Much of the staff at Sports Illustrated, including possibly all of its writers, received layoff notices on Friday, according to the union representing the workers at the publication. The layoffs come less than two months after the magazine was caught publishing AI-generated stories, authors, and photos.
The Sports Illustrated Union wrote that on Friday “workers of Sports Illustrated were notified that The Arena Group is planning to lay off a significant number, possibly all, of the Guild-represented workers at SI.” The pending layoffs come after Authentic Brands Group (ABG) revoked The Arena Group’s license “to publish at SI,” the union’s statement added.
ABG has owned Sports Illustrated since 2019 and sold the publishing rights to The Arena Group, but The Arena Group missed a payment for those rights recently, which resulted in ABG pulling the publishing license, The…
