It was only a year ago that Sports Illustrated appeared to be down to the last strike in the bottom of the ninth. Our “60 Minutes” colleague Jon Wertheim, a senior writer at the magazine, picks up the story from there:
The great comeback makes for one of the oldest sports tropes. It’s the Patriots against Falcons in Super Bowl LI … the Red Sox against the Yankees … the Heat against the Spurs … and every damn sports movie ever made. The scoreboard makes for a grim canvas. Time is winding down. All looks lost. But one team refuses to concede.
Cue the Randy Newman soundtrack! Belief starts to form! A few bounces go the right way! A few heroes meet the moment!
Anyone and everyone in sports media has covered the comeback. But at Sports Illustrated, we got to live it.
It’s January 2024, and a new operator decides to try and gut this 70-year-old institution. He announces plans to fire us all. Pretty bleak. Morale hits a low-water mark. There are assorted obituaries. Some staffers would even leave their pride on the sidelines and go on television pleading for a miracle.
And then, there’s a financial curveball for a strike (too complicated to spell out here), but the good guys prevail. The ballclub comes together, putting the collective over the individual. A few breaks (and a few news breaks) go our way. And suddenly, Sports Illustrated is back from the brink.
We’re publishing print issues in 2025. We will be expanding video production, and launching podcasts, and staging events, and sponsoring stadiums.
If the comeback is a pillar of sports coverage, here’s another: Don’t be the story. You’re there to chronicle the news, not BE the news. But in this case, the comeback of Sports Illustrated might be a story worth telling, a rare blast of good news in today’s media landscape.
And having lived through it, in a weird way, maybe we are now better equipped in our sports coverage. Lessons learned? Leadership matters.
All those cliches about teamwork and belief and optimism? They have some truth and merit.
And sometimes “Hail Mary” heaves downfield ARE completed.
Print media may be gasping for breath. Sports Illustrated is now, happily, not.
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Story produced by Jon Carras. Editor: Joseph Frandino.
