June 11, 2009
Shots Fired!
In what you ask? In the war that is scantily clad celebrities/athletes in prominent sports magazines. ESPN the Magazine will present their first “Body Issue” in October, and the table of contents apparently will have loads of T & A. Yes, in case you were wondering, ESPN is still a Disney subsidiary. Magical Kingdom indeed!
The magazine is approaching pro, amateur and Olympic athletes about posing au naturel, albeit artfully covered or positioned. Their response has been enthusiastic, he says, though he declines to identify who has been approached.
“We’re toying with the idea of making it a no-clothes issue,” Belsky says from his office in Manhattan. But first, he says, he and his staff will have to figure out how to “use equipment and pads and bats and goalposts and soccer nets and pucks and helmets to obscure body parts that we still can’t quite go to in a magazine that’s part of a company owned by (Disney).”
As part of the issue, the magazine is asking athletes to help rank the “Best Bodies” in sports. “If you ask athletes who has the best bodies in basketball, they’ll have opinions,” Belsky says. Besides sports’ hottest bodies, the issue will explore the past, present and future of the athletic form. And the outer limits of how it can be “bent and pulled, tortured and broken, inflated and improved and made to excel,” Belsky says.
Of course, because their may be naked athletes in a magazine, comparisons are immediately made to Sports Illustrated’s yearly Swimsuit Issue. Naked Athletes vs. Swimsuit models in various states of undress (or body paint) and probably an athlete or two in a bathing suit. Um…sure, they’re the exact same!
If successful, the “Body Issue,” could challenge Sports Illustrated‘s annual swimsuit issue for readers, buzz and ad bucks. In any case, it is likely to raise the stakes in the battle between ESPN’s 11-year-old bi-weekly and SI, the weekly that celebrates its 55th birthday in August.
SI is still the clear No. 1 with a total per-issue print circulation of 3.2 million vs. 2.1 million for ESPN The Magazine, according to Kammi Altig of the Audit Bureau of Circulations. But ESPN has gained ground, she says, picking up an additional circulation of 200,000 over the past five years.
All basically incomparable comparisons aside, the real question is…What took so long? ESPN the Magazine has been out for 11 years. It was more than 11 years ago that then Timberwolves stars Stephon Marbury and Kevin Garnett told us exactly what the magazine should contain.
No Swimsuits. No Bikins. No One pieces. No Thongs. All Nude…Tastefully Done.
USA Today — Skin Game: ‘ESPN’ takes on ‘SI’ by having athletes pose in the nude
3 comments
And why not? I love it — Titled “Nothing, but the SPORT”
You know what….this whole “Hey, lets put naked women in ridiculous poses (snicker, drool, and jack-off) in regular mainstream publications” is getting out of control. As a sports-loving woman who is not gay or bi and who likes to see naked men, I am getting plain sick of every magazine out there that has even one male reader, trying to be Playboy. One Playboy is bad enough. And what about you stupid women who agree to pose for this crap? Are you so vain as to think you are “doing it for myself” as so many before you have said? Rubbish. You are conceited and want the “world” to ooooh and ahhhh about your stupid body. Every one of us….well most of us….has a hot body at 20 or 30. So what? Let the men go online……you can get medical close ups of female parts.
Unless you want to make it fair and put naked men athletes in there, too. Otherwise it’s just more stupid shit that is meant to appeal to slobbering, gross, socially stunted juvenile idiots posing as men. Stop drooling over you daughter’s and grandaughter’s friends you perverts.
Now for the onslaught of stupid male responses…..have fun children……
At the risk of sounding like a ‘stupid male’ (kidding), I saw a report about this on TV last night. Actually looked really interesting, and yes, it is supposed to contain both male and female athletes. Soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, rodeo, football, auto racing, tennis, etc. were represented. The few pictures they showed were exceptionally done.