The End of Sports Illustrated – Blockbuster Announcement or Just Another Blockbuster?

Written By: @SipOfNaterade

January 19, 2024

Today it was officially announced that after 70 years of publishing the iconic Sports Illustrated magazine, the run has seemingly come to an end. In an email leaked to Front Office Sports, it was revealed that The Arena Group (SI’s publisher) has missed their most recent $3.75M licensing payment to Sports Illustrated and as a result, all employees of Sports Illustrated are being laid off.

Remembering all that Sports Illustrated was, the news is tough to imagine. Growing up, Sports Illustrated was a staple in my life and an iconic part of the sports world. Though it was not a team, my childhood self rooted for the print media company like it was as sacred as my hometown team and cherished the days I would come home from school to a fresh SI Kids Magazine to comb through. I cut out the posters and hung them on my walls and tore out the trading cards and compiled them into my trading card collector’s binders. The athletes that were lucky enough to grace the covers were idols of mine and the words in the stories were a captivating escape from what I was forced to read at school. Sports Illustrated was the industry standard when it came to sports journalism and every story and image was of the highest class.

But you’ll notice one thing about these anecdotes I share; they are all in the distant past.

I have to ask, while I understand the reminiscent reaction to the Sports Illustrated news, I also wonder: is it at all surprising? When is the last time you seriously considered paying money for something that Sports Illustrated produced?

I would consider myself one of the most passionate people about sports as a whole. Add in the journalism piece, and I have to imagine I would be right smack in the middle of the Sports Illustrated target market. My social media is flooded with sports media content, I spend much of my free time doing sport-related activities, I work in the sports industry, and sports thoughts swirl around my head at all hours of the day.

Yet, I haven’t picked up a Sports Illustrated magazine in… a decade? Maybe longer? Even now, as I sit in my apartment and write this story, I can see a framed Sports Illustrated magazine in my eyesight. The date? February 2007. Nearly seventeen years ago.

While some will claim this blockbuster news is a detriment on where society has gone, I’d argue that this is more likely just another Blockbuster. You remember, the (former) movie renting brick-and-mortar store.

There is a negative way to look at this news: Sports Illustrated is another loss in a long list of losses of a property that used to make us smarter individuals. These losses will continue, without replacements, and society will be worse off because of it.

I choose to not believe this is true.

Sports media content is consumed now more than ever before, and better yet, the barriers to entry have been torn down if you are hoping to be a part of the production. Rick Reilly was an iconic columnist for Sports Illustrated and had a grip on the entire nation. Why? Because he was one of the very few outlets available.

No longer do you need to have the established pedigree of a Rick Reilly to have your voice heard. Today, anyone can start a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, etc. and in a matter of minutes share their content to the world. Unique perspectives are all around us, and best of all, they are tailored directly to our interests. Never before was I seeing Reilly fire up a column in the middle of January about whether or not Mike Woodson was the right coach for Indiana basketball and sending that out to the national masses. But today, anywhere I look I can find a new story, a different perspective, a new data point that I hadn’t read anywhere else.

Blockbuster had Netflix, and Sports Illustrated had the new wave of sports media. I didn’t stop watching movies, I just found a new outlet to consume them.

With today’s news, I’ll miss the nostalgia of Sports Illustrated and all it brought to me growing up. It’s sad to know that the sports-loving kid I inevitably raise will not grow up on the Sports Illustrated stories, posters, and trading cards that I did. I’ll miss it, but I won’t think society is worse off because it is no longer around.

I’ll just miss it like I miss Blockbuster Video.