Sports Illustrated Celebrates USWNT With 25 Different Covers
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Sports Illustrated is honoring the U.S. women's soccer team with 25 different covers -- a group shot, plus one for each player and coach Jill Ellis -- to commemorate their victory in the FIFA Women's World Cup.
Sports Illustrated managing editor Chris Stone said the upcoming set -- an idea that was conceived last week -- will be a first for the magazine.
"The USWNT has plenty of recognizable, even famous names, but we couldn't think of a group so thoroughly identified with a team as this one," Stone said in a statement to SI's website. "We could go two ways: a team shot, which seemed a little conventional here, or something different and fresh: honoring not just one or two players, but all 23 of them with their own cover."
According to Stone, it all came together thanks to Friday's ticker-tape parade up the Canyon of Heroes.
"By the time we settled on the idea, the team was in L.A. for an event that would end mid-afternoon. The photographer we wanted to shoot it, and who had shot the (World Cup final), Simon Bruty, was headed home to D.C. It wasn't going to happen on Tuesday," he said. "Then, New York City delivered, big-time, by planning Friday's parade, which would bring the entire team to a single spot. The USWNT, incredibly cool and helpful from the start, agreed to be shot both before and after the parade. It all added up to a little piece of history, the first shoot of its kind in SI history."
The July 20 issue will hit newsstands this week.
