Sports Biblio Digest 8.7.16: On the future of Sports Illustrated
News, Views and Reviews About Sports Books, History and Culture
Also In This Issue: Favre Leads Hall of Fame Class; Olympic Potpourri; As Summer Fades
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This is Digest issue No. 50, published Aug. 7, 2016. The Digest is a companion to the Sports Biblio website, which is updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To view this newsletter in a browser, please click here. Click here to view this newsletter in a browser.
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Sports Illustrated unveiled last week an overhaul of its website only two years after the last redesign, and it was a change that was badly needed.
Gone is a clunky, slow to load homepage plagued by intrusive overlaying tabs and equally aggravating automatic videos—a scourge of the digital media universe in my estimation—have been improved. A clean, scrollable portal is easy on the eyes and to navigate.
What’s more, this site is functional, something its botched predecessor could not claim.
The new website comes just in time for the Rio Olympics, which provides a good opportunity for SI to continue its reinvention. In a message to readers on launch day, SI editorial director Chris Stone wrote that the new site is the first step of “a broader transformation” of the venerable sports media brand.
That Sports Illustrated has been caught up in the wave of change in the media industry in the last two decades is an understatement. Once considered the gold standard of in-depth sports journalism—fleshed out expertly by Michael MacCambridge in his 1997 history of the magazine, “The Franchise”—SI has gotten plenty of competition from ESPN and other newer websites.
Some of its finest writers have moved on or retired, although many remain: S.L. Price, Alexander Wolff, Jon Wertheim, Peter King, Tim Layden, Tom Verducci, Michael Bamberger and more. Charles Pierce and Jonah Keri have come on board recently, and verticals devoted to the NFL (MMQB), college sports (Campus Rush) and soccer (Planet Fútbol) have enhanced its online offerings (with an NBA vertical launching soon).
The swimsuit issue also remains, despite the protestations of those with gender grievances, and the print magazine, while hardly the size of its former self, remains a good, pleasurable read.
A splendid narrative feature before The Masters explored the odyssey of Tiger Woods, who hasn’t won a major since 2008 and may never catch Jack Nicklaus’ record of 18 majors, Woods’ stated goal since the beginning of his career.
Veteran SI golf writer Alan Shipnuck didn’t get Woods’ cooperation for the story, but talked to many people who know him and have competed against him, and came up with the kind of insights that have helped give the magazine its reputation. Such as this nugget from Hank Haney, Woods’ former instructor, who said Woods told him in 2007 that he was satisfied with his career:
"That was a big wow. I finally understood he really doesn't give a s---. It was obvious in the way his work ethic fell off and in his attitude on the course that he had lost a lot of his desire. On some level he was just tired of being Tiger Woods."
A couple weeks later, Wright Thompson of ESPN The Magazine dropped his opus on Woods, including his obsession with becoming a Navy SEAL and the golfer’s life after his father’s death. This also was a fine piece, touching on much of the same ground.
It was also much longer and more sprawling (complete with acts, as if this were a play), and at times overwrought about Woods’ interpersonal battles. While Shipnuck lets his interview subjects do the talking, Wright gets a bit melodramatic (Woods also declined to be interviewed), although he lands some intriguing comments from Michael Jordan.
While I enjoyed reading both pieces, I really appreciated Shipnuck’s more economical, focused approach. That may be a function of him writing for a more slimmed-down down magazine (a typical issue of SI is around 60 or so pages).
For those of us who grew up reading the magazine, before the web, before you could read out-of-town sportswriters at other publications, Sports Illustrated was the window to the wider, more intelligent sports world. Breaking colossal stories, such as Denny McLain’s ties to organized crime, became a stock-in-trade as the coverage of sports expanded far beyond the fields of play.
A good example of what a reader can still find was on the redesigned SI site’s launch day, a heartbreaking story by Michael McKnight about the American sprinter Houston McTear, whose drug-ravaged life tragically ended last year.
This is why for me SI still is “The Franchise,” but the sports media environment has become brutally competitive in the digital age, and a new generation of readers remains elusive to capture.
Prefacing the new website was a rebuild of SI’s hallmark archive, The Vault (along with an excellent companion podcast) and it remains a treasure trove. I never understood why MacCambridge didn’t write more about the legendary photographers—Neil Leifer and Walter Iooss Jr. among them—in his book.
Sadly, SI has no more staff photographers, laying off those who remained last year. Like many newspapers and magazines, it uses only freelance contributors, a sign of the times to be sure but a psychic loss all the same.
Stone, who recently stepped into his new role, acknowledged in an interview with Nieman Lab that “we’re not the monolith we once were.” He's eager to embark upon a number of new digital projects, including a tech and media vertical utilizing the talents of influential SI media writer Richard Deitsch. While Stone is a 20-plus-year veteran of SI, he sounds like he understands the digital realm.
Sports Illustrated has done well to immerse sports fans in its glorious 62-year-history, emerging as it did as the American sports landscape was venturing into a more modern sensibility. A redesigned website won’t address all of its future challenges, including the dark clouds of layoffs that have hovered for several years.
But it’s a promising restart in an attempt to push an iconic media brand more boldly into the future.
Olympic Potpourri
Sally Jenkins fires the first of what figure to be many shots from the American media contingent at NBC’s “plausibly live” coverage, starting with the delayed opening ceremonies. Some high-interest sports events also figure to be on tape, but not as many as London four years ago with Rio time only an hour ahead of New York.
Yet Jenkins’ argument isn’t a new one. “Packaging” the Olympics by U.S. rights holders is decades old, and plenty of cable and online options have been gradually added in recent years. Despite the demands of real-time media hounds who live on social media and always have the television turned on, most American viewers are casual fans at best.
They also have jobs and other obligations that may prevent them from watching in the middle of the day, or don’t give a whit about what anybody’s outraged about on Twitter at any given time.
There may be a moment when the demands of digital-savvy millennials and obsessive fans reach critical mass and eclipse those of the non-traditional hordes when it comes to how we watch the Olympics. That time doesn’t appear to be anytime soon.
Yes, NBC’s penchant for making you wait, excessive commercials and rah-rah USA commentary can be grating. But most of those doing the griping, myself included, aren’t the intended audience. I don't like the late start times for the NBA Finals and NCAA Final Four, also timed for maximum viewers in prime time, but media critics seem oblivious to those complaints.
Tucked away in L.A. media writer Tom Hoffarth’s comprehensive look at Olympics coverage—including NBC’s challenges detailing the many problems facing the Rio games—is the news that Olympics historian David Wallechinsky has not published an update of his massive “The Complete Book of the Olympics” this year. Hoffarth reports Wallechinsky is working on an online Olympics encyclopedia, which suggests that the days of this effort appearing in print may have come to an end;
David Epstein of ProPublica (an SI alum) goes long on efforts to undermine the World Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into Russian doping allegations. He spoke to Jack Robertson, WADA’s former chief investigator, who admitted he leaked information to force the agency to take action;
The games are underway in Rio, and doping stories are still front and center. At Vice Sports, Patrick Hruby makes a compelling case for ending the war on doping, but presents the concerns of those who want “clean” sport;
While cracking down on doping at the Olympics may be a relatively new thing—and many think it’s taken far too long—then consider how much all kinds of cheating have been part of the Games, going all the way back to ancient times;
For the first time, athletes without a home nation due to wars and other troubles will compete in the Olympics as part of a team of refugees. All 10 of them walked in together in the Maracanã Stadium Friday during the opening ceremonies;
At Slate, Daniel Engber goes long on Caster Semenya and the slim body of performance science that feeds the controversial topic of sex verification in sports;
More women’s sporting events are being created at the Olympics, but some think that’s not enough, especially in distance and other events that would enable female athletes—including Katie Ledecky— to test their full limits. Not mentioned was the female sports fan, and the financial-gate-advertiser support to women's sports.
Pro Football Hall of Fame Inductees
Former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre issued a heartfelt, 36-minute induction speech in Canton Saturday as the headliner of an eight-man class that included Tony Dungy, Marvin Harrison, the late Ken Stabler, Eddie DeBartolo Jr., Kevin Greene, Orlando Pace and the late Dick Stanfel.
Favre choked up and broke out into tears several times when speaking of his family, and especially his late father Irwin, who was his high school coach in Kiln, Miss. “This is tougher than any 3rd-and-15, I assure you,” he said.
“So never discount being a father and the statements that you make ... you are very important to your children. The lesson is we come and go very quickly, so love them each and every day."
The first full-scale biography of Favre, “Gunslinger” by Jeff Pearlman, will be published in October.
A couple of new features at the Hall of Fame facility include a fan “experience” entitled a “A Game for Life” and 700 of some of the most valuable football cards in the world. They are part of a collection of more than 300,000 accrued by art dealer and collector Robert Casterline and Dan Hunt, son of the late Hall of Famer Lamar Hunt.
A Few Good Reads
The Indianapolis Star dropped a bombshell report this week, that USA Gymnastics systematically ignored concerns about allegations of sexual abuse of athletes by coaches, some of whom are serving prison sentences;
The University of North Carolina is responding to NCAA allegations of academic fraud involving student-athletes by arguing that the NCAA has no jurisdiction in academic matters at all;
The Associated Press has released its all-time Top 100 ranking for college football to mark the 80th anniversary of its poll. The team at the top, surprisingly enough, isn’t the one that would have you singing “Deacon Blues;”
In a series for the Brisbane literary magazine Griffith Review that explores the meaning of Australian sports, two academics Down Under bemoan the “whiteness” of Aussie Rules football. I didn’t realize the argot of the social justice professoriat was reaching this deeply to all corners of the world, but these fierce polemics are all the rage these days, complete with a Black Lives Matter reference.
At ESPNFC, Rory Smith writes about the problems some English Premier League teams create for themselves by relying on guru thinking to guide them in the transfer market;
The University of Oregon will be the host of the first-ever college sports technology confab in October. Of course it’s named “QuackThon;”
Comcast Sportsnet is re-airing a documentary on the Philadelphia Stars Negro League team on Aug. 13; DVD copies of the film also are available at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, and online;
From Zocalo Public Square and the Smithsonian, David Davis writes about the forgotten Avenue of the Athletes in Los Angeles.
As Summer Fades Away
I got a little dreamy this week as August got underway. While it still feels like summer—is it dreadfully hot and humid for you too?—school has started here in metro Atlanta, football teams are practicing and the stirrings of the fall sports season are taking shape.
This is the time of year when I took one of my most relaxing vacations ever, to Colorado, and it was full of the kind of recreational activities I need to revive. Memories of a respite to Cape Cod inspired this post on the sailing art of Edward Hopper.
Also on the blog this week, I wrote about Roger Kahn’s “Memories of Summer,” which is an ode to his love of baseball and literature and the early years of his journalism career. It also continues his explorations of the relationships between the game and fathers and sons.
Off the Sporting Green
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is among the featured authors at the Library of Congress’ National Book Festival in Washington on Sept. 24. His newest book, “Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White” will be published Aug. 23;
Read books, live longer. Well, of course.