SLAM Is Onto Something with Their “Instant” Bam Adebayo Cover
Plus: Early Ohtani issue makes waves, a PSA 9.8 Tiger 1st SI hits the market, and more mags than ever at the Chicago Sports Spectacular
Last week, the defensive-minded Bam Adebayo — Mr. 20 PPG himself — knocked the basketball world off its axis by scoring 83 points in a single game, eclipsing Kobe Bryant’s high mark from 2006 and warranting an homage to Wilt Chamberlain’s legendary 100-point effort.
Hysterical backlash aside, Bam’s achievement was undeniably memorable. SLAM seized the moment, releasing a special “instant” cover to commemorate a milestone reached by only one other player in NBA history.
In addition to the standard covers — which are still available — this issue received the typical SLAM special treatment — 94 Gold Metal Editions, as well as Orange Metal Editions available for 48 hours only. In an X thread, SLAM’s Director of Special Projects Austin Kent described the late-night teamwork required to bring this cover to life:
SLAM’s signature style is close-up studio photography of the cover subject, with a few recent game-action exceptions, including new Laker Luka Doncic (Apr/May 2025), Caitlin Clark’s first Fever cover (Oct/Nov 2024), and Anthony Edwards’ unforgettable posterization of John Collins (Apr/May 2024).
The Bam 83 cover represents something different, an idea in the vein of Panini Instant and Topps NOW — which happens to be a revenue fire hose for Michael Rubin’s trading card empire.
SLAM can replicate this with the most viral moments in basketball each year — an Earth-shaking dunk, a historic single-game performance, or the birth of a potential dynasty — keeping them top-of-mind for basketball collectors of all types and breathing new life into the (mostly barren) landscape of modern sports magazine collecting.
(Consider this: Nearly one month later, the publication most associated with the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” has yet to release a cover commemorating the Olympic golds won by the US men’s and women’s hockey teams in Italy. Even worse? We all know they’re not going to.)
If SLAM wants to take the concept a step further and enter the Willy Wonka Zone, they should consider randomly inserting gold metal editions or autographed copies (with tasteful blank space for the signature) into orders for standard issues. PSA does this with the variants of their monthly magazine, and once Topps realized the power of the Golden Ticket, they never looked back.
As much as we love the musty old issues first opened by our grandparents, it’s nice to get excited about something new in the print world. With multiple variants for each issue, early cover debuts for rising stars, and now game-dated, limited-edition commemoratives, SLAM is almost single-handedly keeping sports magazines relevant among modern collectors.
More Magazines Than Ever at the Chicago Sports Spectacular
The biannual Chicago Sports Spectacular took place this past weekend, March 13-15. It’s a solid (if predictable) show with about 200 tables of sports cards and memorabilia and a not-overwhelming amount of Pokémon.
(For those of you who had the distinct displeasure of cramming between the new vendor tables upstairs at last year’s National, imagine that room completely full and with aisles much wider than 1.5 adults.)
I’ve attended the five most recent shows — almost always as soon as doors open for the “sneak peek” on Friday afternoon — and have seen a few things evolve on the magazine front.
Quantity
There were more ungraded sports magazines at this show than any Chicago Sports Spectacular I’ve been to so far. Probably by a wide margin.
Quantity was not a problem. Quality was a different story.
But that’s okay! Unless there’s a vendor who sells only magazines, I’m not expecting a high concentration of curated key issues at this show. I expect a box or two of mostly subscription Sports Illustrateds and SPORTs with random Michael Jordan covers set aside and priced higher. Even without finding a hidden gem, it’s usually worth the trip just to flip through covers I don’t often search for online.
Prices
Like just about everything other than Lay’s potato chips, prices for ungraded magazines at this particular show are going up.
Sellers that once charged between $5 and $20 per magazine showed up this year with more issues in worse condition and sticker prices of $10, $25, $40, or more. And I’m not mad about it! Please don’t put in the newspaper that I’m mad.
Repeat vendors charging higher prices is a sign of steady sales. If they’re moving mags quickly, they’re more likely to source them for other shows, exposing more collectors to the idea of collecting and preserving vintage sports magazines. I’m happy to pay up to encourage that movement.
(But I was certainly more selective with my purchases than I have been in the past.)
Storage and Condition
Most vendors that I know previously sold magazines at this show had them bagged, boarded, and stored in appropriately sized cardboard boxes this year. Sure, the bags were of varying age, size, and condition, but they got the job done.
Other vendors — likely new to selling magazines — were less careful with their products.
Several boxes I saw were jammed with raw issues … and nothing else. No bags, no boards, not even the plastic sheet protectors I used put in little binders for book reports in elementary school. Thankfully I didn’t come across any treasures damaged by these ghastly storage methods. But that didn’t make searching through them any less harrowing.
A few sellers offered issues in such bad condition I wondered if I was on MTV’s Boiling Points. This Tiger Woods ’97 Masters Sports Illustrated looked like it had been scraped off the pavement after a heavy rain, dried on a hot dog roller, then tossed back outside in time for a hailstorm.
The same seller also had this bizarre slab for sale: A water-damaged, sticker-over-the-label subscription copy of Mario “Gretzky” Lemieux’s first Sports Illustrated cover, graded CGC 3.0. Pop 1, all higher.
Beggars can’t be choosers, of course. I was thrilled to see so many mags available at this show — a steady trend over the last two years.
But I’m hoping a magazine collector sets up a mags-only table at The National (or next Spectacular) with clean bags, nice slabs, and clear labeling, setting an example for other vendors who view magazines as nothing more than table fillers and showing card loyalists that magazines are worthy complements to their collections.
Notable Sales
$16,470 PSA 9.0 Hochi High School Shohei Ohtani 1st Cover (Goldin)
Not only is this PSA 9.0 not a top pop, the issue isn’t even Ohtani’s first appearance on the cover of a magazine! And yet we’re looking at a sale of $16,470 — roughly half the price of a PSA 9.0 Mickey Mantle Sports Illustrated published a half-century earlier. Shohei Ohtani is inevitable.
This piece is apparently from the collection of cllct founder and former ESPN sports media reporter Darren Rovell.
$3,965 PSA 9.8 LeBron James 1st Sports Illustrated cover (Goldin)
Just over a year ago, a CGC 9.8 copy of this issue sold for $1,830 on Goldin.
$2,623 PSA 6.5 (Auto 10) Lewis Hamilton AutoWeek 1st cover (Goldin)
After a dreadful first year at Ferrari, Lewis found his way onto the podium this week for the first time since leaving Mercedes. As he inches toward retirement, a memorable season from one of F1’s all-time greats could drive demand for this awesome cover of the then-13-year-old prodigy.
$977 CGC 8.5 Tiger Woods 1st Golf World cover (Subscription) (Goldin)
$350 CGC 7.5 Tiger Woods 1st Golf World cover (Subscription) (eBay Best Offer)
Speaking of teenage prodigies, this 1992 issue is believed to be the first magazine cover for Tiger Woods. The 16-year-old had just won his second consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur.
In January 2025, a rare newsstand copy (or at least one without an address printed in the white box) sold for $417 at auction on eBay. There is only one graded newsstand out there — a CGC 8.0.
$213 Magic Johnson 1st pro Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$169 Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
The vintage newsstand SI auctions from eBay seller heatherr543 continue to trickle out. As of this writing, they have at least 36 other issues up for bid.
$163 CGC 8.0 Michael Jordan Hoop NBA Yearbook ’89 cover (Goldin)
In 1987, the Slam Dunk Contest was very much alive, and the only evidence you need is this photo of a mid-air Mike reversing without a sponsored prop in sight. It’s one of the coolest MJ covers in existence, regardless of publication. There are only 15 copies graded — four higher than this CGC 8.0.
$153 CGC 9.4 Michael Jordan Dallas/Fort Worth Avid Golfer March 1999 cover (Goldin)
Easily the best magazine cover featuring Michael Jordan sitting on a bucket of range balls.
$153: NBA Today ’84 Draft Guide with Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon (eBay)
$135 Hank Aaron “715” Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$118 Ken Griffey Jr. 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$115 Magic Johnson 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$103 Hank Aaron 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$101 PSA 9.6 Photographer’s Forum Summer 2002 Kobe Bryant cover PSA 9.6
We made a big deal about this (very cool) issue last week, and now I’m sitting here wondering why I didn’t bid on it. Congrats to the buyer, and condolences to the seller, who almost certainly hoped for a better return.
$79 Magic Johnson “The Magic Show” Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$70 Bill Bradley 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$47 PSA 1.5 Wayne Gretzky 1st Sports Illustrated cover (Subscription) (Goldin)
$45 Larry Csonka “Rough and Ready” Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
$27 David Thompson 1st Sports Illustrated cover (eBay)
This is a beautiful cover (in phenomenal condition!) of one of the most impactful high-flyers in basketball history. Ten years from now, when all games are played on LED courts by players wearing holographic AI jerseys controlled by Kalshi users or whatever, we can look to magazine covers like this one for a reminder of the beauty of hoops on hardwood.
Auctions Ending This Week
eBay
Ends Wed. 3/18 at 7:37pm ET: Signed Vladimir Guerrero Jr. 1st Sports Illustrated cover
Ends Thus. 3/19 at 1:02pm ET: Wilt Chamberlain 1st Sports Illustrated cover
Ends Thu. 3/19 at 1:43pm ET: Mickey Mantle Sports Illustrated “Spring Training” cover
Ends Thu. 3/19 at 1:44pm ET: Floyd Patterson Sports Illustrated cover
Ends Fri. 3/20 at 12:30am ET: PSA 8.5 Tiger Woods “Masterpiece” Sports Illustrated
Goldin
Goldin has nearly 100 graded magazines available in their Weekly Auction ending Thursday, March 19 at 10pm ET. Here are a few highlights:
PSA 9.8 Sports Illustrated Oct. 28, 1996 Tiger Woods 1st Cover
Already at more than $8,500, this PSA 9.8 Tiger Woods 1st SI cover could double the sale price of the CGC 9.8 copy that sold on Goldin in August 2024.
CGC 0.5 (Restored) Sports Illustrated June 10, 1963 Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali) 1st Cover with JSA Authenticated Autograph
Muhammad Ali officially changed his name less than nine months after his this issue of Sports Illustrated hit newsstands, making a “Cassius Clay” signature on his first cover rarer than a pre-fight press conference without a rhyming prediction from The Champ.
Because of the rarity of the signature, I tend to think the pool of potential buyers skews more toward autograph and Ali collectors, rather than graded magazine collectors. I have no idea what to expect as far as price.
PSA 9.4 Sports Illustrated May 7, 1990 Ken Griffey Jr. 1st Cover
Baseball, hot dogs, Ken Griffey Jr. in the ’90s.
Forgive me, but I can’t resist comparing PSA and CGC sale prices of key issues like this one. The most recent sales of CGC 9.4 copies I could find are $850 (Feb. ’26), $603 (Dec. ’25), $423 (July ’25), and $976 (May ’25). That’s a big range for this one to potentially fall within, so there may not be a clear takeaway.
PSA 9.8 SLAM Gold Metal June/July 2026 Jalen Brunson Cover /94
The rare 9.8 that is not a top pop!
PSA 6.5 Sports Illustrated July 7, 1986 Diego Maradona 1st Cover
CGC 9.2 1986-87 Street & Smith’s Basketball Michael Jordan 1st Cover
PSA 9.0 Newsweek Jul. 6, 1992 Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson “Dream Team” Cover
Heritage
The following auctions close on Sunday, March 22 at 11pm ET:
CGC 6.5 Sports Illustrated Mickey Mantle 1st Cover (Subscription)
CGC 7.5 Sports Illustrated First Issue Eddie Mathews 1st Cover
Coming Soon: Tracking Pop Reports for Key Issues
GoCollect offers some useful tools for those interested in sales and population data for graded magazines. But PSA has not yet shared their census information with them, leaving us to kind of eyeball things in their user-hostile Magazine Population Report.
Next week, I’ll share a Google Sheet with the combined CGC and PSA population reports for a few dozen key newsstand issues of Sports Illustrated, SPORT, TIME, SLAM, etc. In each newsletter roundup, I’ll update the counts and note any major changes.*
(*Unless, of course, I discover this data is already being tracked somewhere else, in which case I’ll bail on this project faster than SLAM put out that Bam cover.)
I’m sure GoCollect will eventually get access to PSA’s data, but until then, this will help us get a better handle on significant additions (or subtractions!) to the graded populations of sports magazines.
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