6 sports covers that shook up the world

6 sports covers that shook up the world

No one had ever done it before them.

Vogue’s April 2008 issue was dedicated to fashionable sports looks and dieting. The cover featured basketball star LeBron James and model Gisele Bundchen. Why did this particular issue make history? It’s simple: the American basketball player became the first black man on the cover of Vogue since the magazine was founded. That is, the first in more than a century of the magazine’s history. Imagine how much discussion this issue generated. There was some talk of racism.

Sports Illustrated, 1964.

This magazine is known today for its special beach issues with models showing off their bathing suits. The first such issue was published in 1964. It featured model Babette March posing on the cover. Nowadays there is nothing special about such pictures, but back then such a cover was provocative.

ESPN, 2014

On the cover of the American magazine ESPN often appear naked athletes. So the publication demonstrates the ideal physique, model look of athletes. However, on the cover of the July 2014 issue, readers saw baseball player Prince Fielder posing for the camera. His looks hardly fit the traditional notions of an athlete. Fielder himself says that he has little interest in having cubes on his stomach. The main thing is to show results, because he is an athlete, not a fitness model. Such a representation of the athlete began to break stereotypes. The cover caused a lot of heated discussions on the topic of aesthetics.

Sports Illustrated, 2016

The Prince Fielder story was far from the only one of its kind. The plus-size model surprised Sports Illustrated readers in 2016 as well. In one of the issues, they put model Ashley Graham, who can hardly be called skinny, on the cover. That’s what the publishers wanted: girls like Ashley also have the right to be considered beautiful.

Mode, 1997

Similar stories with plus-size models have caused controversy before. For example, the February 1997 issue of Mode magazine. The cover depicts overweight girls in black dresses. The fact is that the magazine fought the fashion for thinness. Plus-size models are full of attractiveness, and there is no need to torture yourself with weight loss to stay beautiful – this idea wanted to convey the publishers. After all, a woman is first and foremost a human being.

Mode magazine talked about fashion innovations specifically for plus-size girls, and publishers were eager to offer them jobs as models or designers.

Sports Illustrated, 2013

On April 15, 2013, a terrorist attack occurred at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. A few days later, the issue of Sports Illustrated magazine was published, the cover of which featured a photo from the scene of the tragedy: an elderly marathon participant Bill Ifrig lies on the ground, three police officers rushed to the epicenter of events. The photo was taken a few seconds after the explosions.