Every Picture Tells a Story: Racial Representation on Sports Illustrated Covers

Abstract

Eric Primm is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Pikeville College in Kentucky. In addition to studying racism in football card collecting, he presently is expanding his research to other sports and to other areas of popular culture such as the motorcycle subculture. Summer DuBois is a graduate student in the sociology department at the University of Colorado. Robert M. Regoli is a Professor of Sociology at University of Colorado. He has authored eleven books and more than one hundred scholarly articles. Professor Regoli is currently studying the transmission of racist ideology within sport card collecting. He is former president and Fellow of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences and the recipient of two J. William J. Fulbright Awards.

An Exercise in Subtleties and the Transmission of Racism: An Analysis of Sports Illustrated Covers

“…During SI's first decade of publication more than 90% of the athletes featured on its covers were white (DuBois and . It is important to note, however, that while this seems like a very high number, the vast majority of athletes in professional baseball (81%), football (86%), and basketball (74%) at this time were white (Primm et al 2007). …”

Sacrificing Dignity for Publicity: Content Analysis of Female and Male Athletes on “Sports Illustrated” and “ESPN the Magazine” Covers from 2012-2016

“…If questions and issues arose, the author and coders discussed them, and additional published resources, such as books, magazines, and newspapers, were consulted to resolve any discrepancies. This method is similar to that used by Primm, DuBois, and Regoli (2007) in their examination of race on the covers of Sports Illustrated magazines. The coding categories for gender were 1) male and 2) female.…”

Marketing to Minority Groups through MLB Coverage: An Examination of Two U.S. Sport Magazines

“…For example, Billings and Eastman (2002) found that television coverage of the 2000 Summer Olympics was largely skewed toward White athletes, as this racial group received over 1,200 more mentions than Black athletes throughout the duration of the Games. Similarly, several studies focusing on Sports Illustrated found that White athletes received more coverage than Black athletes (e.g., Condor & Anderson, 1984;Lumpkin & Williams, 1991;Primm, DuBois, &Regoli, 2007). Condor and Anderson (1984) and Lumpkin and Williams (1991) both found that feature stories of White athletes were longer and more in-depth than those articles about athletes of other races.…”