Sports Illustrated’s entire staff told they are getting laid off

January 19, 2024

It is a dark day for sports journalism.

The Arena Group alerted all Sports Illustrated staffers on Friday that their positions were being eliminated.

Richard Deitsch, a sports media reporter who left Sports Illustrated for the Athletic, posted the email that all employees received on X.

“Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the [the union contract],” the notice read. “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 decision comes after the Authentic Brands Group, the licensing group that bought Sports Illustrated for $110 million from Meredith five years ago, terminated the agreement it holds with The Arena Group to publish the magazine in print and digital, per Front Office Sports.

The Sports Illustrated Union said it was calling upon Authentic to “ensure the continued publication of SI” in a statement following the announcement.

“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,” Mitch Goldich, NFL editor and unit chair of the union, wrote.

The Arena Group missed a $2.8 million payment that breached the company’s Sports Illustrated licensing deal three weeks ago.

It is unclear whether ABG will establish a new operator or allow The Arena Group to renegotiate its current deal.

The magazine, first published in 1954, was owned by Time Inc. until 2018.

Its iconic covers pictured the seminal moments in sports history, from the “Miracle on Ice” in 1980 to dubbing a 17-year-old high schooler named LeBron James “The Chosen One” in 2002.

Michael Jordan was the outlet’s most pictured cover athlete — appearing on the magazine front 50 times.

Long considered a standard of excellence in sports journalism, it employed legendary sports writers like Frank Deford, Dan Jenkins, Peter Gammons, Sally Jenkins, Leigh Montville and Jim Murray.

“Very sad for my Sports Illustrated friends today, and for all of us who loved everything it used to be,” Rachel Nichols wrote in a post on X.

“A Sports Illustrated cover was, for decades, the number one starmaking vehicle in sports,” ESPN’s Kevin Clark added in a post. “It was what Carson was for a comedian or SNL was for a band. *Sports* is worse off without those things. That things got this bad this quickly is unfathomable and totally avoidable.”

In November, the magazine came under fire when it scrubbed its site of AI-generated content that included bylines and photos of fake authors, per a report from Futurism.

Just weeks after that, The Arena Group fired CEO Ross Levinsohn, who had served in the role since 2020.

In December, a spokesperson for Manoj Bhargava, the founder of the caffeine brand 5-Hour Energy and a majority investor in The Arena Group who joined the company as chairman interim CEO, told The Post that Levinsohn’s firing had nothing to do with the AI debacle in November.

The spokesman said The Arena Group is “taking steps to ensure that” SI has gotten rid of the AI-generated content on its website.

“We are very, very tuned into the importance of this issue,” the spokesman told The Post.

Though Bhargava took over as interim CEO of The Arena Group on Dec. 11, he stepped down on Jan. 5, citing a “conflict of interest,” according to an SEC filing.

If you are older, you knew exactly what day Sports Illustrated showed up in the mailbox. Found this just last week and it took me back to a time when the team was great, they were called something different and if your team made the cover, it was the greatest thing ever. RIP SI. pic.twitter.com/z4li784b8x

— Scott Van Pelt (@notthefakeSVP) January 19, 2024