The Sports Illustrated Cover, a faded canvas that once defined sports

Perhaps it was the wordless image of the United States Olympic hockey team that created the “Miracle on ice.” Maybe it was the perfect setting for the making of Dwight Clark.”The catch” to send the San Francisco 49ers to the 1982 Super Bowl. Or it could have been the explanation that a 17-year-old LeBron James “The chosen one”, 20 months before he played in his first NBA game.

For sports fans of a certain age, the memory of running to the mailbox to see what was on the cover of the latest weekly issue of Sports Illustrated is indelible. For decades, the magazine's photographers, writers and editors had the power to anoint stars and provide the definitive coverage of the sport's biggest moments, often with just a single photo and a few words on the cover. It was the most powerful real estate in sports journalism.

“When I was a kid and had SI, you didn't have that instant 24-hour news cycle that just hit you over the head,” says Nate Gordon, a former photo editor at Sports Illustrated and now head of content at The Players' Tribune. “You'd get that cover and you'd be like, 'Man, this is what happened last week. That's so cool.'”

To the extent that any magazine had that power, it is now severely diminished. But the road has been particularly difficult for Sports Illustrated, with its shrinking workforce and reduced printing frequency. Last week, most employees were laid off or told their jobs would be precarious after 90 days, leaving the future of the publication in flux.

However, Sports Illustrated's power to define sports discourse faded long before 2024. A combination of factors such as the growth of cable sports, the presence of more team-controlled media, and the rise of the Internet influenced the magazine and its cover steadily eroded for years. But the power it once had is difficult to overestimate.

Robert Beck was one of Sports Illustrated's last remaining photographers when the magazine laid off all its photojournalists in 2015. He is best known for his frontal photo of a sports bra-wearing Brandi Chastain celebrating the US soccer team's victory in a penalty shootout in the 1999 Women's World Cup final.

There were dozens of photographers at the game, and Mr. Beck was far from the only one to snap a photo of Ms. Chastain's celebration — though unlike others, he captured her image head-on, rather than from an angle. It was the photo's placement on the cover of Sports Illustrated that made him famous.

“As far as Joe Normal knows, he thinks Robert Beck has the only photo of that,” Mr. Beck said.

Famous athletes such as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have each appeared on the magazine's cover dozens of times. One image of Mr. stands out for Fred Vuich. Woods op.

Mr. Vuich was working on his first assignment for Sports Illustrated during the 2001 Masters. Stationed on the 16th hole for Sunday's final round, he thought he would get a photo of Mr. Vuich. Woods who would sew his fourth major in a row, the Tiger Slam, with a birdie. But Mr. Woods missed the birdie putt and Mr. Vuich didn't have enough time to reach the distant 18th green.

Instead, using a silent camera without a motor so as not to disrupt Mr. Woods' backswing, Mr. Vuich hit a wide shot from a tower of his tee shot on the final hole, nearly surrounded by fans. The editors of Sports Illustrated put it on the cover, along with one word: “Masterpiece.”

“That photo made my career,” Mr. Vuich said, pointing out compositional similarities to the cover photo of Sports Illustrated's first issuein 1954, which showed the Milwaukee Braves third baseman Eddie Mathews, small in the frame at home plate in a crowded stadium.

In addition to capturing classic moments, Sports Illustrated could introduce athletes to the wider world. Mr. James was still in high school when he first appeared on the cover in 2002.

“The cover pushed me to the national stage whether I was ready or not,” he said in an interview book published in 2009 with journalist Buzz Bissinger.

Superstar athletes, both long before and after Mr. James appeared on the cover, clamoring for a spot and promising photographers and writers hours of their time. Such was the influence of Sports Illustrated that the annual swimsuit issue helped fuel the rise of supermodels like Kathy Ireland, Tyra Banks and Brooklyn Decker. But with great power comes great responsibility – and one superstar has never forgiven the magazine after feeling it treated him unfairly on its cover.

Mr. Jordan hasn't granted interviews to Sports Illustrated writers in 30 years, after a cover told him to “Pack it up, Michael” and called his short-lived baseball career “embarrassing.” Steve Wulf, who wrote the accompanying article but not the coverline, did apologies for that since.

Other athletes had more complicated relationships with the Sports Illustrated cover. In 1989, the magazine featured Michigan State's Tony Mandarich on the cover and called him “the best offensive lineman ever” shortly before he was taken second overall in the NFL draft.

Mr. Mandarich recalled in a 2009 autobiography that he saw 50 copies of the magazine on the newsstand at Los Angeles International Airport. “I then realized that I was an item for the national press, major national press,” he wrote. “That was another heady experience, which fueled my arrogance and sense of superiority.”

Three years later, when he left the league, Sports Illustrated called out Mr. Mandarich “The Incredible Failure of the NFL.” In his autobiography, Mr. Mandarich admitted it was accurate, but said he felt “the emotional, quick kick in the gut that I think Sports Illustrated meant when they published it.” He would boycott Sports Illustrated reporters for twelve years.

Some were also shocked by the so-called Sports Illustrated cover jinx, which reportedly caused injuries or poor play to those who graced the cover. The curse itself was once on the cover – with a picture of a black cat – and was the subject of a long article investigate whether it was real.

As the economics of publishing changed over the years, so did the selection of covers.

“It became less of a news thing and more of a personality thing,” says Al Tielemans, a staff photographer for almost twenty years. He described an evolution from editors wanting the key moment of the game, and then a good photo of the star of the game, and then a photo of the most famous person in the game, and finally just a headshot of a star.

Last year, perhaps in an effort to gain exposure, and possibly due to the longer turnaround time required to print the magazine, Sports Illustrated named Deion Sanders Sportsman of the Year. At one point, in his first years as their coach, his Colorado Buffaloes were 3-0 and No. 18 in the college football rankings. But by the time the magazine came out with Mr. Sanders on the cover, the Buffaloes were 4-8.

The internet and social media platforms like Instagram are allowing more photography to be exposed to more people than ever before. Now that fans see every angle of every game, with highlights and shots instantly available on social media, no image has the same power as the cover of Sports Illustrated once did.

In 2014, Mr Tielemans shot a memorable cover of a 13-year-old girl, Mo'ne Davis, pitching in the Little League World Series. He dreamed of a career of twenty or thirty years as a photographer at Sports Illustrated, which he achieved. But he hoped he would eventually be replaced by a new generation of photographers, who would shoot their own famous covers.

Instead, when he was fired in 2015, he wasn't replaced at all.