Time Inc. will officially launch its bimonthly
publication Sports Illustrated For Women (SIFW) this month,
and the BOSTON GLOBE's Gregg Krupa wrote that March is a
"good time to find out whether women's sports magazines will
finally take off." SIFW had test issues in '97 and '99, and
SIFW Editor Sandy Bailey said the magazine conducted market
research over the past two years to determine its target
readership. Bailey: "The common denominator for the women
who read us most was that they played sports, they weren't
just spectators. ... Our target is the 18- to 34-year-old
woman -- even younger, say a 16- or 17-year-old preparing
for college -- who is interested in sports as a
participant." Bailey, on the delayed launch: "Perhaps the
biggest factor was the startup of ESPN The Magazine, and the
need for us at SI to really concentrate on the core SI. In
retrospect, the wait was probably a good thing. We were not
nearly as focused on what [SIFW] was, and how we are
different from the men's magazine, as we are now." Krupa
noted SIFW has competition from Conde Nast's Women's Sports
& Fitness, whose circulation has "jumped" from 475,000 in
January '99 to 650,000 this month (BOSTON GLOBE, 3/15).
