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A swimsuit stuffed with dollars
SI's swimsuit issue, a 40-year institution, is important driver of magazine's financial success.
February 12, 2004: 12:49 PM EST
By Chris Isidore, CNN/Money Senior Writer

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - It is the one cover for Sports Illustrated guaranteed to be jinx-free.

The magazine's 40th annual swimsuit edition comes out this week, meaning fame and fortune for the model selected for the cover, and tens of millions in extra newsstand and advertising sales dollars for the magazine itself.

The issue, started in 1964 as a way to fill the mid-winter period when interest in the traditional team sports was relatively low, has become a very profitable cottage industry for the magazine.

This year will see a record $35.9 million in ad dollars, up nearly 6 percent from a year ago, with roughly the same number of ad pages sold. The growth comes as so-called "laddie mags," which also highlight scantily clad, but generally not naked, women, have seen their explosive growth of past years slow. (see table).

"To a certain extent advertisers may be more comfortable running in the swimsuit than they were before the growth of those magazines," said Dave Morris, the new publisher of SI.

A spokesman for Dennis Publishing, which owns laddie titles Maxim and Stuff, says he's not sure the relatively new men's magazines have ever impacted newstand and ad sales for the SI swimsuit issue.

"I'm not sure how the two are related. Given the difference in frequency -- once a year (for the swimsuit issue) vs. 10 or 12 times a year, there's no point in comparison," said spokesman Drew Kerr.

(Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story failed to include Kerr's comments and overstated the fall-off in the growth of "laddie" titles.)

Overall the swimsuit issue is barely noticable for the results of SI parent Time Warner Inc. (TWX: Research, Estimates), which also owns CNN/Money. But the company has learned to leverage the SI swimsuit franchise, offering some photos exclusively for subscribers to America Online, and using SI swimsuit model Elle MacPherson in an AOL television ad during the last year.

The issue is obviously very important for SI, though. It saw flat circulation the first half of last year, and 0.4 percent decline in ad revenue in 2003, due to a 6 percent drop in ad pages sold. Just over 5 percent of last year's ad revenue came from the swimsuit issue.

"It (the swimsuit issue) is important for the first quarter for sure and important for the year," said Morris. "March (ad sales) is a little bit soft – flat year-over-year. Our growth this year will come from second to fourth quarters."

A full-page ad goes for $280,000, about 15 percent greater than the rate for a normal issue, and the number of ad pages sold -- 113 -- is nearly triple a typical 40 pages of ads sold issue this time of year.

The newstand price is $5.99, up from the typical $3.50. Newsstand sales are expected to hit about 1.5 million over the next six weeks, compared to about 120,000 average weekly sales for the magazine the first half of 2003.

Despite the flood of dollars, SI has no plans to increase the frequency of the swimsuit issue. It will continue to build its ancillary products around the issue though, such as DVDs, television shows, calendars and online presentation of the pictures.

SI has expanded its swimsuit franchise to DVD, TV shows and calendars.  
SI has expanded its swimsuit franchise to DVD, TV shows and calendars.

The cover will be revealed on NBC's "Tonight Show" Monday and Viacom's Spike TV, which bills itself as the network for men, will air a show on the making of this year's issue Wednesday evening at 10 p.m., preceded by the show about the making of last year's issue. The swimsuit models will have their own media day Tuesday, doing more interviews than a Super Bowl athlete.

"There's lots of opportunity for the swimsuit franchise to make it even bigger without making it more frequent," said Morris. "We call it the Super Bowl of print. People will create ads just for this issue, just like they do for super bowl ads. If you add to the frequency, won't be as special."

SI's fastest growing competition comes not from the "laddie mags" but from ESPN The Magazine published by Walt Disney Co. (DIS: Research, Estimates)

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While it still has less than half the circulation of SI, it saw a 10 percent growth in circulation in the first half of last year, coupled with a 6 percent growth in ad pages sold throughout the year, and a 25 percent growth in ad revenue.

And unlike some other sports magazines that have tried to copy SI's success, ESPN The Magazine has seen the growth without a swimsuit issue of its own.

"The swimsuit issue is an institution. ESPN The Magazine doesn't need that, it has its own constituency that is well defined," said Columbia University journalism professor Sandy Padwe, who has worked as a consultant to ESPN and was a former senior editor at SI.

"They both have their target audience and they both understand their readership very well. ESPN's thing to appeal to the younger generation, the crossover between sports and hip hop. I think all the boys (reading ESPN The Magazine) would be happy to have a swimsuit issue, but as a business strategy they don't need it."  Top of page




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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.