Sports Illustrated lays off entire staff

Sports Illustrated staffers were notified via email Friday that they were being laid off.

Authentic, the licensing group that originally purchased SI for $110 million five years ago, is terminating its licensing agreement with The Arena Group, according to Front Office Sports. Arena Group missed a $2.8 million payment to Authentic three weeks ago, breaching the 10-year SI licensing deal, FOS reported.

This comes on the heels of Arena Group, which owns and operates more than 20 different publications including Men’s Journal, Parade, and TheStreet, laying off 100 employees.

“This is another difficult day in what has been a difficult four years for Sports Illustrated under Arena Group (previously The Maven) stewardship,” SI Union Chair and SI NFL editor Mitch Goldich said in a statement. “We are calling on ABG [Authentic Brands Group] to ensure the continued publication of SI and allow it to serve our audience in the way it has for nearly 70 years.

“We expect The Arena Group to honor all terms of our union contract and will fight for every one of our colleagues to be treated fairly.”

Sports Illustrated was caught publishing AI-generated content under writers’ names that did not exist on its website. The company denied that the work was written by AI while acknowledging that a third party, AdVon Commerce, created content for their website under pseudonyms. That relationship was terminated immediately.

SI dates back to 1936, and was once the premier destination for written sports content, documenting the most impactful moments in sports through its covers and issuing an annual “Sportsperson of the Year” award. The magazine was sold to Meredith Corporation as part of an acquisition of Time Inc. in 2018. The company sold off Sports Illustrated to Authentic Brand Groups for $110 million the following year. Licensing out the rights to the Maven (later called The Arena Group), Sports Illustrated’s digital identity became a hub for other smaller sites like Athlon Sports, The Spun, Morning Read, and The Hockey News. However, it struggled to find digital footing under the new ownership.