2014 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue Revealed.

[LeftyMom]

590. I'm just not sure how it makes money.

I have no idea what hiring A list models and flying them to some exotic locale costs, but there's no doubt it adds up to tons of money. Somebody at the publisher must think it makes money somehow (free publicity? actual sales of the issue? advertising in the issue? hits on their website? I genuinely don't know but I'm not in publishing) because that's the whole point of having a magazine. They're not running some weird anti-woman charity, the issue has to make money somehow, and I have no idea how. It seems like an antique notion, because it would only be racy to somebody whose usual masturbatory material was the underwear section of the Sears catalog.

That's what I don't understand, the business decision behind the thing. The gender implications are obvious enough that I don't think they're especially interesting.

My suspicion, and admittedly it's just a guess (though the timing of the publicity push in the relatively slow sports news spot after the Super Bowl and at the very beginning of Spring Training is suggestive that attention is a major consideration,) is that the thing makes money in the modern market not so much by sales but by generating buzz and web hits. If that's the case the best response might well be to ignore it.