ESPN vs. Sports Illustrated

In this corner, we have the self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports, which has added to its multiple cable television channels a weekly sports magazine and a heavily visited website, and which can justly claim to have revolutionized sports viewing in the U.S. In the other corner, we have the venerable SI, long the official voice of the thoughtful sportsman, whose principal medium, a weekly magazine, basically invented the genre of serious and reflective sports writing, and whose contemporary presence is enhanced via its own popular website. Ladies and gentlemen, the two most important and influential voices in contemporary sports journalism squaring off, right here at the TSLP international headquarters! If you could only have access to the magazine and internet site of one of them, which would you take?

Let's get ready to ponder!

1. I loved the old Sports Illustrated (and today I'm not just talking about the swimsuit issue.) Long, circumspect articles. The best ones were (and remain so today) the pieces about trends in the game, or about athletes in sports other than the main four sports. Sports Illustrated took chances in its pages, betting that the sports fan might have an education and always treating him as if he did. Even its covers might feature a race horse or a yachtsman or some badminton ace. Sports Illustrated was literate. With that said, it had some weaknesses. One of its staples was the "rags-to-riches" tale: these articles were of a piece, hagiographies that reviewed the star's meager childhood, his rise to prominence, and his contemporary greatness. I usually skipped most of those paragraphs. Still, the magazine was an institution and meant something every single week.

2. Today's version is more limited. As a general rule, the pieces are shorter and edited for a somewhat less literate readership. The subjects of the articles, and certainly the cover photograph, are taken almost always from one of the three or four major American sports, except in Olympic years. Still, the magazine is weighty, particularly when it includes an investigative report or an article on contemporary trends. A staple of the magazine remains the reportage from the week's "big game," which articles are always insightful and fresh no matter how much the big game has been over-reported in the press. Sports Illustrated: I look forward to its arrival every week.

3. As I do ESPN The Magazine. One aspect I can't stand: the typeface/page backgrounds that permeate the magazine. Although it seems to me that the magazine has gravitated in the past year or so more towards a traditional look, nevertheless the ESPN magazine can at times be hard to read. I don't have ADD, but I suspect the editor does: it's hard to tell the articles from the ads. Arrows, boxes, and wacky typeface abound: intentional zaniness aimed at making the magazine look fun. It's not fun. It's sometimes a chore to read through the magazine.

4. Which I do, regularly. It's that good. Although the typeface is goofy and some of the articles have clearly been written with easy access in mind, the content of the magazine is sheer genius. The reader can count on the ESPN magazine to offer an interesting angle on nearly any aspect of sports. Many of the articles offer an insider's perspective, which can be illuminating, even if you never once imagined yourself there. The magazine also takes up some of the old Sports Illustrated's ground, taking time to discuss weird sports and unknown people. Whoever dreams up the story angles in that shop deserves a raise.

5. As for the columnists in the respective magazines, clearly SI has the big edge. The ESPN columns (Stephen A. Smith, Stu Scott, Kenny Mayne) are for the most part self-referential, essentially a celebration of the wonderful personalities of these news readers (Scott and Mayne) or this windbag (Smith). Bill Simmons' columns are not his best: he's essentially a free-form blogger (and for me, that's praise) and doesn't do well within the confines of word counts. As for ESPN's new acquisition, Rick Reilly, formerly of SI of course, he specializes in feel-good morality tales. He's a chick flick, not an action movie. The SI columns are superior because they are in fact columns. They are about some thing, not about the columnist. The two-page column in the front is always a good read; less so is the back-pager, which in Reilly's tradition tends to be admonitory and mawkish. I get enough lecturing at work; I don't need more of it from people who publish a swimsuit issue.

6. The websites differ even more than the magazines. ESPN.com is truly the worldwide leader: it is the authority when it comes to breaking news and live coverage. In a way, the ESPN website has become the "official" site, taking over from the old Sports Illustrated the job as the authorized voice for the American observer of sports. It's a great site, easily the best on the web for sports fans. Yet, strangely, ESPN.com lacks for good columnists. Of course we must first put aside from this comment Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy. His electric pyrotechnics and rambling, inventive and wildly funny columns never fail to draw my cursor the moment they appear on my screen. He was born for the internet. But after Simmons and Gregg Easterbrook (more on him below), the columns on the site present slim pickings. Reilly re-prints his magazine piece, a short column the goal of which is to make the reader cry. Jamele Hill writes pretty well but obviously struggles for something to say. The rest of the columnists (to my recollection) don't address the big picture, instead writing "information-provision" pieces about their assigned sports. These pieces are authored and presented in the guise of a column, but in reality they (typically) are news pieces, giving straightforward information and reporting on rumors or player unrest. But, amazingly, nearly none of these glorified beat reporters is a very good writer. By and large throughout the ESPN site, the prose is unimaginative and offhand, the ideas expressed unthoughtfully. Why would such a powerhouse site, such a loaded outfit like ESPN allow its website to suffer due to a lack (in quality and in number) of outstanding columnists and writers? Take Simmons away, and ESPN will be left without a single leading columnist. (Gregg Easterbrook, Tuesday Morning Quarterback, is quite good too but his column ideas are starting to seem a bit repetitive. Besides, his shrill and embarassingly sanctimonious assaults on Bill Belichick from last season made me question his judgment. Still, he does often offer some pretty good ideas.)

7. The SI.com site presents more "the amateur hour" for sports columnists. It's philosophy seems to be to hire a bunch of unknown writers, give them all columns as an outlet, load the pieces up on the web, and see who draws an audience. Maybe SI is hoping it can luck into its own Bill Simmons. So SI has the advantage in terms of the number of columns. It also offers columns that, unlike the ESPN site, are real columns. These unknown amateurs are actually trying to say something, and SI is devoting some bandwidth to help develop tomorrow's writers. SI also offers a few "big name" columns, most notably Peter King of Monday Morning Quarterback fame; King's column has become increasingly personal and self-referential, with a lot of his weekly column skippable. Don Banks also writes a sports column, but his approach is ESPN-style: a report (disguised as a column) on the latest rumors and insider information from the world of the NFL.

8. So the winner, in a split decision: ESPN! The innovative magazine coupled with the clever stylings of Bill Simmons on the web give the Worldwide Leader the slight edge. Sports Illustrated's superior columnists, overall, both in its magazine and on its website, are not sufficient in my view to overcome the gap. So, if I were stranded on a remote desert island (that luckily got both regular mail service and a strong wireless internet signal) and had to pick just one journalistic combination of magazine and website, I'd have to go with ESPN.

Good fight.