[IGGcitable]

Sports Illustrated (as well as the Sporting News, and before that, the departed SPORT and Inside Sports) has gone to complete #$# because of the influence of ESPN. Everything is reduced to the dumb$#$# lowest common denominator. (The same way MTV has basically reduced all coverage of music and pop culture to complete $#$#.)

Of course you can add ESPN the Mag to that list -- it was $#$# from the get-go because of the overwhelming corruptive influence of the parent network. Every f$#$#king thing in ESPNMag is written from the viewpoint of a smart-aleck New York/Boston/LA fratboy who thinks he is about 100,000% cooler than he actually is.

That is not to say ESPN the network is 100.000% total $#$# -- probably it's no more than 95% $#$#. There is a place for ESPN to exist in the world. But SI is not ESPN; it is, and was a very different animal.

Instead of trying to capitalize on what made it great (great writing, great photography, in-depth coverage nobody else could match, a perspective of intelligence) SI tried to become an imitation of ESPN and in the process threw away what it did best. I subscribed for 30+ years and let it expire a few years ago with hardly a second thought.