Sports Illustrated Shrinks Its Presence

I’m well aware that reading “real” newspapers and magazines is to some like going into a bank to deposit a check or running to the store for a last minute gift.

Today’s Generation Z (better known as Gen-Z) and Millennials rarely if ever get information from anything other then what they can read online.  Sure, some read online editions of newspapers or even magazines but likely they are just perusing an interesting article or story and not the entire publication.

While I do my fair share of trolling stories via google, Twitter, Facebook etc. there is nothing quite like the feel of a newspaper or favorite magazine in my hands with print I can actually read.

Each morning along with my Dunkin' Donuts coffee I stop to pick up the New York Post which I get mostly for sports but also skim through for other content and that includes Page 6.  In full disclosure I also subscribe to the online edition of the Asbury Park Press for some local news content and obituaries which I’m somewhat fascinated with but enough of that.

If the New York Post is my daily fix then up until a few years ago I had a weekly fix and that was Sports Illustrated of which I have been a subscriber in some fashion since I was about 13 years old.

At first it was a Christmas gift from my parents and then later it was on my dime.  When I was a kid I simply could not wait to come home on a Friday and get my hands on the latest issue which I would read cover to cover usually by the end of the weekend.  For years I saved them in boxes and then reluctantly during one move I threw them all away. Boy do I wish I had them know.

Sports Illustrated to me was the bible and the written words from certain writers were the gospel.  Frank Deford, Peter Gammons, Dan Jenkins, Tex Maule, Kenny Moore, Paul Zimmerman, Gary Smith, Rick Telander and Rick Reilly just to name a few.  Their words painted pictures better than any camera.

In what was a sign of the times Sports Illustrated went from a weekly to a bi-monthly a couple of years ago which I did not like but endured. Wednesday it was learned that in 2020 the magazine will publish only once per month plus four special issues along with the popular and controversial Swimsuit Issue.

17 total issues for the year and obviously a very different magazine from the one I grew up with. Oh well.  Times have changed and I guess this is just another example.

Does anyone have change so I can make a call from a pay phone?