Sports Illustrated is an American sports magazine owned by media conglomerate Time Warner. It has over 3 million subscribers and is read by 23 million adults each week, including over 18 million men, 19% of the adult males in the United States. It was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice.

Its swimsuit issue, which has been published since 1964, is now an annual publishing event that generates its own television shows, videos and calendars.

The magazine's cover is the basis of a sports myth known as the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.

History

Two other magazines named Sports Illustrated were started in the 1930s and 1940s, but they both quickly failed. Following these events, there was no large-base general sports magazine with a national following. It was then that TIME patriarch Henry Luce began considering whether his company should attempt to fill that gap. At the time, many believed sports was beneath the attention of serious journalism and didn't think sports news could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter. A number of advisers to Luce, including Life Magazine's Ernest Havemann, tried to kill the idea, but Luce, who was not a sports fan, decided the time was right.

After offering $200,000 in an unsuccessful bid to buy the name Sport for the new magazine, they acquired the rights to the name Sports Illustrated instead for just $10,000. The goal of the new magazine was to be "not a sports magazine, but the sports magazine." Many at Time-Life scoffed at Luce's idea; in his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, Luce and His Empire, W.A. Swanberg wrote that the company's intellectuals dubbed the proposed magazine "Muscle," "Jockstrap," and "Sweat Socks." Launched on August 16, 1954, it was not profitable (and would not be so for 12 years) and not particularly well run at first, but Luce's timing was good. The popularity of spectator sports in the United States was about to explode, and that popularity came to be driven largely by three things: Economic prosperity, television, and Sports Illustrated.

The early issues of the magazine seemed caught between two opposing views of its audience. Much of the subject matter was directed at upper class activities such as yachting, polo and safaris, but upscale would-be advertisers were unconvinced that sports fans were a significant part of their market.

Innovations

From its start, Sports Illustrated introduced a number of innovations that are generally taken for granted today:

• Liberal use of color photos - though the six-week lead time initially meant they were unable to depict timely subject matter
• Scouting reports - including a World Series Preview and New Year's Day bowl game roundup that enhanced the viewing of games on television
• In-depth sports reporting from writers like Robert Creamer, Tex Maule and Dan Jenkins.
• High school football Player of the Month awards.
• Inserts of sports cards in the center of the magazine.