Only a year ago, Sports Illustrated seemed to be at the end of the last strike at the end of ninth. Our colleague “60 minutes” Jon Wertheim, a senior writer from the magazine, takes up the story from there:
The comeback makes one of the oldest sports trophies. These are the patriots against the Falcons in the Super Bowl Li … The Red Sox against the Yankees … The heat against the Spurs … and each fucking sports film never made. The dashboard makes a dark canvas. Time ends. All are lost. But a team refuses to concede.
Signal Randy Newman’s soundtrack! The belief begins to train! Some rebounds are in the right direction! Some heroes meet the moment!
Everyone and everyone in the sports media have covered the return. But at Sports Illustrated, we were able to live it.
We are in January 2024 and a new operator decides to try to interrupt this 70 -year -old institution. He announces plans we all shoot us. Quite dark. Morale strikes a low water brand. There are matches necrologies. Some staff members would even leave their pride on the sidelines and Go to TV by pleading for a miracle.
And then there is a financial curve for a strike (too complicated to spell here), but the vouchers prevail. The ball club meets, putting the collective on the individual. Some breaks (and a few breaks of news) go in our place. And suddenly, Sports Illustrated is back from the edge.
We publish printing problems in 2025. We will broaden video production and launch podcasts, and organize events and sponsor stages.
If the return is a pillar of the sports cover, here is another: do not be the story. You are there to tell the news, not be the news. But in this case, the return of sports illustrated could be a story that deserves to be told, a rare explosion of good news in the media landscape today.
And after having lived, in a strange way, we may now be better equipped in our sports cover. Lessons learned? Leadership counts.
All these shots on teamwork, belief and optimism? They have truth and merit.
And sometimes “Hail Mary” raises the field below.
Printed supports can be breathless. Sports Illustrated is now, fortunately, not.
For more information:
History produced by Jon Carras. Publisher: Joseph Fundino.
