Dennis Page had two main passions in his life: music and basketball. In 1993, Page was pretty good with one of them; he had helped launch rock and roll magazine, Guitar worldIn 1980, and has now been working successfully as the magazine’s publisher for over a decade, he was happy enough to give up his previous life’s goal of being a DJ or working Rolling Stonebut he was ready to start something new.
Just as Page, who has always loved hoops as much as music (even if he’s never worked in sports), began to worry about what magazine he might publish next, his friend in the music business, Alan Grunblatt, suggested that he start, effectively, “ hip-hop basketball magazine.”
Sports media will never be the same.
Professional athletes have been “cool” for almost as long as sports have existed as a profession. Page’s first favorite players were guys he saw in person growing up in Trenton, New Jersey; local legend Tal Brody and New York’s Lew Alcindor, whose Power Memorial team visited Paige’s hometown to take on Trenton Catholic.As Paige’s circle of exposure grew through the gradual rise of sports media, he fell in love with players such as Earl “The Pearl” Monroe and Julius “Dr. J” Erving. Then there was Isaiah Thomas, and in the early 90s, of course, there was Michael Jordan. But the way these superheroes were covered in the media remained fairly constant. Newspapers focused on games and statistics. Street & Smith’s magazine took the time to spotlight young players and Sports and: Sports Illustrated raised the level of writing in the field, and Page devoured them all. There wasn’t much flavor though.
As Page writes in the introduction to a recent book, 30 Years of SLAM. Defining basketball culture“The idea crystallized as just a basketball magazine from a hip-hop perspective. I could see it in my head like daylight; The design would be like the Nike/Mars Blackmon/Michael Jordan print ads, the photography would be as good as VIBE and the writing as irreverent as Rolling Stone“.
During the early years there were some rocks. Michael Jordan retired just as Issue 1 was being planned, Reggie Miller didn’t appreciate some of the jokes made at his expense, some long-time NBA executives and old-school reporters didn’t enjoy SLAM’s tone, but more or less, Edge’s vision played great SLAM covers showed the players the “rock stars” they were SLAM featured fashion shoots and has been covering the looks of basketball players in some way ever since (most famously in the 2020s with his must-follow Instagram account @leaguefits.) SLAM introduced the KICKS section on sneakers that long was the first for years where players and fans opened the issue.The KICKS department created KICKS Magazine, which has been published annually since 1998 up and in many ways sets the tone for the myriad of sneakerheads, blogs, and social media accounts (including @slamkicks, natch) that have followed since.
Mag’s near-constant rise as a business spanned from its 1994 launch to early 2004, when the 10th anniversary issue became a huge, profitable and Vogue:– like 260 (!!) pages stuffed with ads for every sneaker brand and hip-hop label you could think of, and it was the best-selling sports magazine on American newsstands.
Then the internet took over. SLAM, and specifically, Harris Publications, the old school the family publisher that operated it was quite slow to figure out how to monetize it online.The issues were reduced in terms of revenue and page count.It was a tough time from a business perspective, but the staff – Page always gifted was hiring and empowering talented people who were on the rise in the profession, the best of whom had the grace to hire and empower a newer generation of future stars, never stopped caring about the sport, the lifestyle, or the #slamfam that stayed true through it all.
Although SLAM was slow to convert to the world wide web, it was lightning fast as social media became the new place to reach fans, quickly crossing a million followers on each of those platforms at no cost coin to “buy” or “raise” its reach.SLAM was and is organic The media feeds on the love of the game.
In the very last phase of SLAM’s life, from about 2017 when SLAM was acquired by JDS Sports and Page became the de facto owner of the magazine he started, until today, you will occasionally “hear” Page say, literally, in his classic South Jersey accent, or virtually, via an Instagram post or comment;
It wasn’t. And it wasn’t. But with Page’s dedication to the game and the many great people who learned from him, SLAM made it 30 years and transformed the sport at every turn.
Ben Osborne is a longtime sports writer and editor who served as editor-in-chief of SLAM from 2007-2016.
