The Sports Illustrated cover jinx

The Sports Illustrated cover jinx
	FALSE
	"Athletes and teams who appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated suffer a decline in performance or misfortune afterward because of a jinx."
Domain	Sports & Competition
Tactic	Statistical & Evidentiary Distortion;
Era	Historical
First seen	1950s
Origin	A long-standing sports superstition dating to the magazine's early years in the 1950s, discussed by the magazine itself in a 2002 cover story
Last reviewed	2026-10-27
	Further reading: books on Sports & Competition

The Sports Illustrated cover jinx is the belief that appearing on the magazine's cover brings bad luck. Fans and athletes have pointed to cases where athletes or teams went into slumps, lost or were injured after being featured. In 2002, Sports Illustrated itself examined its covers and found that a substantial share of featured athletes and teams had experienced some misfortune afterward. The best explanation is a statistical phenomenon called regression to the mean, combined with selective memory, not a curse.

The claim

The jinx is often described in anecdotes. Some athletes have reportedly declined to appear on the cover, and fans have worried when their team was featured.

What the evidence shows

The magazine's analysis. In a January 2002 cover story, Sports Illustrated reported examining nearly 2,500 covers and finding that in about 37 percent of cases, the subject suffered a measurable misfortune, such as an injury or a decline in performance, soon after.
Regression to the mean. Athletes and teams typically appear on the cover after an exceptional performance or streak. Exceptional results usually include some good luck, so subsequent results tend to be closer to average. A decline is expected whether or not the athlete appears on a magazine cover. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman used the jinx as an example of regression to the mean in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Selective memory. People remember striking examples of misfortune and forget the many cases where nothing bad happened or where success continued.
Pressure and attention. Some have suggested that media attention could add pressure, but there is no evidence that a magazine cover has a distinctive effect beyond regression.

Why it persists

Superstitions are common in sports, where outcomes depend partly on chance. The jinx provides a story to explain disappointing results. Memorable examples are retold, while counterexamples are ignored.

Lessons for readers

After an extreme result, expect the next result to be closer to average.
Ask how examples were selected before accepting a pattern.
Look for a comparison group: what happened to similar athletes who were not on the cover?
Stories of curses often ignore chance.
The same principle applies to praise and criticism, investment returns and medical treatments.

Sources

Alexander Wolff, "That Old Black Magic," Sports Illustrated, January 21, 2002.
Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011).
Gary Smith, Standard Deviations: Flawed Assumptions, Tortured Data, and Other Ways to Lie with Statistics (Overlook Press, 2014).