An analysis of Sports Illustrated feature articles, 1954-1987

All Sports Illustrated feature articles between 1954-1987 were examined with reference to sport, gender, race, role of the person featured, length of article, author, number of pictures, individuals pictured, and descriptive characteristics. The sporting achievements and lives of males were acclaimed in 90.8% of these 3,723 articles. Males authored 91.8% of the articles. Baseball (21.6%), football (16.2%), and basketball (13.1%) appeared most frequently, followed by boxing (7.5%), track and field (6.5%), and golf (4.7%). Blacks were featured in only 22.4% of the feature articles. Athletes (83.9%) and their achievements, rather than coaches, owners, or administrators, were the focus of these articles. As expected, pictures of the featured individuals predominated (mean of 3.01) over those of others (mean of .677). Articles about males and whites were longer on average than those about females and blacks (66 to 55 and 67 to 58 column inches, respectively), as were those for boxing (77), football (69), baseb...