• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, October 9, 2015

It’s rare enough that a magazine will even acknowledge the existence of a title owned by a rival publisher, let alone actually collaborate with them. But that’s what’s happening with Time Inc.’s Sports Illustrated and Conde Nast’s Wired magazine, which are having a kumbaya moment as they join forces to examine the future of football.

With their multiplatform project “SB 100,” SI and Wired are looking 50 years into the future and examining (or predicting) what football will look like during the 100th Super Bowl. It covers everything from equipment to media technology, the fan experience, sports medicine and player safety.

The collaboration includes over 60 pieces of print, digital, and video content produced by over a dozen journalists dedicated to the 10-part series. Gatorade and Microsoft are the presenting sponsors for the collaboration, which will be promoted across SI and Wired’s print and digital channels, including social media.

The joint project comes as football at all levels faces what may be the biggest crisis in its history, amid mounting evidence that the rough physical contact intrinsic to the sport is causing permanent brain damage in some players. The resulting scrutiny has led to calls for improved safety measures, but it’s not clear whether or how the sport can be made completely safe.

Sports Illustrated has entered into a number of content partnerships with other media properties in recent months. In September they joined forces with WebMD for a video series called “The Comeback: Stories of Resilience,” about athletes who returned to the field after injuries or other setbacks.

Earlier this year, SI acquired FanSided, a network of over 300 Web sites, as well as the three companies that together form SI Play, a new division serving youth and amateur sports enthusiasts with online tools for player registration, scheduling, communication and score keeping among other functions.