I don't currently subscribe to any magazines now that I've let my subscription to Rolling Stone lapse, but I've got a buddy who saves every copy of Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine for me. I read both from cover to cover and what I'm about to write might surprise you.
ESPN The Magazine is now my sports magazine preference. I'm a Sports Illustrated fan from way back, having subscribed for years in the late 80s and early 90s, but ESPN The Magazine has Sports Illustrated beat today. ESPN The Magazine has larger pages, which enables it to be far more visually powerful, and the articles and observations are far more fun to digest. They both say similar things (it's easy to root for the Celtics again, Brett Favre is the sportsman of the year, baseball is full of cheaters, Tiger Woods is really good), but the difference is in how they say it and how it's presented.
Before Drew started giving me his ESPN The Magazine issue, I didn't know there was an ESPN The Magazine. Now I'm wondering why I still bother to read Sports Illustrated.
