Mass layoffs hit Sports Illustrated staff
The storied publication drew headlines last fall after reports surfaced that it appeared to have published AI-generated stories, photos and authors.
www.nbcnews.com
So, to recap:
Sports Illustrated gets sold by Time, Inc. to some outfit called Authentic Brands Group (ABG), but they're not at all interested in SI as a magazine, they just want the name to use in merchandising and marketing things.
So they farm out the actual running of the magazine to another outfit called Maven (at the time) which eventually rebranded as The Arena Group. Apparently Maven/Arena is run by the douchiest dudebros this side of B**st**l and they don't know jack shit about how to run it, so they proceed to run it into the ground, punctuated by the public finding out they had published multiple articles that were later (and very easily) found out to be AI-generated. Not only that, the names and photos of these "authors" were also revealed to be AI-generated. Arena tries to blame the idiocy on a third party THEY hired to create content and subsequently erase all evidence on their website.
Which brings us to today, where, after apparently missing a licensing payment, ABG yanked control of SI away from Arena and all SI writers have been laid off.
Hard to think they'll come back from this. Sad end to a publication that used to define sports news. Frankly I'd lost interest in them years and years ago, but there was a time when Sports Illustrated was a fantastic magazine.
