years and it gets harder every year to keep it going in the age of the internet. There will always be a remnant base of readers for print publications (and books), but the question for any given publication is whether it's sufficient to keep it in business.

My favorite publication growing up was The Sporting News, a long-time family-owned sports publication that was heavily tilted toward baseball coverage, my then favorite sport. When the Spink family sold it to corporate interests it went downhill amazingly fast, by the mid '00s becoming an unreadable bunch of useless fluff that makes ESPN The Magazine look like serious journalism by comparison.

 

[white is right]

There is has been a consolidation of magazines with weaker publications either going bankrupt or becoming pay sites on the internet.

I too used to be an avid reader of SI and other magazines, but when the internet became larger in the late 90's my buying of magazines virtually ended as many of the monthly boxing magazines that I bought were grossly out of date. I also noticed that when the consolidation happened prices went up on these magazines as the quality of paper increased. Comics and sports cards have had a similar consolidation and price increases.

 

[Flint]

As hard as it is to mourn the fading of SI which long ago descended into heavy cultural marxism, the problem with another big print business going the way of the dinosaur is that the investigative reporting that they have done over the years has been very good. Unfortunately the fourth estate does have a role in society, digging up information and putting it together to shine a light on places that prefer the darkness. SI was pretty good at it because they got good stories that were important. That sold magazines. People now want all that for free, and loser guy sitting in his basement putting together other peoples stuff from the internet is not a substitute for the guy who went out IRL and dug up the dirt.

Unfortunately times have changed and what SI really excelled at was glossy color photos which could bring sport figures to life back in an age before the internet pumped out gigs of video. My son once asked me what I saw in my old baseball cards when I was a kid. I told him it was the only chance to see what those guys looked like! I would never get to see a Willie Mays or Sandy Koufax in real life, they never came to the AL park where I lived and only rarely showed up on the grainy B&W TV we had. Heck I didn't know what the local guys looked like except through the baseball cards. I remember what a thrill it was to get my first SI with large clear color photos of the people I had only read about until then. While that world has long gone I still think there is a place for color glossy magazines. I still flip through them at the dentists office but yeah the story is way out of date by then.

 

[DixieDestroyer]

I subscribed to SI from the late 80s thru the mid 90s, but lost some interest (whilst trying to save some dough). These days, I’d not pay a plug nickel for that rag. It makes a good litter box bottom-liner though.

 

[Don Wassall]

Was waiting in the dentist's office the other day and picked up an SI to read. I was very surprised at how thin it was at 60 pages, about half of what it was when my last subscription ran out just two years ago. The number of articles was noticeably down, and the number of advertising pages was way down. Looks to be in a death spiral, which is fine with me. The cultural communists are reaping what they sowed, which is massive indifference toward their agenda from the younger generations.

 

[white is right]

As hard as it is to mourn the fading of SI which long ago descended into heavy cultural marxism, the problem with another big print business going the way of the dinosaur is that the investigative reporting that they have done over the years has been very good. Unfortunately the fourth estate does have a role in society, digging up information and putting it together to shine a light on places that prefer the darkness. SI was pretty good at it because they got good stories that were important. That sold magazines. People now want all that for free, and loser guy sitting in his basement putting together other peoples stuff from the internet is not a substitute for the guy who went out IRL and dug up the dirt.

Unfortunately times have changed and what SI really excelled at was glossy color photos which could bring sport figures to life back in an age before the internet pumped out gigs of video. My son once asked me what I saw in my old baseball cards when I was a kid. I told him it was the only chance to see what those guys looked like! I would never get to see a Willie Mays or Sandy Koufax in real life, they never came to the AL park where I lived and only rarely showed up on the grainy B&W TV we had. Heck I didn't know what the local guys looked like except through the baseball cards. I remember what a thrill it was to get my first SI with large clear color photos of the people I had only read about until then. While that world has long gone I still think there is a place for color glossy magazines. I still flip through them at the dentists office but yeah the story is way out of date by then.

Yes the broke many scandals ie the Oklahoma scandal under Switzer, steroid abuse in various segments of society, pay for play in college sports, etc.

When ESPN does something similar online it doesn't seem the same reading it, I tend to only want to read the broad strokes and not finish articles.

As Don noted the publication is now really a pamphlet compared to what it used to be and budgets for stories that may not get printed if sources aren't verified are the first things to go when budgets are slashed.

 

[Shadowlight]

A grim follow up on the new Sports Illustrated "experiment" of publishing every two weeks instead of (sort of) weekly.

Below is a lengthy article that most if not all of you won't read but it captures the glaring problems with the magazine over the past couple of decades and especially the last several. Cutting back on their yearly issues has destroyed the great flow that was a hallmark of the magazine.

I couldn't give you an exact date but several years ago or more SI didn't cover Wimbledon because it finished on the week their double summer issue came out. That to me was a GIANT FLAG. Subsequently they have missed covering a few Wimbledon torunaments and other Tennis Grand Slams over the past five years or so. Wimbledon like the Indy 500, Kentucky Derby and The Masters were always venerated by SI over the years and they put out the best lavish coverage out there. There was a time I couldn't wait to get the new issue on Thursdays.

This year they couldn't do a proper College Basketball March Madness special because the magazine came out right before the selections were made. And to put a cherry on top of things they decided to SKIP The Masters. For the first time in history is my guess.

The article below goes into great detail of the downfall and rightly points out this every other week crap is NOT GOING TO CUT IT.

Unless they reverse course and get back to publishing every week or close to it I sense SI will be doomed which means there will be no print outlet, besides newspapers, in the USA left to document the big sporting events. Unfortunately SI is more than half way to that point as it stands now.

One silver lining. The new owner is trying to sell the magazine and in the article they are hoping it takes place before the middle of the summer.

I know most if not all here at caste don't bother with SI and my subscription runs out way down the road but for me SI, like so many other magazines in this tough day and age for print publications, has taken the short cut and in the end the quality of the magazine has gone way down.

Best case scenario is that SI gets bought out and returns to a weekly magazine and goes back to the philosophy that worked so well for them in the past that gives a middle finger to "modern day" conventions. If that doesn't work at least they went down fighting. Now they are just limping along in no man's land.

https://www.theringer.com/2018/4/11/17220176/sports-illustrated-future-meredith-sale-history

 

[Shadowlight]

I just learned about SI being up for sale after reading the article above. The company that bought SI late last year couldn't be more opposite if it tried. Take a gander at the titles of the Meredith Corporation : Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and Martha Stewart Living. WOW.

The good news is they want to sell SI and fast. Also looking to get rid of Money, Forbes and the historic Time magazine too.

The asking price for SI is too high but industry experts predict a big wig will buy it for the prestige and trophy aspect. Imagine the clout you could wield by buying SI?

I barely have enough money for groceries so that leaves me out ha but I can dream can't I?

As the new owner I would go back to 52 issues a year. I would pump up the swimsuit issue even further and create an even bigger cottage industry around it than even now. Word is that issue is the Golden Goose. And there will be ZERO guys in swim trunks in that issue. All ladies. It is called tradition.

There will be only one double issue at the end of the year. So it will go back to coming out every week. Including the swimsuit issue that makes 52. Perfect!

I would also go RETRO and return SI to it's roots. I would give it a retro look ( hey vinyl has made a comeback why not?) and move away from too much modern gimmickry. I look at it this way when people see cars driving down roads and highways they don't say to themselves that is swell. But when people see a train rounding the bend they still think it is neat. Bring back old fashioned stuff I say.

There would be mandatory rules. For example without exception there will be a Wimbledon cover and a Masters cover. Also there will be at the very least two tennis and two golf covers per year. On the average though I would like to see three tennis and golf covers every year. And the same goes for hockey with a mandatory cover for the Stanley Cup winner too.

I would cut back on the basketball and football covers to make room for sports like Track and Field and other Olympic sports like Women's Figure Skating or skiing etc.. Branch out like they did in the 50's and 60's.

I would also have at least one soccer cover every year. That could expand to two or three as the sport continues to become more popular.

The four majors in tennis and golf would be completely covered and the basketball, baseball, hockey and football previews would go back to the extra thick issues. That includes college football and basketball.

Will all of this result in more white athletes gracing the cover? You bet your ass. But it is essential to give sports a proper panorama rather than the narrow over emphasis on black football and basketball players that ESPN has perfected over the years with their long running attempt to introduce to us the black superman myth.

Buying a print medium today whether it be newspapers or magazines is an uphill battle for sure. But it also represents a great opportunity to assert a new narrative that pushes back on the computer robot world future ( that most people dread) and brings back good old fashioned stuff that actually gives people pleasure.

Buying SI to me is a great chance to change things up in the world so I would think some proud mega rich entrepreneur would jump at the chance to bring back SI to the golden ages or at the very least make it the staple of sports writing again.

We will see where the chips fall. I hope the buyer has grand designs for SI. Otherwise if it is one of those turn style operators SI will surely go down the drain for good.

See below two contrasts in covers. The first one is a classy Mickey Mantle picture in the style I want to see on a cover.

The second one is the just out Saquon Barkley cover. Not so classy with his shirt off giving off a primitive vibe.

[ Note having trouble getting the Barkley cover. No loss there. One other thing. There would only be ONE cover. None of this multi -cover regional crap.]

https://www.si.com/vault/issue/42445/1/1

 

[Heretic]

I just learned about SI being up for sale after reading the article above. The company that bought SI late last year couldn't be more opposite if it tried. Take a gander at the titles of the Meredith Corporation : Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, Better Homes and Gardens and Martha Stewart Living. WOW.

The good news is they want to sell SI and fast. Also looking to get rid of Money, Forbes and the historic Time magazine too.

The asking price for SI is too high but industry experts predict a big wig will buy it for the prestige and trophy aspect. Imagine the clout you could wield by buying SI?

I barely have enough money for groceries so that leaves me out ha but I can dream can't I?

As the new owner I would go back to 52 issues a year. I would pump up the swimsuit issue even further and create an even bigger cottage industry around it than even now. Word is that issue is the Golden Goose. And there will be ZERO guys in swim trunks in that issue. All ladies. It is called tradition.

There will be only one double issue at the end of the year. So it will go back to coming out every week. Including the swimsuit issue that makes 52. Perfect!

I would also go RETRO and return SI to it's roots. I would give it a retro look ( hey vinyl has made a comeback why not?) and move away from too much modern gimmickry. I look at it this way when people see cars driving down roads and highways they don't say to themselves that is swell. But when people see a train rounding the bend they still think it is neat. Bring back old fashioned stuff I say.

There would be mandatory rules. For example without exception there will be a Wimbledon cover and a Masters cover. Also there will be at the very least two tennis and two golf covers per year. On the average though I would like to see three tennis and golf covers every year. And the same goes for hockey with a mandatory cover for the Stanley Cup winner too.

I would cut back on the basketball and football covers to make room for sports like Track and Field and other Olympic sports like Women's Figure Skating or skiing etc.. Branch out like they did in the 50's and 60's.

I would also have at least one soccer cover every year. That could expand to two or three as the sport continues to become more popular.

The four majors in tennis and golf would be completely covered and the basketball, baseball, hockey and football previews would go back to the extra thick issues. That includes college football and basketball.

Will all of this result in more white athletes gracing the cover? You bet your ass. But it is essential to give sports a proper panorama rather than the narrow over emphasis on black football and basketball players that ESPN has perfected over the years with their long running attempt to introduce to us the black superman myth.

Buying a print medium today whether it be newspapers or magazines is an uphill battle for sure. But it also represents a great opportunity to assert a new narrative that pushes back on the computer robot world future ( that most people dread) and brings back good old fashioned stuff that actually gives people pleasure.

Buying SI to me is a great chance to change things up in the world so I would think some proud mega rich entrepreneur would jump at the chance to bring back SI to the golden ages or at the very least make it the staple of sports writing again.

We will see where the chips fall. I hope the buyer has grand designs for SI. Otherwise if it is one of those turn style operators SI will surely go down the drain for good.

Those are some great ideas. I had a subscription to SI for about 12 years...'77 - '88. Once the Caste system became entrenched, especially in football, I cancelled my subscription. All of these Rags are going bankrupt because they aren't offering a counter-narrative to the prevailing Caste media propaganda.

They lost sight of who their core audience was or thought all of us would be brainwashed by now by their ubiquitous and unrelenting propaganda, which includes Time, Money, Fortune, Newsweek, et al.

I've mentioned the similar approach that Marvel Comics has taken, and it's imploding on them as well. (((Who))) on earth would they think that their core audience (either sports or comics) would be comprised of radical feminists, black supremacists who can't read beyond an 8th grade level, and soy-boy cucks? There's a potentially huge market for a "Sports Illustrated" that is simply not pushing an agenda, but just calls a spade a spade. It doesn't even have to be expressly "pro-White", just honest, forthright and fact-based.

 

[Shadowlight]

Fully aware that I might be the only CF member that still cares about SI to me it is really the only mainstream media outlet left to challenge ESPN.

I am also surprised to hear members wishing it's demise. This from a publication that has and still does celebrate white stars? From a historical perspective they have placed Larry Bird on the cover 15 times or more. That doesn't shout out caste move.

Sure like so many media outlets they can approach many things from a caste perspective but overall SI is clearly fairer than ESPN.

This site is not a substitute for SI simply because we are one of many internet sports talk cites that lack the heft of a magazine like SI. One can argue print media is dead but I prefer it and think it is superior in so many ways to the internet. Not to mention it is a much easier and attractive way to preserve historical material. It is all well and good we celebrate white athletes on this site but at the end of the day it is more important that the general population gets to celebrate as well and that is why I believe SI plays an important role.

CF is influential but as a pirate site it is relegated to footnote status. SI draws in the mainstream crowds and at least I think we need them to counterbalance the full force assault from ESPN.

ESPN is worse than it ever has been. The morning talk shows are extremely caste leaning. They preoccupy themselves talking about non white athletes to the point where one could wonder if white athletes even exist anymore.

SI though has hit a road block. Since they decided to put it out once every two weeks they have clearly missed the boat on so many fronts. One recent example . They didn't cover Virginia winning the NCAA tournament. There is a photo showing Kyle Guy leaping high in the air in celebration and I suspect that would have been the SI cover if they were still a weekly.

I received the vaunted swimsuit issue last week and all in all it was fairly sexy. The bikini's seemed skimpier and attractive athletes like soccer star Alex Morgan and Lindsey Vonn looked appetizing. Even Paulina Porizkova at the age of 54 looked damn hot to me. She has always looked beautiful.

There was one thing that really did stick out though. And frankly it made no sense. They had a Muslim model who was posing but was covered from head to toe in clothing. A swimsuit issue with no flesh? Laughable to say the least. Just SI trying to act hip and multicultural but at the end of the day it makes them look plain silly. If you don't believe me flip through it at your local pharmacy.

Earlier this week I received a belated issue that was late. No PGA coverage and the NHL Bruins series was at 2-0 games. Probably got lost in the mail for a bit but it shines an example of how disruptive it was to move away from a weekly. They had Curry and Durant on the cover but Durant didn't play at all in the Portland series. On these types of timing events SI is caught in between and it makes them look lost in space.

As I mentioned earlier the company that has owned them the past couple of years is generally a female leaning brand with Good Housekeeping type of magazines being their specialty. But I thought ( mistakenly) someone would have bought SI by now since it has been up for sale for a year plus I believe. But their asking price was deemed too high I guess so it is still in limbo. I keep reading a deal might be close but nobody has pulled the trigger just yet. And whoever takes it over has to get it back where it comes out more often than once every two weeks.

Over the years I have enjoyed their profiles of white players. They recently wrote a positive piece on Gordon Hayward. But yes they have had some caste characters too. Perhaps the most egregious was longtime NBA head writer Jack McCallum. I think the entire time he was at SI he never could admit a white player was athletic. He was bad news for many years. He has a book out now about the history of West Coast NBA from Jerry West to the present day. I will check it out to see if he has changed. I doubt it.

But that said one of the greatest weekends (or maybe it was the best ever) was when Maria knocked off Serena at the age of 17 followed by Federer winning his second Wimbledon by beating Roddick. Even though the editor was slow on the draw when it came to tennis I just knew they would have to put either Roger or Maria on the cover. And it was a win-win for me since either one would make my day. Eventually they decided on Maria in what is now considered one of their iconic covers. It sent me sailing for the rest of the summer I was so high.

So with SI it is a baby and bath water type of thing. Sure it isn't perfect but if we leave everything to ESPN then we are in big trouble.

See below the cover that put me in a good mood for months. It was a turning point in women's tennis at the time since Serena seemed unbeatable. And Roger winning his second straight Wimbledon title solidified his rising grip on greatness. Oh the good ole days.

 

[Shadowlight]

The cover above was from 2004. I was already a Federer junkie ( I clipped out every notable article on him) and I became a Maria junkie too. I followed her every move and went to see her play in a night match prior to the US Open. The atmosphere was unreal. She lost to a no name that night but during the US Open the announcers and everyone else couldn't help but notice the cameras clicking courtside when she made her grand entrance in New York. God those were heady times. I am getting sentimental as a I get older I guess. Is it me or are things getting worse and the past wasn't quite as bad as I once thought?

Below is what I think SI was thinking of putting on their cover but of course Tiger won the Masters the week SI came out so the honky cover idea was quickly trashed.

 

[Shadowlight]

One final thought. As someone who treasures history I find it horrifying that print media will someday no longer exist. Not sure if that is true but one of the biggest problems in the sports media landscape today is there is little print media to offset ESPN. Sure there is talk radio and the internet but they aren't a substitute for a magazine. At least for me. Most newspapers sports pages have been cut way down. The New York Times still does a broad scope look at sports and is one of the few papers left that actually sends a reporter to the tennis majors like Wimbledon and the French Open. The Daily News used to send someone but they stopped. The Post doesn't. Probably the LA Times and maybe someone from Chicago attends say Wimbledon but most papers including USA Today keep downsizing.

And newspapers are still not a substitute for a magazine either which has an almost eternal aspect surrounding it.

SI has put my favorite baseball player Mike Trout on their cover 5 times. And if they hadn't cut down to a bi weekly that number would be higher. So I don't see the benefits for me personally as someone who loves to see the mainstream media write glowing articles on white stars for SI to collapse.

SI is far from perfect and many have pointed that out. But in my mind it is the best that is left and the most historically enduring. I even have a mini collection of covers and an expansive number of articles I clipped out. All about great white athletes of course. Ha. I wish I had been more diligent and adept in collecting. But I still have a decent reservoir of stuff.

The recent untimely issue still had a pre PGA piece and an NHL article on the upstart teams and an intriguing piece on an old time tennis star Suzanne Lenglen who led a wild life back in the 20's replete with cool old black and white photographs. She used to drink during matches. The roaring twenties indeed!

Listen to the ESPN Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic led morning talk shows you would not even know that the NHL finals are upon us. Tennis doesn't exist. And golf is mainly about Tiger. They are almost a monopoly as they continue to become nothing much more than a black superstar promoting company.

 

[Don Wassall]

One final thought. As someone who treasures history I find it horrifying that print media will someday no longer exist. Not sure if that is true but one of the biggest problems in the sports media landscape today is there is little print media to offset ESPN. Sure there is talk radio and the internet but they aren't a substitute for a magazine. At least for me. Most newspapers sports pages have been cut way down. The New York Times still does a broad scope look at sports and is one of the few papers left that actually sends a reporter to the tennis majors like Wimbledon and the French Open. The Daily News used to send someone but they stopped. The Post doesn't. Probably the LA Times and maybe someone from Chicago attends say Wimbledon but most papers including USA Today keep downsizing.

And newspapers are still not a substitute for a magazine either which has an almost eternal aspect surrounding it.

SI has put my favorite baseball player Mike Trout on their cover 5 times. And if they hadn't cut down to a bi weekly that number would be higher. So I don't see the benefits for me personally as someone who loves to see the mainstream media write glowing articles on white stars for SI to collapse.

SI is far from perfect and many have pointed that out. But in my mind it is the best that is left and the most historically enduring. I even have a mini collection of covers and an expansive number of articles I clipped out. All about great white athletes of course. Ha. I wish I had been more diligent and adept in collecting. But I still have a decent reservoir of stuff.

The recent untimely issue still had a pre PGA piece and an NHL article on the upstart teams and an intriguing piece on an old time tennis star Suzanne Lenglen who led a wild life back in the 20's replete with cool old black and white photographs. She used to drink during matches. The roaring twenties indeed!

Listen to the ESPN Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic led morning talk shows you would not even know that the NHL finals are upon us. Tennis doesn't exist. And golf is mainly about Tiger. They are almost a monopoly as they continue to become nothing much more than a black superstar promoting company.

SI has been sold again, and this time it looks like it will be rendered completely unrecognizable from its past:

"Sports Illustrated has been sold for the second time in less than two years. This time, however, the $110 million purchase by Authentic Brands Group places far more importance on the iconic magazine's reputation than the publication itself — pushing the name further into such ventures as gambling and live events. . . "As a trailblazer and cultural phenomenon, Sports Illustrated has created moments and experiences for its readers that are unmatched by any other sports brand," Nick Woodhouse, president and chief marketing officer of Authentic Brands, said in a statement. "We look forward to working with Meredith to extend Sports Illustrated's legacy and connect the brand with new audiences around the world." . . .

"Meredith will continue to publish the magazine and run its website for now — paying Authentic Brands a licensing fee to do so while maintaining editorial independence, according to both companies. Meredith's president of national media said he would integrate SI's print and digital products into Meredith's operations. In a memo to staff, Sports Illustrated Editor-in-Chief Chris Stone wrote that the magazine would seek to reach greater audiences on other platforms — including in live events, conferences, gambling and video games." https://www.npr.org/2019/05/28/7276...h-corporation-to-continue-publishing-magazine

Translation: In a couple of years time, if the print version of SI even still exists it will have been transformed into meaningless fluff to the point that by comparison the soon-to-be-defunct ESPN The Magazine will look like serious journalism.

I used to love The Sporting News when I was a kid, when baseball was my great sports love. It had every box score including spring training games, every possible stat, coverage of minor league baseball, reports on every MLB team in each issue, great columnists. Over time it branched into more coverage of the other major U.S. sports without sacrificing much in the way of baseball coverage, but after the Spinks family, which had founded it in the 1880s, sold its interest in the 1980s The Sporting News went straight downhill, eventually becoming an unreadable combination of fluff and crap, and is now available only in a digital version.

I don't have the same fondness and nostalgia for SI that Shadowlight does, but do recognize the amount of quality journalism and great photography it produced before slowly but surely succumbing to the siren call of "political correctness" though it still has some fair articles and focus, just not nearly enough for me to be interested in it anymore. But now about all that can be said is RIP SI.

 

[Shadowlight]

I have become aware that most if not all CF members either don't read SI and or dislike it. I like the articles on white stars. That said like so many magazines these days they play subscribers as fools. The last time they cut back from roughly a weekly to bi monthly they declared that as a result the magazine would improve. Predictably it got worse. Now this new ownership group have decided the magazine would be improved by going monthly and even saying I quote "So in 2020 SI will give you the magazine experience you crave by shifting to a monthly publishing schedule." Say what? I'm sorry. How the hell does going monthly improve the magazine. Talk about shoveling the you know what. 16 issues a year. Wow. Like other magazines they play their subscribers as fools.

Very few magazines are playing by the old rules. Time might come the closest as they put out one roughly every week. Hell Playboy comes out with maybe four issues a year now. Sorry that doesn't cut any sort of mustard. I got Rolling Stone for years because I like rock music but once they went to a monthly I told them to take a hike. And they raised their prices. Plus I don't much like contemporary music anyway so what the hell do I need that rag anymore.

I will continue with SI because I much prefer print to the internet plus my subscription runs for several more years. And as many know here I am a diehard sports fan. But it really is a shame that print magazines not only peddle in lies this new internet age as far as I am concerned hasn't made life better for people. Hell is anyone happy today? Have computers and cell phones increased the level of happiness in people? Speaking for myself? Hell no.