List of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover models enumerates the chronological history of
cover models for the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has grown from being an issue of
Sports Illustrated magazine created just to creatively fill space at a time of year with little sports news into a major marketing franchise that includes a special separate issue, a
website,
television specials,
calendars,
books and enormous amounts of advertising. It began as a short photo spread of women in
bathing suits and has become a
fashion issue for beachwear worn by the world's top
models. Being the subject of the
Sports Illustrated magazine cover is a well chronicled event which has both become a measure by which fame is measured and a status which is supposedly accompanied by a curse known as the
"SI jinx". There seems to have been no reports of any association of the SI jinx with the swimsuit issue.