A History of SPORT Magazine

At its launch in 1946, SPORT magazine was America's first significant general interest sports magazine. By the time of its closing 54 years later, SPORT was an American institution.Fondly remembered today as pure Americana, SPORT was the brainchild of a small New York publisher, MacFadden Publications Inc, and became a triumph from the day its first issue hit the street with a color image of Joe DiMaggio and his son Joe, Jr. on the cover. That inaugural edition included eight full color plates – unheard of at the time – and almost immediately SPORT rose to over a million in circulation and became half bible, half guru to a generation of men coming of age in post-war America.

MacFadden seized an unappreciated subject like sports and took it mainstream. The formula was simple: combine terrific editorial features written by the greatest writers of the time with generous presentations of photography, particularly full-page Rockwell-like color imagery. It was born as a novel idea and grew into a cultural icon.

In its early years, SPORT had the market for magazine-style sports journalism virtually to itself and, under founding editor Ernest Heyn, pioneered a brand of behind-the-scenes glimpses of the heroes of the day not previously attempted. The emphasis was not on the games or the teams, but on the elements of human drama that lay beneath. SPORT was an icon in the league of Life and Look and the Saturday Evening Post.

Insightful essays as long as 5,000 words focused on the personalities and human drama of sport. Each month SPORT was filled with evocative writing from its own stable of staff writers, plus submissions from the likes of Grantland Rice, Jimmy Breslin, David Halberstam, William F. Buckley and Dick Schaap.

But it was SPORT's groundbreaking use of color photography, particularly during its first 30 years, which captivated a generation of sports fans, many of whom wallpapered their bedrooms with the exquisite full-page photos that were the magazine's signature item. SPORT used many of the nation's top shooters of the post-war era, combining work from staffers such as Martin Blumenthal, George Heyer and Kevin Fitzgerald with that of incomparable freelancers such as Ozzie Sweet, Hy Peskin and Neil Leifer.

If imitation is indeed the greatest form of flattery, then SPORT received the ultimate compliment with the birth of Sports Illustrated in 1954. Time Inc. had tried to purchase the name SPORT, but its final offer of $200,000 was $50,000 less than McFadden was willing to accept. Undaunted, Time launched Sports Illustrated, borrowing liberally from

SPORT's successful formula.

Representative of SPORT's superiority, in the hearts and minds of the reading public, but also of the men who ran the leagues and teams across North America, was the magazine's success in establishing the SPORT Award in 1955 for the most valuable player in the World Series. The concept was expanded over the years until a SPORT magazine award was presented to the outstanding post-season performer in all four major team sports, as sanctioned by the leagues.

But by the early 1970s, MacFadden, lacking Time's deep pockets, was fading and thus ensued a dizzying succession of ownership changes for the magazine. There was also a corresponding zig-zag in editorial direction, and gradually SPORT lost its way, its distinctive voice and, eventually, its presence. In August 2000, after appearing every month for 54 years under 10 different owners, SPORT magazine ceased publication.

Its passing was mourned in many quarters. As The Wall Street Journal's Allen Barra, writing in Salon.com, put it: “Though it didn't make any headlines, the news of the death of SPORT magazine ... must have put a lump in the throat of those old enough to remember the greatest of all American sports magazines ... Sports Illustrated was great, but SI, in an era when you couldn't see all the highlights every night, was read for news; SPORT was for reflection.”

Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe described SPORT as “an irreplaceable part of the American sports experience.”

And, in a rare departure for the competitive magazine industry, SI itself paid tribute to SPORT on its own pages with a heartfelt piece that began, "They closed the barbershop last week, the one in town, the first place – not counting school or a friend's house – where your mother would drop you off and leave you ..."

Such was the comfort afforded by SPORT magazine.

Not only did SPORT focus on the superstars of the post-war era, but it paid homage to the great athletes of the first half of the 20th Century. A regular feature called The SPORT Hall of Fame profiled in lengthy detail the lives and careers of 70 superstar athletes, from baseball superstars Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Walter Johnson to Jack Dempsey, Ben Hogan, Red Grange, George Mikan, Jim Thorpe, Jesse Owens, Johnny Longden and Joe Louis, to name a few.

SPORT published 647 issues comprising approximately 10,000 articles and 40 million words between September 1946 and August 2000. The SPORT photo library holds more than 200,000 images. Together, those words and pictures represent one of the world's most significant historical records of 20th century sports, and today form the basis of The SPORT Magazine Archive.

The SPORT Magazine Archive

From its first issue in September of 1946, SPORT magazine, which preceded the debut of Sports Illustrated by eight years, featured the work of the greatest writers and photographers of the post-war era. In particular, SPORT's pioneering use of color photography captivated a generation of sports fans, many of whom wallpapered their bedrooms with the full-page photos that were the magazine's signature item.

After SPORT closed its doors in August 2000, the magazine’s assets were acquired by a Canadian company, Sport Media Enterprises Inc. The core asset was The SPORT Magazine Archive, comprising more than 200,000 images – everything from color transparencies and black and white negatives, to vintage photographic prints and news photographs – covering the world of sports from the 1920s to the 1990s, with the best work concentrated in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s. The work of SPORT's esteemed staff photographers, including Martin Blumenthal, George Heyer, and Kevin Fitzgerald, forms much of the archive, but many thousands of images came from such admired SPORT contributors as David Sutton, Marvin Newman, Curt Gunther, Lawrence Schiller, Malcolm Emmons, Bob Peterson, Fred Kaplan, Neil Leifer, and Calvin Campbell.

SPORT’s accredited photographers had direct access to the superstars of the post-war era and, in many cases, produced stunning color photographs the likes of which do not exist anywhere else. In the course of SPORT’s 54-year history, many thousands of these images were printed on its pages. But tens of thousands of one-of-a-kind images never made it to print and, in fact, have never been published anywhere.

Due to SPORT magazine’s particular focus on superstars, the archive includes significant files on dozens of icons across all the major sports. To name just a few:

Mickey Mantle
Jackie Robinson
Hank Aaron
Willie Mays
Sandy Koufax
Johnny Unitas
Gale Sayers
Bart Starr
Paul Hornung
Jim Brown
Joe Namath
Wilt Chamberlain
Bill Russell
Bob Cousy
Oscar Robertson
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Gordie Howe
Bobby Orr
Maurice Richard
Bobby Hull
Muhammad Ali
Sugar Ray Robinson
George Foreman
Rocky Marciano
Floyd Patterson
Arnold Palmer
Jack Nicklaus
Sam Snead
Ben Hogan
Rod Laver

In a 1999 appraisal of the archive done by one of the leading North American fine art photography appraisal houses, The SPORT Magazine Archive was described as "among the most significant resources for 20th century photographic images of American sports figures in the world."

Today, The SPORT Magazine Archive honors the craft of sports photography by reviving these iconic photographs in the form of fine art. Focusing on images that are exquisite and rare, selected works from the copyrighted archive are being released as hand-crafted fine art in limited and open edition series in a way that is intended to bridge the gap between the worlds of sports memorabilia and fine-art photography. In addition, dozens of images from the archive have appeared recently in gallery, museum and stadium exhibitions, as well is in books and several magazines, and even a series of classic sport trading cards.

The archive is housed in Toronto, where work to preserve it for future generations is ongoing with the co-operation of the highly-regarded Photographic Preservation & Collections Management program at Ryerson University.