WomenSports

womenSports

April 1976 cover of womenSports with Olga Korbut
Editor-in-Chief	Rosalie Muller Wright (1974-1975) Cheryl McCall Cutler Durkee
Categories	Women's magazine
Frequency	Monthly
Publisher	womenSports Publishing Company (1974-1978) Women's Sports Foundation (1979-1998) Condé Nast Publications (1998-2000)
First issue	May 1974
Country	US
Language	English

womenSports magazine was the first magazine dedicated to women in sports. It was launched in close conjunction with Billie Jean King's Women's Sports Foundation and each issue of the magazine contained a two-page article written by the executive director of the Foundation.

Billie Jean and Larry King acted as publishers, while Jim Jorgensen was the company president. Rosalie Wright from Philadelphia magazine was hired as the magazine's editor-in-chief and brought on writers Anne Lamott, Jon Carroll and Greg Hoffman. During its design and launch phase, womenSports received help from Ms. Magazine publishers Pat Carbine and Gloria Steinem as well as celebrity PR executive Pat Kingsley.

The inaugural issue of womenSports (ISSN 0095-0661)in May 1974 featured Billie Jean King on the cover. Shortly after launch, womenSports reached a monthly circulation of 200,000. womenSports won a J.C. Penney-Missouri Award in 1974. (The J.C. Penney-Missouri Awards became the Missouri Lifestyle Journalism Awards in 1994.)

Turnover began in 1975 when editor Wright was fired for refusing to print an article written by an advertiser and not marked as such. She was replaced by Cheryl McCall from the Detroit Free Press. womenSports was sold to the Charter Company, then owner of Redbook, in 1976 and the company’s offices were moved to New York from San Francisco. Then-editor McCall stayed with the magazine, but soon left to become an editor at People magazine. Cutler Durkee moved with the magazine to New York City, then from womenSports to People where he became its executive editor.

After Charter ceased publication of womenSports, the Kings reclaimed ownership of the magazine and began publishing it through the Women's Sports Foundation as Women's Sports (ISSN 0163-7428), publishing it monthly from 1979 through 1984. In 1984 the magazine moved to bimonthly publication and subsequently changed its name to Women's Sports and Fitness (ISSN 8750-653X).