- Sports Illustrated ‘s staff has reportedly been told there will be ‘mass layoffs’
- Publication’s owner, Authentic Brands Group, has revoked the publishing license
- DailyMail.com provides all the latest international sports news
Sports Illustrated’s staff has reportedly been told there will be ‘mass layoffs’ in a bombshell email on Friday.
It is the latest crisis engulfing the iconic sports publication that was also accused of publishing stories using artificial intelligence just months ago.
The Arena Group – which publishes Sports Illustrated – has informed employees that a ‘significant number, possibly all, of the Guild-represented workers at SI’ will be laid off.
It comes as a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG), the group that purchased Sports Illustrated for $110million in 2019, ending its agreement with Arena to publish in both print and digital.
Arena missed a $2.8m payment as part of the licensing agreement three weeks ago.
An email from Arena sent to staff on Friday, and reported by Front Office Sports, read: ‘We were notified by Authentic Brands Group (ABG) that the license under which the Arena Group operates the Sports Illustrated (SI) brand and SI related properties has been officially revoked by ABG.
‘As a result of this license revocation, we will be laying off staff that work on the SI brand.
‘Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the [the union contract]. Employees with a last working day of today will be contacted by the People team soon.
‘Other employees will be expected to work through the end of the notice period, and will receive additional information shortly.’
The Sports Illustrated Guild posted their own statement on X, saying: ‘This is another difficult day in what has been a difficult four years for Sports Illustrated under Arena Group (previously The Maven) stewardship,
‘We are calling on ABG to ensure the continued publication of SI and allow it to serve our audience in the way it has for nearly 70 years.’
‘We have fought together as a union to maintain the standard of this storied publication that we love, and to make sure our workers are treated fairly for the value they bring to this company. It is a fight we will continue,’ added NFL editor and unit chair Mitch Goldich.
Sports Illustrated, now run as a website and once-monthly publication by the Arena Group, at one time was a weekly in the Time Inc. stable of magazines known for its sterling writing.
‘Its ambitions were grand,’ said Jeff Jarvis, author of ‘Magazine,’ a book he describes as an elegy for the industry.
It comes just months after Sports Illustrated’s reputation was damaged by being less than forthcoming about who or what is writing its stories at the dawn of the artificial intelligence age.
The once-powerful publication fired a company that produced articles for its website written under the byline of authors who apparently don’t exist. But it denied a published report that stories themselves were written by an artificial intelligence tool.
The Futurism website reported that Sports Illustrated used stories for product reviews that had authors it could not identify. Futurism found a picture of one author listed, Drew Ortiz, on a website that sells AI-generated portraits.
The magazine’s author profile said that ‘Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature.’
Upon questioning Sports Illustrated, Futurism said all of the authors with AI-generated portraits disappeared from the magazine’s website. No explanation was offered.
Futurism quoted an unnamed person at the magazine who said artificial intelligence was used in the creation of some content as well – ‘no matter how much they say that it’s not.’
Sports Illustrated said the articles in question were created by a third-party company, AdVon Commerce, which assured the magazine that they were written and edited by humans. AdVon had its writers use a pen name, ‘actions we don’t condone,’ Sports Illustrated said.
‘We are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership,’ the magazine said. A message to AdVon wasn’t immediately returned on Tuesday.
In a statement, the Sports Illustrated Union said it was horrified by the Futurism story.
‘We demand answers and transparency from Arena group management about what exactly has been published under the SI name,’ the union said. ‘We demand the company commit to adhering to basic journalistic standards, including not publishing computer-written stories by fake people.’
More to follow
Robert Johnson is a UK-based business writer specializing in finance and entrepreneurship. With an eye for market trends and a keen interest in the corporate world, he offers readers valuable insights into business developments.
