Editing Sports Illustrated (section)

===Expansion of sports coverage===
After more than a decade of steady losses, the magazine's fortunes finally turned around in the 1960s when [[Andre Laguerre]] became its managing editor. A European correspondent for Time, Inc., who later became chief of the Time-Life news bureaux in Paris and London (for a time he ran both simultaneously), Laguerre attracted Henry Luce's attention in 1956 with his singular coverage of the [[Winter Olympic Games]] in [[Cortina d'Ampezzo]], Italy, which became the core of ''SI'''s coverage of those games. In May 1956, Luce brought Laguerre to New York to become the assistant managing editor of the magazine. He was named managing editor in 1960, and he more than doubled the circulation by instituting a system of departmental editors, redesigning the internal format,<ref>{{cite news | url=http://fiercesimplicity.com/ | title=Designer Swimwear | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214061746/http://www.fiercesimplicity.com/ | archive-date=February 14, 2015 }}</ref> and inaugurating the unprecedented use in a news magazine of full-color photographic coverage of the week's sports events. He was also one of the first to sense the rise of national interest in professional [[American football|football]].<ref>{{cite magazine | url=http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1094551/index.htm | magazine=Sports Illustrated | title=Letter From The Publisher | last=Sutton | first=Kelso F. | date=January 29, 1979 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511104256/http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1094551/index.htm | archive-date=May 11, 2011 }}</ref>

Laguerre also instituted the innovative concept of one long story at the end of every issue, which he called the "bonus piece". These well-written, in-depth articles helped to distinguish ''Sports Illustrated'' from other sports publications, and helped launch the careers of such legendary writers as [[Frank Deford]], who in March 2010 wrote of Laguerre, "He smoked cigars and drank Scotch and made the sun move across the heavens ... His genius as an editor was that he made you want to please him, but he wanted you to do that by writing in your own distinct way."<ref>Deford, Frank: "Sometimes the Bear Eats You: Confessions of a Sportswriter". ''Sports Illustrated'', March 29, 2010 pp. 52–62.</ref>

Laguerre is also credited with the conception and creation of the annual ''[[Swimsuit Issue]]'', which quickly became, and remains, the most popular issue each year.

In 1986, co-owned property [[Home Box Office, Inc.|HBO/Cannon Video]] had inked a pact to produce video versions of the magazine for $20 on the sell-through market, running just 30–45 minutes on the tape.<ref>{{Cite news|date=1986-11-12|title=Sports Illustrated Teams With HBO For HV Cassettes|page=38|work=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]}}</ref>

In 1990, Time Inc. merged with [[Warner Communications]] to form the media conglomerate [[Time Warner]]. ''Sports Illustrated'' acquired FanNation.com in 2007 to compete in the [[Web 2.0]] market; the site [[News aggregator|aggregated]] sports news and allowed [[user-generated content]].<ref>{{cite news|first=Nat|last=Ives|title='Sports Illustrated' Buys FanNation.com|date=February 1, 2007|work=AdAge|url=https://adage.com/article/media/sports-illustrated-buys-fannation/114670|access-date=January 7, 2024}}</ref> In 2014, Time Inc. was spun off from Time Warner.