Sports Illustrated Gets Into TV With HBO Documentary Series
When we spent a week in Sports Illustrated‘s offices in July, Mark Ford, president of Time Inc. Sports Group spoke of the magazine’s ambitions to reach sports fans through all the devices they use to consume sports content, including TV. Those ambitions have been realized, suggests a joint announcement from HBO, Sports Illustrated and Endgame Entertainment released Tuesday.
The three groups have partnered to develop Sport in America: Our Defining Stories, a documentary series that will air on HBO in 2013. The series will explore how sport has shaped American culture and will be backed by editorial extensions on Sports Illustrated‘s print and digital properties, as well as social media integrations with HBO’s and SI‘s platforms. Terry McDonell, Group Editor of the Time Inc. Sports Group (pictured), joins HBO’s Rick Bernstein, Endgame Entertainment’s James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo, and Playground’s Colin Callender as executive producers.
From now until the series premiere, fans are being directed to sportsinamerica.com, where they can record and upload videos about their favorite sports memories. Some of those submissions will be selected for inclusion in the series.
This marks SI‘s first major foray into TV, having produced a number of Swimsuit-themed specials with various partners, including DirectTV, Turner and NBC, in the past.
