Skip to main content
SI

Forums Community Guidelines

Sports Illustrated Community Guidelines

Last Updated: August 19, 2026


Welcome to the Sports Illustrated community! For decades, Sports Illustrated (“SI,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) has been the premier voice in sports journalism. Our interactive features – including comment sections, fan forums, message boards, and user content upload features (collectively, the “Interactive Areas”) – are designed to give sports fans a space to debate, discuss, and celebrate the games, teams, and athletes we love.

To keep our community engaging, respectful, and safe for everyone, all users must follow these Community Guidelines (“Guidelines”). By accessing, posting, or participating in any Interactive Area, you agree to abide by these Guidelines, as well as our [Terms of Use] and [Privacy Policy].


1. Eligibility & Your Responsibilities

  • Age Requirements: Interactive Areas are available only to individuals aged 18 or older. By submitting any User Content (defined below), you represent that you are at least 18 years old. 


  • Your Content, Your Responsibility: You are solely responsible for any comments, photos, videos, audio, text, messages, or other materials (“User Content”) that you post, upload, or transmit. You use all Interactive Areas at your own risk.


By submitting User Content, you represent and warrant that: (i) the content is yours or you have all rights and permissions needed to post it, and posting it does not violate any law or the rights of any person or entity; (ii) you have the consent of every identifiable person appearing in your content to the use of their name, image, and likeness in connection with the Interactive Areas; and (iii) your content complies with these Guidelines and the Terms of Use.


2. The Short Version

Most of these Guidelines come down to a few simple ideas. Sports are emotional, and we want our Interactive Areas to reflect that — so here is where the lines fall:

  • Attack the argument, not the person. Passionate debate, trash talk between rival fan bases, and strong criticism of teams, plays, and decisions are part of sports. Personal abuse is not.


  • Keep it legal. Don't post anything that breaks the law or helps someone else break it.


  • Post only what's yours to post. Respect other people's intellectual property and privacy.


  • Be a real person, honestly. No impersonation, deception, spam, or manipulation.


The detailed rules below explain what these principles mean in practice. They are examples, not an exhaustive list — User Content or conduct that violates the spirit of these Guidelines may be treated as a violation even if it is not specifically listed.


3. Rules of the Game: Prohibited Content & Conduct

To maintain a high standard of discussion, we enforce a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and bad-faith behavior. You agree NOT to post, upload, transmit, or facilitate any User Content or activity that:

A. Harassment, Hate, and Threats

  • Harasses, Bullying, or Stalks: Targets, dox-es, intimidates, threatens, or harasses any individual, athlete, official, staff member, or fellow community member.


  • Contains Hate Speech or Bigotry: Uses slurs or promotes discrimination, hatred, or violence based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or veteran status.


  • Promotes Physical Harm: Threatens violence, incites illegal acts, or poses a reasonable threat to personal or public safety.

B. Graphic, Obscene, or Harmful Materials

  • Exploitative or Explicit Content: Contains pornographic, sexually explicit, obscene, or lewd material, or promotes pedophilia, incest, or bestiality. 


  • Gratuitous Violence: Features graphic imagery of severe injury, abuse, or death captured for exploitative, prurient, or gratuitous purposes.


  • Dangerous or Illegal Acts: Encourages, instructs on, or advocates dangerous, self-harming, or illegal activities.


  • Self-Harm: Promotes, encourages, glorifies, or provides instructions for suicide, self-injury, or eating disorders.

C. Intellectual Property & Rights of Others

  • Infringes Third-Party Rights: Uses copyrighted material (for example, articles, photographs, video clips, music, text, or game broadcasts, including unauthorized streams or recordings of live sporting events), trademarks, trade secrets, rights of publicity, or proprietary rights without explicit authorization from the owner. The burden of proving you have permission rests entirely on you.


  • Violates Privacy or Publicity Rights: Includes identifiable personal information (such as, home address, phone number, private email, a photo) of another person without their consent.

D. Impersonation & Deception

  • Impersonates Others: Pretends to be another person or entity, including an SI writer, editor, athlete, public figure, or moderator.


  • Misrepresents Affiliation: Falsely claims or implies an affiliation with, or endorsement by, Sports Illustrated.


  • Spreads Disinformation: Knowingly posts false, fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading statements.

E. Spam, Commercial Solicitation, & Technical Misuse

  • Spam & Unsolicited Ads: Contains unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or commercial solicitations.


  • Off-topic Spamming: Posts repetitive messages or content unrelated to the designated sports topic or article theme.


  • Automated Systems & Bots: Uses web crawlers, bots, scrapers, automated posting tools, or pay-per-click services to artificially inflate page views, likes, or comments, or to post at a volume beyond human capability.


  • Malicious Code: Uploads or transmits viruses, trojans, worms, or any disruptive components designed to interrupt or limit the functionality of the platform.

F. Platform Integrity & Prohibited Conduct

  • Evading Enforcement: Creates new accounts, uses another person's account, or takes any other steps to evade a suspension, termination, block, or other enforcement action taken by SI, or helps any other person do so.


  • Data Harvesting: Collects, harvests, or scrapes personal information about other users, or uses the Interactive Areas to build databases or mailing lists or to contact users for unauthorized commercial purposes.


  • Commercial Exploitation: Reproduces, duplicates, copies, sells, resells, or exploits any portion of the Interactive Areas or access to them for any commercial purpose without SI's express prior written permission.


  • Facilitating Violations: Encourages, enables, or directs others to violate these Guidelines, or restricts or inhibits any other person from using or enjoying the Interactive Areas.


4. License to Your Content

By submitting User Content to our Interactive Areas, you grant Sports Illustrated a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display your content across any media or distribution channels now known or hereafter developed.

Note on Non-Confidentiality: All User Content submitted to SI is considered non-confidential. SI has no obligation to treat your submissions as proprietary or to attribute authorship to you. You waive any "moral rights" or rights of attribution you may hold in your User Content to the maximum extent permitted by law.


5. Moderation, Suspension, & Termination Rights

SI strives to build a vibrant community, but we must protect our platform and users.

  • Right to Monitor: SI has the right, but not the obligation, to monitor, screen, and review User Content and conduct using automated tools, human reviewers, or both. No commitment is made that content will be reviewed or violations acted upon within any timeframe.


  • Actions We May Take: If SI believes, in its sole discretion, that User Content or conduct violates these Guidelines or the Terms of Use, or may create risk or liability, SI may take any action it considers appropriate, at any time, with or without notice, including: (i) removing, editing, refusing to post, hiding, or restricting visibility of User Content; (ii) issuing warnings; (iii) limiting or disabling access to some or all Interactive Area features; (iv) suspending or permanently terminating an account; (v) blocking users, devices, or network addresses; and (vi) where required or permitted by law, preserving User Content and disclosing it to law enforcement, in accordance with our Privacy Policy.


  • Enforcement Discretion: Enforcement decisions depend on context, including the severity of the violation, user history, and risk to others. Serious violations may result in immediate permanent termination without prior warning. A decision to act or not act in one case does not waive SI's right to act in other cases.


No Liability for Moderation decisions: SI's decision to monitor, moderate, remove, or leave up any User Content does not create responsibility or liability on SI's part, and does not make SI the author, publisher, or endorser of any User Content.

Furthermore, SI does not endorse, vouch for, or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or safety of any User Content. You may encounter content that you find offensive, inaccurate, or objectionable. By using our Interactive Areas, you assume all risks associated with your exposure to user-generated material.


6. How to Report Violations

We encourage our community to help us keep our platform fair and respectful.

Reporting Guideline Violations

If you see content or conduct that violates these Community Guidelines (e.g., harassment, spam, hate speech), please report it to us by:

  • Clicking the "Report" button located next to the comment or post.

  • Emailing our moderation team at: promotions@si.com.


Appeals

If your User Content was removed or your account was restricted and you believe we made an error, you may request a review by contacting us at promotions@si.com. We may, in our sole discretion, review the decision, but we do not guarantee any particular outcome or response time.


Copyright Infringement (DMCA Take-Down Notices)

If you believe that your copyrighted work has been uploaded or displayed on our platform without authorization, please submit a formal DMCA notification to our Designated Copyright Agent:


7. Governing Terms & Precedence

These Community Guidelines are intended to supplement, and remain strictly subordinate to, the Sports Illustrated [Terms of Use] and [Privacy Policy]. In the event of any conflict or inconsistency between these Guidelines and the main Terms of Use, the Terms of Use shall prevail and govern.


8. Changes to These Guidelines

We may update these Guidelines at any time. When we do, we will post the updated version with a new "Last Updated" date. Your continued use of any Interactive Area after such update constitutes your acceptance of the revised Guidelines.