Are you a sports enthusiast looking for a way to take a walk down memory lane?
Sports Illustrated has just the ticket – the SI Vault – Your Link to Sports History(http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/). The website includes a database that allows sports enthusiasts to conduct searches on SI articles, covers, galleries, and swimsuit issues. These searches provide an interesting perspective on what has been important in sports since SI began publishing in 1954.
In December I conducted a couple of searches in the database to answer the following questions:
• Which of 15 sports was featured most often on the cover?
• Which of 3 major sporting events was featured most frequently on the cover?
• Which of a group of 7 topics was most frequently discussed in SI?
As well, the purpose of this study was to also provide a moderately rigorous analysis of the SI database to identify interesting trends, i.e. the process is not rigorous enough to publish in an academic journal.
The analysis methodology was simple. The category names listed in the charts below were placed in the advanced search engine (exact phrase). Note that slightly different frequencies may result by placing the category names in the general search box.
The results shows that football has been featured on the front cover most often. Although baseball is our national pastIn fact, it ended up second, slightly ahead of basketball.
After the top three, the numbers drop off quickly. Golf, boxing, and hockey were 4th, 5th and 6th, followed by track, tennis, and horse racing. Although track, hockey, soccer, and tennis fall below boxing in the number of covers they had a greater number of articles written about them.
The World Series and Super Bowl had essentially the same number of covers; however, the World Series has been in existence for much longer than the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl will likely become the major sporting event that most frequently graces the SI covers. The Final Four was a distant third. The gap between the number of SI covers for it and the World Series will probably be narrowed in the years ahead.
Both the Super Bowl and World Series had a similar number of articles written about them as the sports of hockey, soccer, and tennis. That illustrates the importance of these 3 athletic/entertainment events.
A sample of 7 topics was selected to try to understand the extent to which SI covered the darker side of sports and athletics. Scandals made the cover 5 times and drugs made it 4 times. Although betting and politics did not make the cover, they received significant coverage in the articles.
With the end of the football season on the horizon, the SI Vault may provide a way to spend Sunday afternoons until the golf course gets open. Give it a try.
(Analysis of the SI Vault database is included in the December 2, 8, and 20 blog posts. The three discussions identify the sports, major sporting events, male athletes, and female athletes to most frequently adorn the front cover.)
