Taylor Ballantyne
Hailey Van Lith
Hailey Van Lith, digital cover star of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
Few afternoon emails get the blood pumping like one from a prominent monthly publication on deadline. Just ask Alex Catterton, the director of content and public relations at Visit Fort Worth, who received one such message in late February. As it turns out, Sports Illustrated, the national magazine that practically invented long-form sports journalism, was coming to Fort Worth to photograph Hailey Van Lith, TCU’s star guard and a rising celebrity in the growing sport of women’s basketball.
If you happened to peruse the internet yesterday, you might’ve come across Sports Illustrated revealing the cover star for their digital Swimsuit Issue. And if this is the case, you know the photoshoot the email references was far from your typical magazine shoot — it wasn’t a single page or spread to simply acknowledge Van Lith and her final NCAA stop. No, this shoot was for the cover. And the cover of the Swimsuit Issue, no less.
That’s right, folks. Hailey Van Lith is on the cover of the digital Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue. No singular volume of a magazine is more iconic, lauded, or gazed upon. And landing on the cover puts one in rarefied air — it’ll attract as many eyes as Time’s Person of the Year or People’s Sexiest Man Alive. Van Lith now belongs to a club of cover stars that includes Kate Upton, Tyra Banks, Heidi Klum, Ronda Rousey, and Beyonce.
And such shoots require their fair share of masterminding to execute. From securing locations and scheduling to catering, transportation, and even a little entertainment, successfully pulling off a photoshoot of this magnitude requires boots on the ground and people with local know-how.
This is where Catterton and the Visit Fort Worth team came in.
Taylor Ballantyne
Hailey Van Lith
Digital cover of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue
The photoshoot would take place in Fort Worth in 15 days, and Sports Illustrated made no bones about leaning on Visit Fort Worth to plan and execute the logistical nightmare that would include photographing multiple athletes — the shoot also included two other Big 12 athletes — in multiple locations. The magazine would bring the talent, and Visit Fort Worth would provide the place.
To put the entire experience concisely, Catterton says, “We scouted the locations, changed locations, had dinner at Joe T’s, woke up at 4 a.m. for breakfast, did a full-day shoot, wrapped the shoot at six that evening, and most of their team flew out that night at seven.”
A lot of work, but the payoff was worth it: Cowtown gets on the cover.
With a quick turnaround, Catterton, working hand in hand with Visit Fort Worth's director of sports marketing Becca Berger, hit the ground running. “We built a team internally [the day they contacted us] to start prepping,” Catterton says. “I had our social media manager out the following day scouting locations and taking current photos to show [Sports Illustrated]. I wanted them to give us two more weeks so we could’ve had bluebonnets, but they needed [the shoot done] in March.”
The team pitched several locations — many you might easily guess — but we’re not going to travel the road of could-have-beens. After a myriad of emails, texts, calls, and Zoom meetings, the magazine ultimately chose three locations: the Trinity Art Court (the painted basketball court under Lancaster Avenue Bridge), the Crescent Hotel (which is where the visitors stayed), and the Museum of Modern Art.
The court required a fresh coat of paint, which also required approval from the city’s graffiti abatement supervisor — approval that wouldn’t come in time. “Thank goodness,” Catterton says. “It rained the weekend before, and we would’ve never had time to get it done. So, then we were going to line the entire court with vinyl, but it was going to be outrageously expensive. So, we cut that and ended up doing three vinyl circles that would be good for certain shots.”
When SI’s team of 25 — photographer, hair, makeup, wardrobe, editors, assistants, etc. — arrived in Fort Worth the day before the scheduled shoot, they elected to nix the basketball court idea.
Too obvious to shoot a basketball player on a basketball court? One must suppose, but the team was now down a location.
That night, the evening before the shoot, Visit Fort Worth planned a welcome dinner at Joe T. Garcia’s for the entire SI crew and models. The dinner included local tequila from Sarah Castillo’s La Pulga and a custom hat bar pop-up from Brittany Cobb’s Flea Style. But not long after their arrival, upon walking through the iconic outdoor space, the editor-in-chief, MJ Day, and photographer, Taylor Ballantyne, found their replacement: They want to shoot at Joe T’s.
1 of 7
Robert Underwood
Visit Fort Worth staff members Sydney Patterson, Becca Berger, Alex Catterton, Tom Martens, and Kimber Foster at Joe T. Garcia's
2 of 7
Robert Underwood
3 of 7
Robert Underwood
From the Sports Illustrated team Lynn Calomeni, Kate Hyland, Mackenzie Murphy, and Liz Wentworth
4 of 7
Robert Underwood IV
5 of 7
Robert Underwood
From the Flea Style team Heydy Lux, Alejandra Casteneda, Brittany Cobb, McKenzie Mistretta, and Karisa Sheely
6 of 7
Robert Underwood
7 of 7
Robert Underwood
A call to Kelly Lancarte, daughter of Lanny Lancarte and head of marketing for Joe T’s, ensured the space was available for a shoot in the morning. So, new plan: Joe T Garcia’s in the morning and The Modern in the afternoon. The crew began shooting at the Mexican restaurant as the sun came up at 7:43 a.m. and would continue their session at Joe T’s until 3:30 p.m. “It was incredible,” Catterton says. “They shut down the whole back half of the restaurant for us to shoot at all day long.”
The shoot would then move to the The Modern, which came with its own set of obstacles, including some unsightly construction and an event in the café at 5:15 p.m. — “and we had people outside in bathing suits,” Catterton says. But The Modern is where Ballantyne would take the image that now graces the digital cover of the Swimsuit Issue. According to Catterton, all of the solo snaps of Van Lith were taken at The Modern, while group photos of the Big 12 athletes were taken at Joe T’s, which are still included in the magazine.
We’ll be the first to tell you that any project involving a magazine will include more than its fair share of hurdles, but Fort Worth seems to have cleared any and all snags with ease.
Others who contributed to the SI cover shoot include Mackenzie Hughes and the folks at Fort Worth Camera who donated all of the production equipment for the shoot, Henry Abuto who provided the catering for breakfast, Tim Love who catered lunch, Mercedes Maddox and American Hat who provided hats for the athletes, and Lizzy Chestnut Bentley and City Boots who provided boots for the athletes.
“The team in Fort Worth came together,” Catterton says. “I mean, every person that was asked [to do anything] was saying yes and being helpful.”
And Fort Worth sure made an impression on the SI team (check out this glowing write-up). To put things in perspective, according to Catterton, the SI crew of staff and freelancers were in Switzerland the week before heading to Cowtown — they're accustomed to jaw-dropping locales. And the city might’ve even converted a gal or two to the charms of Western duds. Those Flea Style custom cowboy hats the SI team got the night before? Well, word has it the editor-in-chief was wearing hers the entire day of the photo shoot.
