Sports, Scandals And Swimsuits

If Sports Illustrated is the bible of American sports, which everyone knows it is, then Mark Mulvoy can rightfully claim to have been its Moses, leading his flock to the Promised Land of multi-million readership and half-billion-dollar ad sales.

Now retired and living almost half of each year in Vero Beach, he is a member of that small, select group of editors who have totally remade a magazine in their own image. He joined SI in 1965 when he was 23 and stayed with it for 31 years, retiring in 1996. Starting out as a writer, he worked his way through the ranks and in 1984 became managing editor. Six years later, he reached a rare pinnacle of  journalistic success when he was appointed both editor and publisher. During his reign, sales peaked at 3.2 million, 96 percent of which were paid-up subscriptions. This made the magazine an advertising blockbuster, the second most profitable publication in the country after People, which, like SI, is a Time-Warner property.

One of Mulvoy’s assets as an editor was that he holds strong convictions on all aspects of sports, and he never hesitated to make those views known through his magazine—views that had sports aficionados applauding or appalled, and sometimes both.

Read the entire article in the March 2007 issue