Sports Illustrated Magazine

Mondo Times editors    Boulder Colorado USA

Posted at 3:21pm on Monday, November 9th, 2009

SI's Agassi Scoop Is Tweet-Scooped by...SI Writer

The New York Times reported on November 8, 2009:

"When it was revealed that in a forthcoming autobiography, Andre Agassi would admit to using crystal meth, it caused a predictable stir in the space where sports and celebrity gossip intersect. It also caused commotions at Time Inc. and CBS News.

Time Inc., the magazine publisher owned by Time Warner, had bought the rights to run excerpts from the book in Sports Illustrated and People, a deal aimed at breaking the news to a worldwide audience.

But the day before the magazines were to publish, a writer for Sports Illustrated prematurely revealed on Twitter Mr. Agassi’s admission to drug use.

Sports Illustrated removed the post after about 25 minutes, but it was too late. The news broke worldwide, and that evening, a newspaper in Australia that had not bought rights, but had acquired the materials, began publishing parts of the book.

Sports Illustrated still had the exclusive — but in a Twitter post that had vanished, and not in the pages of its magazine, which was published the next day, on Oct. 28."


The full story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/media/09couric.html

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 3:22pm on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

Time, Inc. Begins Layoffs at Sports Illustrated; Deeper Cuts Expected as Part of $100 Million Cost-Cutting Campaign.

The New York Times reported on November 3, 2009:

"Approximately 15 to 20 sales and marketing employees were dismissed from Time Inc.’s news group tonight, largely from Sports Illustrated, according to a Time Inc. executive.

Deeper layoffs are expected to be announced tomorrow, when Time Inc. is expected to confirm the elimination of $100 million in costs, mostly from staff cuts.

The executive estimated the total number of layoffs as being between 400 and 500 people. The largest percentage of layoffs are expected to come from the news division, which includes Time, Fortune and Sports Illustrated, this executive said."

The full story: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/time-inc-layoffs-begin-at-sports-illustrated/

Mondo Times editors    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 3:39pm on Sunday, July 26th, 2009

The Sports Illustrated Group, a division of Time Inc., launched "SI Swimsuit 2009" on July 22, 2009. It is a new mobile app for iPhone and coming soon to the BlackBerry. It is the first mobile application to deliver video of SI's swimsuit models, hundreds of SI swimsuit photos as well as sports scores, schedules and team information.

The application retails for $2.99, and features video and photos of all 20 models from the 2009 SI Swimsuit franchise and allows users to create their own daily sports calendar customizable to follow pro or college teams' along with a choice of SI Swimsuit model each month.

"The debut of the annual Swimsuit issue is one of the most popular days on the sports calendar. Now with the debut of SI Swimsuit application sports fans can create their own calendar and follow their favorite Swimsuit model and team 365 days a year," said Stacey Vollman, Vice President, and General Manager SI Digital."

Eric Kallgren    Boulder, Colorado USA

Posted at 3:15pm on Thursday, February 19th, 2009

February 16, 2009: Folio magazine reported that the A-Rod steroid scandal was good for business at Sports Illustrated:

"The steroid scandal surrounding Alex Rodriguez — a story broken by Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts — boosted traffic to SI’s Web site last week, but helped its rival, too.

SI.com saw a 31 percent increase in unique visitors on Saturday when the story was first posted, according to a spokesperson for the magazine. There were approximately 1.3 million unique visitors to SI.com that day, the spokesperson said.

But the “A-Roid” saga was a boon to ESPN, too. ESPN senior baseball writer Peter Gammons scored the first interview with the Yankees slugger, and the interview was viewed more than 2 million times within the first 24 hours of its posting, according to an ESPN spokesperson."