Sports Illustrated (SI) laid off its entire staff and the iconic sports brand could be headed to the graveyard after years of woke journalism and a recent artificial intelligence scandal.
The details: According to a letter to staff sent on Friday morning, Arena Group will lay off its SI staff, noting some employees would be terminated immediately and others would work through the next 90 days.
“Go woke, go broke”: In recent years, SI has allowed progressive narratives to creep into its journalism. For example:
- Transgender: The 2021 and 2023 SI Swimsuit edition featured a transgender biological male [pictured above] on its cover.
- Obesity: In recent years, SI featured obese women in runway shows and their swimsuit editions to promote ‘body positivity’ which is contradictory to a brand that’s supposed to be about athletics.
- Gender pay gap: The brand wrote articles about closing the ‘gender pay gap’ in sports, a movement that ignores the reality that men’s sports bring in more revenue.
The AI scandal: Last year SI was caught using artificial intelligence-generated articles and posting them under the names of fake journalists. Making matters worse, SI tried to deny it.
Back up: The SI brand is owned by a company called Authentic Brands Group (ABG). ABG licenses SI to a company called the Arena Group for $15 million per year in exchange for the rights to publish in print and online.
Rent’s due: Arena Group missed a $3.75 million payment to ABG earlier this month.
What happens next? It’s too early to tell whether ABG will find a new licensee, work out a deal with Authentic Brands, or shutter the brand entirely.
This article is from the free ‘Wake Up Right’ newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.
_01.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
