Sports Illustrated Falls to the Internet

[IcyPatriot]

It's tough to feel sympathy towards a magazine that brought much of this on to itself with its editorial direction choices.

Yep ........ well said.
There was a time when some of their stories were a must read.

 

[QuantumMechanic]

Andy Benoit & Tim Rohan got the axe

Sadly, not Bertie Breer (that we know of).

 

[Patjew]

After my interest in cars and before I knew how to talk to girls (circa 1984-88) nothing meant more to me as a latch key kid than my SI waiting for me in the mailbox every Thursday.

That’s about the most Gen-X thing I’ve ever posted.

 

[BaconGrundleCandy]

After my interest in cars and before I knew how to talk to girls (circa 1984-88) nothing meant more to me as a latch key kid than my SI waiting for me in the mailbox every Thursday.

That’s about the most Gen-X thing I’ve ever posted.

Dr. Z

 

[shmessy]

Quick—someone spin this into a new Antonio Brown thread.

He didn't pass that English class at CMU fast enough so he couldn't become a Sports Illustrated columnist.

He's a cancer.

.

 

[Drewski]

No it doesn't. I had to deal with Spectrum's website today, where literally not ONE SINGLE THING worked correctly. One second I was head of household, then I wasn't, then I was again, every single billing line read 'unable to access payment information', the icon that would bring up my email literally disappeared right off the page. These are the buffoons who run the internet now.

Some thoughts

1. Using Spectrum as a proxy for the internet is too much creative license for me.

2. Assuming you are in MA, why are you using them as an ISP? I use them here in NC, but only because I have to. They’re the worst ******** ISP I’ve ever seen. Adelphia in the early 2000s was ahead of where they are now. And I largely support my own home network; all my equipment.

3. Next time a payment isn’t taken on a site, uncheck the “pay amount due” button and manually enter the value in the text box.

 

[rochrist]

Some thoughts

1. Using Spectrum as a proxy for the internet is too much creative license for me.

2. Assuming you are in MA, why are you using them as an ISP? I use them here in NC, but only because I have to. They’re the worst ******** ISP I’ve ever seen. Adelphia in the early 2000s was ahead of where they are now. And I largely support my own home network; all my equipment.

3. Next time a payment isn’t taken on a site, uncheck the “pay amount due” button and manually enter the value in the text box.

I use them because I have no other option in my town. When I got them they were Spectrum. As for being a proxy for the internet they are, I believe, the second largest broadband provider int he US.

And the issue isn't that the payment isn't being taken, it's that the links to anything having to do with payment DO NOT WORK. It just repeats 'unable to access payment info'. That's what it says when you want to look at a statement, see the current access pay the bill, anything. That's if it isn't off deciding I'm not the head of household.

Look, I worked in computers and software for 20 years. The Spectrum website would be an embarrassment if a group of sixth-graders had done it.

 

[Drewski]

I use them because I have no other option in my town. When I got them they were Spectrum. As for being a proxy for the internet they are, I believe, the second largest broadband provider int he US.

And the issue isn't that the payment isn't being taken, it's that the links to anything having to do with payment DO NOT WORK. It just repeats 'unable to access payment info'. That's what it says when you want to look at a statement, see the current access pay the bill, anything. That's if it isn't off deciding I'm not the head of household.

Look, I worked in computers and software for 20 years. The Spectrum website would be an embarrassment if a group of sixth-graders had done it.

Sounds like you’re an expert. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

 

[supafly]

nothing meant more to me as a latch key kid than my SI waiting for me in the mailbox every Thursday.

Especially that once a year surprise when you’d go out to the mailbox expecting Bird, Kareem, or maybe Jordan to be on the cover, and freaking Elle MacPherson would be staring back at you. Those were the days.

 

[rochrist]

Sounds like you’re an expert. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

There isnt anything to figure out. The problem is entirely on their end.

 

[Patsgofor4]

Actually, the swimsuit issue will probably be more important to them than ever.

Meh. Haven’t “read” the swinsuit issue for a few years....the political correctness of plus-sized “models” and athletes with thighs like Hannah and 6 pack abs don’t do it for me.

 

[chris_in_sunnyvale]

Dr. Z

1986 NFL preview issue: Dr. Z nailed all 6 division winners and the Broncos/Giants SB matchup. Freaking amazing. By the end of that year, he had Stanley Morgan as his All Pro WR selection opposite Jerry Rice in that annual wrap up article.

Teenage me found his football guru.

Regards,
Chris

 

[venecol]

You either like change or like irrelevancy more. Maybe my fav quote.

Sux but this is like cab drivers being taken over by Uber. You could see it coming light years away.
.

Funny how cab driver that lost his job to Uber was beat up by Klemko with SI who lost his job to the internet.

 

[venecol]

Maybe I really dont use any to often. Very lucky in that 90% of my work (gods work) is in downtown Boston. Just opened up a TB12 store on Boylston.

Are you related to Alex Guerrero?

 

[pheenix11]

Gee I wonder where they went wrong?

 

[venecol]

I haven’t seen the data or their revenue streams, but I probably wouldn’t continue with that if I were them. It was big in the 90s but now they’re competing with PornHub and other sites where free porn is a click away. Using a smart phone, you can find a quick DP sesh literally at your fingertips. How many people are going to shell out coin to look at super models (who SI also has to pay) when they can do that or just Google the pictures? Tech has claimed another victim. Tank it, rebrand, or recapitalize (if necessary).

Are you saying you used to jerk off to the swimsuit models issues?

 

[Ian]

This may mark the end for SI.com, and unfortunately, I have some knowledge about this situation.

Let me give you some background. The guy who founded Maven is Jim Heckman, who if I recall, worked for various media outlets and founded Rivals.com, which his business model was to find various fan bloggers to cover various sports. At the time, he was primarily doing college sports but recruited people to cover pro sports and other teams throughout the country.

After burning through an insane amount of money and forcing everyone at the end to pivot to a subscription-based business, Rivals.com went under with almost no warning. Unfortunately, I was part of that fiasco...but I won't get too far into it because it will only make me mad. (There are some people here who have actually been here since those days, which is still absolutely incredible).

Needless to say, after that happened, I started building PatsFans.com toward the end of the 2000 season and worked with a friend of mine to build a new forum for us to carry on because back then I was still new to programming. As the board grew, his hosting service kept having issues (there was a big crash in 2005 where I lost all the posts before that...which still to this day really bums me out). So I finally purchased a dedicated server of my own and moved everything over.

But getting back to Heckman, after the Rivals.com mess, he later launched TheInsiders.com, which was essentially the exact same business model (they asked many of us to come back, but I declined). That didn't do well and later became Scout.com (I was asked again and declined - this was actually in 2014), which I believe he was forced out of and it also later went under and the scraps were purchased by CBSSports.com.

Now it sounds like he wants to try the same thing with SI.

It's not good news for anyone who is a fan of that publication...not good at all. I'm pretty sure SI.com already had a fan blogger-run area called "FanSided", which is essentially their answer to BleacherReport and SB Nation and it appears that they're going to gut the reporters and use fan bloggers for the day-to-day, likely with the promise of credentials and the exposure they'll get being an affiliate of Sports Illustrated. For a publication that was known for quality long-form articles, that's a disastrous decision. But that's how they'll obviously save a ton of money.

Either way, knowing Heckman is in charge, I don't have a lot of hope for the people left there. I won't say anything further, aside from the fact his track record speaks for itself.

 

[Ian]

This sort of sums it up:

 

[Joker]

Rivals.com....thank you Ian for jogging memory cells I haven't used in decades. Wish I had a printout of all the Patriot Geocities sites around back then...the glorious frontier Eddie Andelman claimed would never last six months

 

[Ice_Ice_Brady]

So I understand that print newspapers have massive problems. I assume that a site like SI.com just doesn’t generate enough ad revenue to pay its staff and make a profit? What kind of numbers do you need to hit in order to be profitable? I always assumed the online edition made money too just because of the huge brand name tons of web traffic, so I guess I was way off.