 There are a lot of things I’m willing to spend $6 on in pursuit of sports journalism, say a soft pretzel and a soda at the arena, or a month’s subscription to a premium online news service. But this week, I took the worst six dollar hit in sports. I actually purchased the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, in hopes of finding some way, even through the back door that is the semi-sports media, of connecting the magazine to sports. But in the end, the issue is more about bucks in billfolds than butts in bikinis.
To be honest, I’m really not sure when I last picked up the Swimsuit Issue. Back when men were men and I was but a strapping lad, my family kindly provided me with a subscription to the now-defunct Sport, which had its own (albeit Grade B) swimsuit issue that rendered SI moot. When I reached the age where staring at near-naked women had a value all its own, enough friends had access to magazines that throw parties in mansions to keep me entertained. And by the time I bought my own magazine subscriptions, ESPN: The Mag and The Economist were much higher on the priority list. Yeesh – I think this is the first Swimsuit Issue I’ve ever owned.
But hey, I’m happily in a relationship, and more importantly a professional, so I can handle this with the upmost…
<The magazine falls open. Your humble columnist gapes in awe.>
Oh my. Molly Sims is wearing, as my roommate put it, “a strategically placed string of diamonds.” They call it “the $30 million bikini.” We look like a pair of high school freshman sneaking a peek into the girls’ locker room. This just isn’t fair.
OK, so the models are still getting it done, but that was never in question, right? The mystery is still whether the Swimsuit Issue has a thing to do with sports – and not surprisingly, the answer is no. I searched high and low in the magazine, and there isn't a single thing that resembles sports media, semi- or otherwise. The real answer, though, is it doesn’t matter.
For years, the Swimsuit Issue created the exact same song and dance of critique and praise. SI would publish the naughty pics of the world’s top swimsuit models. The issue would sell out on newsstands. Some poor kid would get suspended from school for bringing it in. Women’s groups would criticize the objectification of women. Teenage boys everywhere would rejoice. The next week, SI published three letters from would-be ombudspersons condemning the issue – one from a disgusted young woman, one from a sympathetic man, and one from a mom, all canceling their subscriptions in outrage. Then came letters from the men, ranging from the chauvinistic to the realistic, all lauding SI for keeping the issue around. And, as a finale, SI gleefully published the requisite letter of support from a female reader. A few haters cancelled their subscriptions. SI laughed all the way to the bank. Everyone else moved on. Lather, rinse, repeat the next February. Yawn. Now, the debate has shifted to the sports media itself, especially online where there is more freedom to critique within the industry. MSNBC takes a tongue in cheek approach, applauding SI for managing to include one athlete, Maria Sharapova, in this year’s edition. (In SI’s defense, though, this is basically par for the course: in recent years, the mag has always featured female athletes who are attractive, fresh, and in the spotlight. Last year, it was four. This year, and most in the American sports environment, it was limited to one.) Most other mass media outlets simply note that the issue will hit the newsstand, then wash their hands of it (as if it is somehow beneath their stellar reporting on things like the “rivalry” between Shani Davis and Chad Hendrick.) The semi-sports media, though, isn’t afraid to take a few direct shots across the Swimsuit Issue’s bow. Bill Simmons says that the Swimsuit Issue, like most things in “Sports Guy’s World,” isn’t as good as it was in the ‘80s. The friendly deer who gives advice on behalf of the kids over at YAYSports! calls the Swimsuit Issue totally irrelevant in the era of Maxim. Deadspin bemoans the absence of the annual awkward, 4,000 word puff piece from a journalist trying not to be a skeezeball (since Rick Reilly had a real piece to write on tsunami victim/bombshell Petra Nemcova and isn’t afraid of being a skeezeball anyway). Heck, even campus columnists get in on the action – a young scribe at MSU-Mankato derides the Swimsuit Issue for not being sexual enough. In none of the “raging” debates over the sanctity of sports journalism as we know it, though, do the publishers themselves even attempt to answer one question posed by their critics: what do scantily clad models have to do with sports? Ironically, their defense comes from Bristol. On February 7th, ESPN Classic focused an entire episode of “Top 5 Reasons You Can’t Blame…” on defending SI for its swimsuit feature. The episode features a few defenses of the practice: after all, the women are paid awfully well to participate and don’t complain afterwards, and people can always choose to ignore it. The episode also gives some legitimate explanation for the issue’s production. Readers generally support the Swimsuit Issue, and write SI to tell them to keep it. Plus, the gap-filler material during the American sports fan’s dullest period is downright necessary, even as NASCAR and the Daytona rise in prominence to help fill February’s void. In a month full of make-believe college basketball rivalries called "Bracket Busters" and the ho-hum NBA All-Star Game and NFL Pro Bowl, can we blame SI for trying to warm our winter homes a little? (Or, for that matter, ESPN The Magazine for trying to do beefcake and NASCAR coverage at the same time?) But for all of the explanations that ESPN, or anyone, can give connecting the swimsuit babes to sports, none really explain why SI continues to publish the issue. Indeed, all of them are are overshadowed by (or, realistically, encompassed in) the number one reason the show cites for cutting SI some slack: money. On the air, the show makes a bold statement – the SI Swimsuit Issue makes more money, in a single issue, than most magazines do in an entire year, so much so that the profits from the beachside pics could help fund the rest of the magazine’s operations for its other 51 issues. Looking at the numbers, it’s not hard to see why. In his blog (unfortunately behind the Iron Curtain that is ESPN Insider), Darren Rovell reports that a full-page ad in the issue goes for $350,000. Assuming that a full-page ad is cheaper per square inch than smaller ads, and given that the magazine has over 100 pages of advertisements, ads pull in at least $35 million for SI. And that’s before a single fan of the Swimsuit Issue has purchased the special off the shelf or renewed his subscription because of it, or a single subsidiary deal for a DVD or a poster has been cut. Even if you knock out 30 million of those Frostys for Molly’s high-priced bathing suit, that’s enough cash to easily justify SI taking a week off from sports reporting to quench the thirst of military men trapped abroad or teenage boys trapped in adolescence. So forget semi-sports media – this isn’t even sports media. It’s pure business. And what’s wrong with that? The real question is: does this business model have staying power in the Internet era? SI doesn’t just provide the entire content of the Swimsuit Issue online; it actually provides more pictures online, and advertises the web version on a full page of the print copy. For free. Maybe SI will start charging for the online edition, but chances are that users don’t care enough to pay for pictures they’ll be able to find via Google for free. So, if money is the real motivation behind the Swimsuit Issue, one has to wonder if the issue would survive the slow but steady move of magazine content (and, more importantly, readers) to the Web.
For now, it’s tough to envision SI giving up the cash cow under any circumstances, so even if the rest of the magazine ceases to be exist in print outside of dentist offices and goes online-only, chances are you'll still see the Swimsuit issue at your local newsstand. So, sure, maybe there is something to be said for tradition. Maybe that’s why SI’s readers keep up the annual song and dance with the letter writing. And maybe that’s the reason we should hope that SI keeps the “passé risqué” coming. But, much more likely, there's simply something to be said for good ol' fashioned soft core and its money making ability. And if that keeps other online content free, and print subscriptions cheap, that's all the connection to sports that I need.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a magazine to reread.
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