The future of Sports Illustrated is not clear according to the magazine’s editor announced plans to lay off most, if not all, of its staff Friday following the termination of a licensing agreement. That means Sports Illustrated’s coveted “swimsuit issue” is also in danger.
Originally created in 1964 to combat the slow winter months when many sports were out of season – the first Super Bowl wasn’t played until 1967 – the swimsuit number from SI transformed into a pop culture cornerstone that lasted for decades and catapulted hundreds of covers. models to fame.
The most recent issue, published in 2023, featured Martha Stewart, lifestyle guru on the cover, marking the oldest cover girl in the magazine’s history, alongside actress Megan Fox and singer Kim Petras.
“I think I’ll be the oldest person on the cover of Sports Illustrated,” Stewart said at the time. “I don’t think much about age, but I thought it was a bit historical and I had better be really pretty.”
Here’s everything you need to know about SI’s swimsuit issue through the years:
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: Lay off most staff, jeopardizing future after nearly 70 years
How did the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue start?
The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue was invented by editor-in-chief André Laguerre as a way to “help fill the gap between Jan. 1 and spring training” during the quiet months of the sports calendar, according to the newspaper. Sports Illustrated Safe. It published a travel feature on January 20, 1964, featuring model Babette March smiling in a white two-piece bikini, which became known as the inaugural issue.
Laguerre calls on a fashion journalist Jules Campbell to create a multi-page swimsuit story the following year, asking her, “Would you like to go somewhere beautiful and put a pretty girl on the cover?” Campbell catapulted SI’s swimsuit issue into the popular mainstay it is today. She did it with an unconventional formula. At a time when skinny was considered high-end and editorial, Campbell instead opted for “more natural types of women” and put them on the cover.
“I wanted them to look like real people who were beautiful…I think our audience related to that,” Campbell said. in Michael MacCambridge’s 1997 book, “The Franchise: A History of Sports Illustrated Magazine.”
List of Sports Ilustrated Swimsuit Issue Cover Models
Sports Illustrated has published swimsuit issues for nearly six decades, featuring dozens of models. Here are everyone who appeared on the cover of the Swimsuit Issue:
- Babette Marche (1964)
- Sue Peterson (1965)
- Sunny Bippus (1966)
- Marilyn Tindall (1967)
- Turia Mau (1968)
- James Becker (1969)
- Cheryl Tiegs (1970, 1975, 1983) – Tiegs is the first repeated cover model
- Tania Rubiano (1971)
- Sheila Roscoe (1972)
- Dayle Haddon (1973)
- Ann Simonton (1974)
- Yvonne and Yvette Sylvander (1976) – The Sylvander twins have the first ever multi-subject cover
- Léna Kansbod (1977)
- Maria João (1978)
- Christie Brinkley (1979, 1980, 1981) – Brinkley is the first three-time cover model and the first to appear in consecutive years
- Carole Alt (1982)
- Paulina Porizkova (1984, 1985)
- Elle Macpherson (1986, 1987, 1988, 1994, 2006) – Macpherson holds the record for most covers with five
- Kathy Ireland (1989, 1992, 1994)
- Judit Masco (1990)
- Ashley Richardson (1991)
- Vendela Kirsebom (1993)
- Rachel Hunter (1994, 2006)
- Daniela Pestová (1995, 2000, 2006)
- Valéria Mazza (1996)
- Tyra Banks (1996, 1997, 2019) – Banks becomes the first African-American solo covergirl
- Heidi Klum (1998)
- Rebecca Romijn (1999, 2006)
- Elsa Benitez (2001, 2006)
- Yamila Díaz-Rahi (2002, 2006)
- Petra Nemcova (2003)
- Veronika Vareková (2004, 2006)
- Carolyn Murphy (2005, 2006)
- Beyoncé Knowles (2007) – Beyoncé is the first female musician on the cover
- Marisa Miller (2008)
- Bar Refaeli (2009)
- Brooklyn Decker (2010)
- Irina Shayk (2011)
- Kate Upton (2012, 2013, 2017)
- Nina Agdal (2014)
- Lily Aldridge (2014)
- Chrissy Teigen (2014)
- Hannah Davis (2015)
- Ronda Rousey (2016) – Rousey is the first athlete cover model
- Ashley Graham (2016)
- Hailey Clauson (2016)
- Danielle Herrington (2018)
- Camille Kostek (2019)
- Alex Morgan (2019)
- Kate Bock (2020)
- Jasmine Sanders (2020)
- Olivia Culpo (2020)
- Megan Thee Stallion (2021) – Megan Thee Stallion is the rapper’s first cover model
- Naomi Osaka (2021) – Osaka is the first black athlete cover model
- Leyna Bloom (2021) – Bloom is the first transgender cover model
- Kim Kardashian (2022)
- Ciara (2022)
- Maye Musk (2022)
- Yumi Naked (2022)
- Martha Stewart (2023) – Stewart becomes oldest cover model at 81
- Kim Petras (2023)
- Megan Fox (2023)
- Brooks Nader (2023)
Which athletes posed in the SI Swimsuit Issue?
In its early days, the SI Swimsuit issue exclusively featured models, but the magazine opened its pages to athletes in 1997 with an appearance by German tennis star Steffi Graf. Russian tennis stars Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova and United States women’s national team soccer star Alex Morgan appeared in an inset cover in 2004, 2006 and 2012, respectively, but the UFC star Ronda Rousey was the first athlete to grace the cover of SI Swimsuit Issue.
Other athletes featured in the publication include tennis players Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki; figure skater Ekaterina Gordeeva; racing driver Danica Patrick; and Olympians Amanda Beard (swimming), Jennie Finch (softball), Lindsey Vonn (alpine skiing), Lauren Jackson (basketball), Clair Bidez (snowboarding), Lacy Schnoor (freestyle skiing), Hannah Teter (snowboarding); and soccer Megan Rapinoe, Crystal Dunn and Abby Dahlkemper.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka graced the cover in 2021, alongside rapper Megan Thee Stallion and model Leyna Bloom, to become the first Black athlete cover girl.
“I wouldn’t have thought I’d be the first.” Osaka said during a meeting with Tyra Banks, the first black woman to appear on the cover. “I’m glad this barrier is broken.”
