Sports Illustrated to ‘Lay Off All’ Employees After Brand Licensing Fiasco

Efren Landaos/Sipa USA; Sipa via AP Images

The Arena Group told employees of Sports Illustrated magazine on Friday that after the termination of a licensing deal with Authentic Brands Group, they would all be laid off.

A.J. Perez of Front Office Sports shared the news on Twitter/X, writing: “The Arena Group gave notice that it intends to lay off all of Sports Illustrated’s staff, according to an email obtained by [Front Office Sports]. The move comes after Authentic — the licensing group that owns Sports Illustrated — moved to terminate Arena’s licensing deal.”

A statement from the magazine’s NFL editor and unit chair of the SI Union Mitch Goldich also said:

Earlier today the 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, a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG) revoking Arena’s license to publish SI.

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

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.

Richard Dietsch of The Athletic and a former SI writer also posted an email that was sent to employees:

Dear All:

On Thursday, January 18th, 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.

All impacted employees will receive severance pay, and will be entitled to any applicable WARN or notice period outlined in the Union agreement (“MOA”). Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the MOA. 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.

We appreciate the work and efforts of everyone who has contributed to the SI brand and business.

According to The Washington Post, The Arena Group “missed a recent payment” to ABG, which led them to “pull the publishing license and [put] the future of Sports Illustrated in jeopardy.” The iconic sports mag, which began its operation in 1954, was bought by ABG in 2019, who then handed the publishing rights over to The Arena Group. Since then, it has faced criticism for its lower-quality content, including an allegation late last year that it was publishing stories generated by AI, with AI-created “authors” who didn’t actually exist.

In a statement to Mediaite, Authentic Brands said the publication will continue, thought it is unclear in what capacity:

Yesterday, The Arena Group’s license to serve as the publisher of Sports Illustrated was terminated as a result of the company’s failure to pay its quarterly license fee despite being given a notice of breach and an opportunity to cure the breach. Authentic is here to ensure that the brand of Sports Illustrated, which includes its editorial arm, continues to thrive as it has for the past nearly 70 years. We are confident that going forward the brand will continue to evolve and grow in a way that serves sports news readers, sports fans, and consumers. We are committed to ensuring that the traditional ad-supported Sports Illustrated media pillar has best in class stewardship to preserve the complete integrity of the brand’s legacy.

This story is breaking and has been updated.