And this is precisely why I cancelled my subscription two years ago. I moved from a "targeted" ZIP code to one that wasn't, and I started getting much thinner issue. Articles on soccer and other "niche sports" are typically what are on those "extra pages".
From their perspective, Ron. The "thin" issue is what you are paying for. The "additional features" are not part of your subscription, but are a bonus being paid for by the advertisers who are targetting certain demographics (in this case, zip codes). Mail order magazines are big users of targed sections. The fact that "features" magazines do the same with content, as well as advertising, is not too shocking. I'm sure that if SI could find an advertiser to take the "other, less desireable" zip codes and underwrite the printing/postage/processising costs of producing those pages, then they'd do it. I would guess that you'd have a hard time convincing a court that what you are seeing is discriminatory. I would guess that SI's likely argument that the content is a "value add" would carry the day. It sucks, but that's what it is. If you area current subscriber, and you contact Sports Illustrated's circulation department and ask them send you a copy with the Donovan content in it, I would be shocked if they didn't send it to you.
The strange thing is, nobody has ever explained any of this to the writers either. Nor is it purely done by wealthy/non-wealthy zip codes. All I know is, when I do a "select" story I don't get to see it in the SI that arrives in my mail here in Seattle. As a result, I try to get all my soccer "select" stories posted on-line. As I've said before, if I was strictly a soccer fan, I wouldn't subscribe to SI either.
I couldn't agree with you more! Last months issue finally had something on Tiffeny Milbrett... but it detailed her eatting habits!!! Come on!!! Tell us about her extraordinary talent as an athlete or even something like "A day in the life of Tiffeny Milbrett," but I don't see Sports Illustrated writing about Randy Moss's favorite breakfast cereal! Give us a break. If I want a magazine filled with 60 million ways to lose weight, low fat recipes, and beauty tips, I'll read Good Housekeeping! It's long overdue that we have a sports magazine dedicated to our professional women athletes and their fans without all the fluff that all the other women's magazines already have. We're sports fans too and deserve to be recognized as such.
At least it was about Milbrett's eating habits and not what beauty cream she uses In the first SIfW issue I received in the mail, Grant Wahl had a pretty good feature on Milbrett in it as well as a rather abbreviated 2002 WUSA preview (which Grant will want to forget about since he picked Boston, San Diego, and New York to all make the playoffs and Carolina and Washington to finish last ). There was some decent material on competitive sports in that issue and the next one too. Since then, it became 'Cosmo Goes Outside' and totally unreadable as a supposed sports magazine. WUSA, WNBA, LPGA, WTA, Softball, Volleyball, Track & Field, Cycling, Football (it exists!), college - you name it, they don't cover it as a competitive event - they just use their athletes to provide tips (dietary, training, beauty, fashion, etc), but don't believe their competitive exploits warrant coverage. So, people read SIfW and think women's sports is about participation only and that they are not to be taken seriously as competitive spectator sports. This hurts the WUSA, WNBA, etc and is why this pisses me off so much.
Is there really a market for a publication that covers women sports the way SI covers sports in general? Or is it what we here on BigSoccer want (and we, I am guessing, make up an extremely small percentage of women sports fans out there)? Maybe Grant Wahl can answer this for us? Has SI actually gone out and studied if a SIW in the vein that DCU wants to see it is viable for the company? I have no problem with the way SIW is now. Sure I would like to see something along the lines of SI but like I said before...if SIW gets more women out there running, cycling, snowboarding..then I think it has done it's job. Good Lord you don't want their readership to reflect the coach potatoes that is reflected by the SI readership now do we?