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The anticipation that a male in a major team sport would announce he was gay had been building for weeks, along with the frenzy among sportswriters trying to break the story.
Sports Illustrated knew it had the story; it just did not know the identity of the athlete.
Three weeks ago, Arn Tellem, agent to Jason Collins, called a Sports Illustrated writer, Franz Lidz, and offered him an exclusive story about how a major athlete was about to publicly announce that he was gay.
Mr. Tellem did not give Mr. Lidz the name of the athlete. He just told him that the athlete would be meeting Mr. Lidz and an editor at an address in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 24. Jon Wertheim, executive editor of Sports Illustrated, showed up at the address in Los Angeles that day without knowing whose home they were visiting.
“He felt like he had a story to tell and this is what Sports Illustrated is known for, storytelling,†Chris Stone, managing editor of Sports Illustrated, said of Mr. Collins.
The magazine’s editors said in an interview on Monday afternoon after they closed the issue that they were careful in the days before that interview not to ask too many questions. Mr. Stone said he felt comfortable not knowing more than that it was a basketball player with a home in Los Angeles.
“We could only deduce he wasn’t going to the playoffs and he lived in Los Angeles,†said Mr. Stone. “Honestly, we didn’t ask because there was this very real possibility this individual would change his mind.â€
Mr. Wertheim said that when they arrived for the interview last week, Mr. Collins only asked that he be able to tell the story “in his words†and “as a first person account.â€
Editors for Sports Illustrated noted that they knew they had to run the story as quickly as possible while also capturing the broadest audience. Mr. Collins said he did not want the publication of the story to coincide with the Boston Celtics’ first home game after the Boston Marathon bombings, which was last Friday.
The editors chose to post the story on the magazine’s Web site at 11 a.m. on Monday because it would not be too early in Los Angeles for Mr. Collins to take phone calls. They also wanted to post as close to lunchtime on Monday as possible because that is one of the busiest times for the site. It was the fourth time since 2008 that Sports Illustrated decided to post a story before the magazine appeared on newsstands.
But all of the waiting paid off for the publication, which has lost a small percentage of its total circulation in the last five years and like many magazines suffered a decline in newsstand sales during that time â€" 46 percent, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. In the first two hours after the story was released, Sports Illustrated’s Web site received five million page views, which is more than double what it typically receives in that time period.
The anticipation that a male in a major team sport would announce he was gay had been building for weeks, along with the frenzy among sportswriters trying to break the story.
Sports Illustrated knew it had the story; it just did not know the identity of the athlete.
Three weeks ago, Arn Tellem, agent to Jason Collins, called a Sports Illustrated writer, Franz Lidz, and offered him an exclusive story about how a major athlete was about to publicly announce that he was gay.
Mr. Tellem did not give Mr. Lidz the name of the athlete. He just told him that the athlete would be meeting Mr. Lidz and an editor at an address in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 24. Jon Wertheim, executive editor of Sports Illustrated, showed up at the address in Los Angeles that day without knowing whose home they were visiting.
“He felt like he had a story to tell and this is what Sports Illustrated is known for, storytelling,†Chris Stone, managing editor of Sports Illustrated, said of Mr. Collins.
The magazine’s editors said in an interview on Monday afternoon after they closed the issue that they were careful in the days before that interview not to ask too many questions. Mr. Stone said he felt comfortable not knowing more than that it was a basketball player with a home in Los Angeles.
“We could only deduce he wasn’t going to the playoffs and he lived in Los Angeles,†said Mr. Stone. “Honestly, we didn’t ask because there was this very real possibility this individual would change his mind.â€
Mr. Wertheim said that when they arrived for the interview last week, Mr. Collins only asked that he be able to tell the story “in his words†and “as a first person account.â€
Editors for Sports Illustrated noted that they knew they had to run the story as quickly as possible while also capturing the broadest audience. Mr. Collins said he did not want the publication of the story to coincide with the Boston Celtics’ first home game after the Boston Marathon bombings, which was last Friday.
The editors chose to post the story on the magazine’s Web site at 11 a.m. on Monday because it would not be too early in Los Angeles for Mr. Collins to take phone calls. They also wanted to post as close to lunchtime on Monday as possible because that is one of the busiest times for the site. It was the fourth time since 2008 that Sports Illustrated decided to post a story before the magazine appeared on newsstands.
But all of the waiting paid off for the publication, which has lost a small percentage of its total circulation in the last five years and like many magazines suffered a decline in newsstand sales during that time â€" 46 percent, according to the Alliance for Audited Media. In the first two hours after the story was released, Sports Illustrated’s Web site received five million page views, which is more than double what it typically receives in that time period.
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One of the longest lasting relationships on Madison Avenue, between the Gillette men’s grooming brand and the BBDO advertising agency, is coming to an end.
Procter & Gamble, which acquired Gillette in 2005, said on Monday that it would shift the duties for creating advertising campaigns for the Gillette brand that appear in countries around the world to Grey from BBDO Worldwide.
Procter spends hundreds of millions of dollars each year to advertise the Gillette line of men’s grooming products, including the familiar shaving items like razors and blades. About $150 million a year of that spending takes place in the United States.
BBDO’s relationship with Gillette dates to 1966, when it acquired an agency named Clyde Maxon, which worked on Gillette ads beginning in the 1930s and onward. BBDO helped Gillette introduce products like the Atra, Mach 3 and Fusion razors and blades, and it coined the slogan “The best a man can get†for Gillette in 1989.
The decision by Procter executives to move the account came after a seven-month review that had been narrowed to BBDO Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group, and two other finalists: Grey, part of the Grey Group division of WPP; and Publicis Worldwide, part of the Publicis Groupe.
The review began with five agencies, the three finalists along with Saatchi & Saatchi, also part of Publicis, and Wieden & Kennedy.
All five agencies already work for Procter, meaning, in industry parlance, that they are roster agencies for the company. For instance, BBDO also handles assignments for Procter like Braun shavers, the Art of Shaving retail chain and the Venus line of women’s shaving products; those accounts are not affected by the departure of the Gillette account.
Grey adds Gillette to a list of Procter brands for which it creates ads that includes Febreze and Pantene. In a memo to employees, James R. Heekin, chairman and chief executive at the Grey Group, called the decision “sensational news†and a “vote of confidence in Grey from our longtime partner, P.&G.â€
The change in the status of the Gillette account came as Procter was re-evaluating various aspects of its advertising, marketing and promotional plans during a challenging period for the company. In a statement on Monday, Procter said the review had been spurred by a desire “to generate fresh thinking and uncover new approaches to connecting with men.â€
The sluggish economies in many countries, including the United States, mean that consumers are thinking twice before buying even the everyday household staples in which Procter specializes. And Procter has had problems in pricing products, as some brands were being perceived as too expensive for the current economic climate.
Recently the company has run ads playing up the value of its products as well as introducing lower-price versions of premium-price products like Bounty towels and Puffs tissues.
In the case of Gillette, the company has resumed ads for the Mach 3 men’s shaving line, which was superseded by the more expensive Fusion men’s shaving line. And some ads for Fusion have talked about how the blades may not be as expensive as they seem if shoppers consider how long each blade can last.
Stuart Elliott, the advertising columnist, answers questions from readers each week. Questions can be sent to stuarte@nytimes.com.
Q. The current Farmers Insurance “Smarter†campaign has a spot that pays off when the spokesperson sees a guy stealing from a car, then tosses a strike with a football that knocks the thief into some garbage cans.
My question is this: Did a real person throw the football. If so, who? Or was the action electronically patched in?
A. The commercial in question, dear reader, for the Farmers Insurance Group, is created by RPA in Santa Monica, Calif., and is part of the campaign that features the actor J. K. Simmons as the spokesman; he plays a professor named Nathaniel Burke who is on the faculty of the University of Farmers.
According to Sara Morgan, a spokeswoman at RPA, Mr. Simmons threw the football in the commercial. In an e-mail, she writes that two RPA employees who worked on the spot â€" Pat Mendelson, group creative director, and Selena Pizarro, senior producer â€" told her that on the first take Mr. Simmons “actually hit the roller skater all in camera.†(The thief was on roller skates.)
“He has quite an arm,†Ms. Morgan says, adding: “But then there was a wardrobe change on the skater. So there were a few more takes, all with J. K. Simmons throwing the football.â€
The final version of the commercial “is a combination of in-camera and CGI on the football toss,†she says, using the abbreviation for computer-generated imagery, with the throw from Mr. Simmons on camera and “the arc of the football and the hit on the skater†created through CGI.
Q. Your reader concerned about linguistics, who commented about unnecessarily fancy pronunciations of words in radio commercials, might enjoy a phrase my dad â€" a consummate grammarian â€" would use to describe the incorrect use of the pronoun “I†in cases such as “between you and I.â€
He called it the “elegant I,†meant to imply that the speaker was trying foolishly to display his or her own expertise.
A. Thanks, dear reader, for your comment. The “elegant I†is not the Hungry I. or the “Hawaiian Eye.,†but I must say it is an excellent alternate way of describing what the concerned reader, citing Edwin Newman, called “putting on the dog.â€
Jason Collins, who played for the N.B.A.’s Boston Celtics and Washington Wizards last season, on Monday became the first active male athlete in a major American team sport to publicly announce that he is gay.
Reaction around the league has been substantially supportive of Mr. Collins. Star players like Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash and Baron Davis have declared their admiration for him on Twitter â€" as has the N.B.A.’s commissioner, David Stern.
But Mr. Collins ended the season as a 34-year-old free agent who mostly came off the bench. How likely is he to find a job in the league next year?
I searched the basketball-reference.com database for players who had a similar season to Mr. Collins’s 2012-13 campaign. Specifically, I looked for players who were between age 33 and 35, who played forward or center, who played in 30 to 50 games, and who started five to 15 times. (Mr. Collins played in 48 games and started nine times for the Wizards and the Celtics last year).
Basically, we’re looking for other aging big men who mostly came off the bench, but who were deemed good enough to start on occasion.
The search identified 18 such players before last season; one of those was Mr. Collins after the 2011-12 season. How many of them played at least some minutes in the N.B.A. the following year?
Eleven of eighteen did, or 61 percent. The odds have been slightly in favor of their extending their careers, in other words â€" but they are also treated as expendable commodities.
In some ways, that makes Mr. Collins’s decision to come out much braver. He would hardly have been guaranteed a job next year, regardless of his sexual orientation. If N.B.A. teams discriminate against him at all for being gay, that could keep him on the sidelines.
At the same time, this will represent only one data point. My concern is that if no team signs Mr. Collins, it may incorrectly be deemed as a referendum on whether the league is willing to employ an openly gay player â€" when players in Mr. Collins’s position see their N.B.A. careers end fairly often for all sorts of reasons.
Alternatively, if a team does sign him, it may be incorrectly dismissed as a publicity stunt â€" when 7-footers who can provide some rebounding and defense off the bench often play well into their thirties.
As a pure basketball decision, it looks like a pretty close call. Here’s hoping that the league will evaluate Mr. Collins on the basis of his basketball production and skills, and not his sexuality.