Staff of storied Sports Illustrated magazine let go in licensing fight

The entire staff of Sports Illustrated was let go Friday after license holder Authentic Brands Group revoked the right of the Arena Group, the famed sports magazine’s publisher, to use the brand name.

The layoffs come three weeks after the Arena Group missed a $2.8 million payment to Authentic Brands Group, breaching the 2019 licensing agreement between the two companies, according to Front Office Sports. 

“As a result of this license revocation, we will be laying off staff that work on the SI brand,” Arena Sports told the magazine’s employees in an email, according to The Associated Press.

While some employees were terminated immediately, others will be working until the end of a notice period specified in the magazine’s union contract, according to Front Office Sports. The 2019 deal was initially supposed to last for at least 10 years.

In 2020, the magazine moved from biweekly to monthly publication, and last month, company CEO Ross Levinsohn was fired following allegations that stories written by artificial intelligence programs and in many cases bearing fictional bylines were being uploaded to the magazine’s website, according to the AP.

Before the layoffs, the Arena Group employed over 100 people. In a release Thursday, the Arena Group said that the company, “which has substantial debt and recently missed payments, is completing these cost-cutting measures to initiate a transformative shift towards a streamlined business model.”

The Sports Illustrated Union, affiliated with the NewsGuild of New York, has called on Authentic Brands Group to ensure that the magazine continues to be published, calling the layoffs “another difficult day in what has been a difficult four years for Sports Illustrated under Arena Group,” in a release.

“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,” Sports Illustrated NFL Editor and union chair Mitch Goldich said in a statement.

In its heyday, Sports Illustrated, first published in 1954, was an award-winning weekly compendium of sports news employing some of the most famous sports writers and photographers of the era.