Sports Illustrated Gains a Strategic Enhancement Thanks to CEO Ross Levinsohn

As a major sports industry brand, Sports Illustrated has been a key player in the print publishing world for seven decades. Over the course of its long history, it has undergone critical times of transition. Its most recent major shift has been strategically executed by Sports Illustrated CEO Ross Levinsohn. The brand’s early history revolved around its print magazine, so it relied heavily on print advertisements and subscriptions to generate income. Notably, this evolved after the turn of the century to also include digital revenue from its website. While this evolution created a new revenue source for the brand, its established, print-based revenue was declining. This is because Sports Illustrated’s audience was gradually shifting away from the magazine in favor of the website. Sports Illustrated CEO Levinsohn needed to find a thoughtful solution to this problem.

Levinsohn brought more than four decades of print and media industry experiences with him to Sports Illustrated. His vast wealth of professional experience has developed through many elite executive positions over the years. He has served as CEO or in a related, top-level position for recognized companies like Whisper Advisors, Fox, Maven Media, CBS Sportsline, Guggenheim Digital and others. One of the many experiences that have prepared him to manage the issue at Sports Illustrated developed while Levinsohn was Maven Media’s CEO. Through this position, Levinsohn had the opportunity to serve hundreds of respected media brands by managing their monetization efforts. One of Maven Media’s clients, The Street with Jim Cramer, was given the opportunity to expand its content offerings. Its audience was increasingly drawn to cryptocurrencies, so Ross Levinsohn decided to branch out to address that interest. To profit strategically from this move, Levinsohn implemented the creation of a paywall specifically for this unique content.

This is one of many experiences that Sports Illustrated CEO Ross Levinsohn has been able to dip into. He took the paywall concept in a different direction for his new employer. Specifically, he strategically enhanced the website to allow for a premium subscription level. This new subscription has given more value to the website’s content by offering it earlier to premium members. Because of this notable enhancement and because the problem faced by Sports Illustrated has challenged many other brands, some of those brands have pulled inspiration from Sports Illustrated’s major digital change.

As a major sports industry brand, Sports Illustrated has been a key player in the print publishing world for seven decades. Over the course of its long history, it has undergone critical times of transition. Its most recent major shift has been strategically executed by Sports Illustrated CEO Ross Levinsohn. The brand’s early history revolved…