THE FIRST ISSUE OF SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS PUBLISHED

Today, The Grandma has been reading one of her favourite magazines, Sports Illustrated, the American one whose first issue was published on a day like today in 1954.

Sports Illustrated (SI) is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954.  

Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twice. It is also known for its annual swimsuit issue, which has been published since 1964, and has spawned other complementary media works and products.

Owned until 2018 by Time Inc., it was sold to Authentic Brands Group (ABG) following the sale of Time Inc. to Meredith Corporation. The Arena Group (formerly theMaven, Inc.) was subsequently awarded a 10-year license to operate the Sports Illustrated–branded editorial operations, while ABG licenses the brand for other non-editorial ventures and products. 

In January 2024, The Arena Group missed a quarterly licensing payment, leading ABG to terminate the company's license. Arena, in turn, laid off the publication's editorial staff.

In March 2024, ABG licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that the print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff.

In May 2024, Sports Illustrated failed to deliver a print copy of the publication for the month to its subscribers for the first time in the magazine's 70-year history, according to the New York Post’s Josh Kosman (May 17, 2024).

There were two previous magazines named Sports Illustrated before the current magazine was launched on August 9, 1954.

In 1936, Stuart Scheftel created Sports Illustrated with a target market of sportsmen. He published the magazine monthly from 1936 to 1942. The magazine focused on golf, tennis, and skiing with articles on the major sports. He then sold the name to Dell Publications, which released Sports Illustrated in 1949 and this version lasted six issues before closing. Dell's version focused on major sports (baseball, basketball, boxing) and competed on magazine racks against Sports and other monthly sports magazines.

During the 1940s, these magazines were monthly, which prevented them from cover current events. There was no large-base, general, weekly sports magazine with a national following on actual active events. 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 did not 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.
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.

In 1965, offset printing began. This allowed the color pages of the magazine to be printed overnight, not only producing crisper and brighter images, but also finally enabling the editors to merge the best color with the latest news.

By 1967, the magazine was printing 200 pages of fast color a year; in 1983, SI became the first American full-color newsweekly. An intense rivalry developed between photographers, particularly Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, to get a decisive cover shot that would be on newsstands and in mailboxes only a few days later.

On November 27, 2023, Futurism published an article alleging that Sports Illustrated was publishing AI-generated articles credited to authors who were also AI-generated; the latter practice apparently extended to their profile photos, which the website alleged were sourced from online marketplaces selling such photos.

After Futurism reached out to The Arena Group, the magazine purportedly removed some of the implicated writers and republished their articles under other AI-generated authors with notes disclaiming its staff's involvement. In response to the report, a spokesperson for Sports Illustrated claimed that the affected articles were product reviews written without the involvement of AI by AdVon Commerce, a third-party company who they claimed used pseudonyms to protect author privacy and had already severed ties with; meanwhile, writers and editors at the magazine sharply criticized the alleged practices.

On January 5, 2024, The Arena Group missed a $3.75 million quarterly licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group. Two weeks later, on January 19, Authentic Brands Group terminated its licensing agreement. As a result, The Arena Group fought back by announcing that it would lay off the entire Sports Illustrated staff.

In March 2024, Authentic Brands Group licensed the publishing rights to Minute Media in a 10-year deal, jointly announcing that the print and digital editions would be revived by rehiring some of the editorial staff.

More information: Sports Illustrated

 In a magazine, one can get  -from cover to cover-
15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

Maya Angelou