Photo: Ethan Miller
Sports Illustrated employees were notified that their jobs were terminated amid massive layoffs on Friday (January 19), the Sports Illustrated Union confirmed in a statement shared on its X account.
Authentic, which purchased the popular sports publication as part of a $110 million from Meredith in 2019, terminated its agreement with The Arena Group to publish Sports Illustrated in its print and digital formats, according to an email obtained by Front Office Sports on Friday, which was sent three weeks after Arena missed a $2.8 million payment, breaching its licensing deal.
"This is another difficult day in what has been a difficult four years for Sports Illustrated under Arena Group (previously The Maven) stewardship," the group said in its news release. "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," said Mitch Goldich, Sports Illustrated NFL editor and unit chair in a statement shared by the group. "It is a fight we will continue."
Sports Illustrated's future is uncertain as it hasn't yet been publicly determined whether Authentic will search for a new operating partner or allow Arena to renegotiate its current publishing deal, however, an insider told Front Office Sports that “Authentic will see Sports Illustrated through a necessary evolution.”
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