Comments on: What Happened to Sports Illustrated (for Women)?

By: “We The Media” of female sports : …Because I Played Sports

“We The Media” of female sports : …Because I Played Sports — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:39:25 +0000

[...] at how Dan’s predictions relate to the the female athletic industry - our one comprehensive magazine died at the end of 2002 because it wasn’t profiting. Not only that, but incredibly talented journalists are taking [...]

By: Ann

Ann — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:09:40 +0000

Danielle….show your athletes this: http://womentalksports.com. And keep checking back as we are working hard on it every day! And to think, it all started from this blog post…

By: Danielle MacMillan

Danielle MacMillan — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:52:44 +0000

My parents started subscribing to SI for Kids in my name back in 1997 (and I still have every issue at their house). I was in Junior High when I started getting SI for Women and I loved reading about female athletes who I could relate to and aspire to be. I thought it was so inspiring to finally have an outlet for female athletes to be celebrated and featured. I and learned a lot from reading SI for Women about athletes and about being an athlete.
When the magazine was canceled, I quickly lost interest in its replacement, Health Magazine, because as a young girl I didn’t feel like I needed any more images of women doing yoga or lifting 3 pound weights, I wanted to read about women playing professional sports and being successful athletes.
I now coach a high school girls basketball team and wish I had a resource like sports illustrated for women to show them that women can be successful in sports and are equal to male athletes.

By: Katharine Sinderson

Katharine Sinderson — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 16:27:42 +0000

Just to make another point about the article, the first attempt at a ‘SI for Women’ was in 1997, when two issues of ‘Sports Illustrated Women’s Sport’ were published, the first of these featuring a pregant Sheryl Swoopes in her Comets uniform. Then it took 1998 off, and returned in 1999, not 2000, running until December 2002 as you said. For some reason the first two issues were never aknowledged on the ‘SI for Women’ website, although at least one article from one of them was included in a Best American Sportswriting volume for that year.

Although there have been several attempts at producing a women’s sports magazine, ‘Women’s Sports’ has to be the grandmother of them all lasting 24 years in total and effectively spanning eras. The trend is definately web rather than paper publishing though and and I can’t see any of these titles making a comeback, however much some of us may want them.

By: Katharine Sinderson

Katharine Sinderson — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:51:25 +0000

I started to take ‘Women’s Sports’ back in the eighties, just as it was becoming ‘Women’s Sports and Fitness’, and I still miss that and would love to see it back. It had been started by Billie Jean King in 1974 and was regarded as the magazine of the Women’s Sports Foundation, but it lost its way, in my opinion, and was evetually absorbed into Conde Nast’s ‘Sports for Women’ in 1998. I enjoyed it more than ‘SI for Women’ personally, but the problem of a magazine covering women’s sports, which some of us still want, remains. I wish the WSF would produce something these days but I suppose they have other priorities.

By: mhueter

mhueter — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:22:58 +0000

Great! TOTALLY agree! Let’s get some other women’s sports bloggers to jump on board with this. If anyone is interested in talking more about this, please feel free to comment and I’ll contact you.

By: Ann Gaffigan

Ann Gaffigan — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:53:48 +0000

Crazy that I happened upon this blog entry (via heractivelife.com), as I just had this conversation with a journalist and his photographer colleagues at dinner last Sunday. My thoughts were along the same line as yours: that society plays a large role in this issue. I too was saddened when I started receiving Health magazine instead of SI for Women as a teenager. Who needs another magazine on doing crunches and losing weight? What about being strong? What about working out for better performance, not for a better body?

Ideas started swimming in my head when you said “I say it’s time we call the magazine and request its reappearance, at least on the Web”. I’m a web developer (see http://steeplechics.com), so I could help out on this. We should stay in touch and do some brainstorming.

Ann