Sports Illustrated is attempting a rebound after

One of the most popular tickets for the occasions surrounding Super Bowl LX in February was a celebration thrown at the Cow Palace in San Francisco by Sports Illustrated, where attendees may hold with Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart and Travis Kelce.

The magazine’s brand and a workforce of fashions from its latest annual swimsuit issue had been current at another pre-game bash at the Michelin three-star restaurant Quince.

Sports Illustrated journalists had been getting requests from friends trying to rating invitations to the gatherings, which symbolized a turnaround at the 72-year-old title. Just two years earlier, many of its writers had been told their jobs had been being eradicated.

But Authentic Brands Group, the New York-based company that bought Sports Illustrated in 2019 for $110 million, says the title is now thriving after lowering its reliance on promoting and circulation income. The privately held firm — which expects $38 billion in global retail gross sales this yr, up from $35 billion in 2025 — doesn’t escape the funds for its companies but says SI is extremely profitable after a rocky period. Less than half of SI’s income comes from its media business.

“It took us a little while and we had a couple of bumps along the way,” Daniel W. Dienst, government vice chairman for Authentic, said in a latest interview from his New York workplace, where a picture of baseball legend Hank Aaron taken by acclaimed SI photographer Neil Leifer hangs on the wall behind his desk.

For a long time, SI was where every sports activities journalist aspired to work, hoping to develop into the next Frank DeFord or Gary Smith, whose 32-year profession at the magazine is extremely revered. Cover pictures of Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan and other superstars are emblazoned in the reminiscences of followers who eagerly awaited the title to arrive in the mail each week. For athletes and sports activities establishments, the duvet stays a coveted honor.

“You go to LeBron James’ office in Akron, it’s got his 30 covers on the walls,” Dienst said. “You go to USC, they’ve got 21 covers with their athletes and coaches all over their athletic department.”

Now a month-to-month magazine, the flagship business of Sports Illustrated is no longer the first stop for followers trying for sport analysis or profiles of athletes, many of whom have asserted better control over their pictures through social media and podcasts.

Like other print magazines, SI has seen a sharp falloff in its circulation, presently at 400,000, down from 3 million in 2010. Authentic says SI has 52 million customers a month on its web web site and 21 million social media followers. ESPN had 229 million digital customers in November.

But the well-known SI identify still resonates with generations of shoppers and Authentic has sought methods to capitalize on it, from promoting reproduction covers to opening branded resort lodges in Chicago and Nashville. International editions of the magazine have been launched in Germany, China and Mexico, with plans to launch in France and the U.Ok.

In January, Sports Illustrated launched its own free ad-supported streaming TV channel called SITV that options live reveals with its journalists and consists of movies and reveals from an archive stocked with documentaries and swimsuit issue specials going back a long time.

The channel, which along with the other SI property is managed by New York-based Minute Media, will also carry live sports activities coverage including school basketball. While Minute Media didn’t reveal early viewership figures, the company said the viewers for the channel has grown 60% since its launch.

The streaming channel is a major media initiative for model that has seen more exercise in other sectors.

In 2023, Authentic put the SI identify on Lunatix, a sputtering ticket market. Now called Sports Illustrated Tickets, the business has signage offers with 13 venues around the world including a New Jersey-based stadium — the home of the New York Red Bulls soccer workforce. The service expects to generate $500 million in income this yr.

Authentic also makes use of Sports Illustrated-sponsored occasions such as those held at the Super Bowl to entertain purchasers for its other companies and makes tickets accessible to the public. SI will host an event for Authentic at the Masters golf match in Augusta this week and has a everlasting high-end, track-side hospitality space at Churchill Downs in Kentucky called Club SI.

Authentic specializes in buying and investing in well-known retail properties that have foundered. The firm has acquired such names as the outerwear retailer Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers and Reebok, and in January took a 51% share in the fashion model Guess.

ABG enlists exterior operators to run the manufacturers. Those operators pay an ongoing license charge to ABG, which also takes a cut of the revenues.

That was the plan when Authentic purchased Sports Illustrated from Meredith Corp., now identified as People Inc.

After the acquisition, Authentic entered a $15-million-a-year licensing settlement with Arena Group (at the time identified as Maven) to run Sports Illustrated. A New York-based digital media company, Arena operated such well-known titles as Men’s Journal, Parade and TheAvenue. But the partnership unraveled when Arena used AI for sponsored content on Sports Illustrated’s web site, which sounded alarm bells at the esteemed publication.

Sports Illustrated’s 2026 Super Bowl celebration at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.

(Sports Illustrated)

The Arena Group acknowledged it employed an exterior firm to create product reviews that used pretend bylines. The scandal coincided with the termination of its chief government, Ross Levinsohn, who once held a management position at the Los Angeles Times.

The relationship with Authentic worsened when Arena’s majority proprietor, Manoj Bhargava, took over as interim chief government. The founder of 5-Hour Energy, Bhargava tried to fire Sports Illustrated’s unionized editorial workers and renegotiate a decrease licensing charge from Authentic. He also used the magazine’s editorial pages and web site to promote his vitality drink business.

The SI media business was unprofitable under Bhargava and Arena missed a fee to Authentic on its licensing deal. In March 2024, Arena announced it was shutting down the print version of SI.

Around the same time, Authentic employed Minute Media, which runs the digital websites Fansided and Players’ Tribune, to take over Sports Illustrated. Bhargava didn’t go quietly; according to legal filings, he threatened to delete Sports Illustrated’s archive of mental property.

Authentic sued Arena for breaching the SI licensing settlement, which was settled. Many of the title’s laid-off journalists had been rehired.

The expertise with Arena was a harsh lesson for Authentic, which never had owned a media property before.

“The minute I make that phone call or anybody perceives that Authentic could control the newsroom, forget it, game over,” Dienst said, referencing Bhargava. “We had to move on.”

Minute Media has gotten high marks from the SI workers for its restore work on the media aspect of the business.

“It’s been a long time since we felt like we had an operator and support from the very top to not just grow what we’re doing day to day, but to grow what Sports Illustrated is going to look like 10 years down the road,” said Steve Cannella, editor in chief of Sports Illustrated.

SI’s union representing editorial workers praised Minute Media when it took over, and is close to agreeing on a new contract deal with the company.

Minute Media is aiming to increase the SI model‘s attain across other media platforms to make up for the time misplaced under earlier regimes.

“I’ve asked, ‘guys, what are all the things you wanted to do that you haven’t been able to do?’ ” said Minute Media President Rich Routman. “If we’re not trying new stuff, we’re failing.”

Some sports activities media varieties consider SI is largely a nostalgia play in a panorama where younger followers go elsewhere for sport highlights and flip to provocative hosts such as Pat McAfee on YouTube. But awareness goes past the viewers of child boomers and Gen Xers who grew up with the model.

Lisa Delpy Neirotti, who leads the sports activities management program at George Washington University, lately carried out a research with her college students on their media consumption habits. She said she was stunned to see high recognition of Sports Illustrated with the Gen Z crowd, and credit SI for Kids, the spin-off publication for youthful readers launched in 1989.

“They would remember getting it in the mail, and it was the first thing that got them interested in sports,” Neirotti said. “There are a lot of positive memories that keep the brand alive.”

Dienst said the viewers for SI has gotten youthful under Authentic’s possession. But he doesn’t disregard the parents who grew up with it.

“They’re very affluent and they’re super loyal,” he said.