ABSTRACT
In exploring the links between advertising and sport, it is impossible to overlook the significance of magazines. Sporting and fitness magazines serve as vehicles for advertisers’ messages just as the magazines attempt to construct and deliver demographic segments of the sports/fitness market to advertisers. As many critics have argued, what is actually being created is a highly idealized vision of a reading and consuming audience that is then sold to advertisers. In recent years new sporting and fitness magazines have been developed as publishing conglomerates, and advertisers seek to create and expand a “women’s market.” Notable among recently constructed sporting and fitness magazines is a venture by the publishing conglomerate Condé Nast, whose other titles include Mademoiselle, Vogue, Brides, Glamour, SELF, and Brides magazines. Executive editor Mary Murray makes clear the economic and cultural logics behind this new venture: “Condé Nast magazines are lifestyle magazines. With the rise of women’s sports and fitness, it only seems natural for Condé Nast to appeal to that lifestyle as well” (cited in Vargas, 1999: D7).
