The future of “Sports Illustrated” is now up in the air as the publisher of the hit magazine and online publication has decided to lay off the entire staff of the magazine’s team. This comes at a time when major layoffs have also been announced in the animation industry, with Pixar Animation facing shocking financial strain.
The news comes from Front Office Sports, who say that Authentic, the licensing group that owns the rights to “Sports Illustrated,” has terminated its deal with SI’s publisher, The Arena Group, following Arena missing a massive $3.75 million payment. Now, according to FOS, Authentic is looking to enforce a clause that will make Arena pay them a lump sum of $45 million due to the termination of the deal.
After a memo and a subsequent staff meeting, it was then made clear that anyone on Arena’s team who was working in the SI department would be laid off immediately unless they were a union member, in which case they would have 90 more days with the company unless the dispute becomes resolved in that time.
In an employee email obtained by FOS, Arena wrote, “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.”
While that is surely bad news, the email went on to explain that not everything has been resolved and that more information will come to employees who remain onboard for the next 90 days. Likely, that will have to do with negotiations between Authentic and Arena.
The email continued with more bad news, saying, “Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the [the union contract]. 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.”
The Sports Illustrated union also took to Twitter to release a statement so that all of its members could know the exact stance of the group. Addressing members, the post says, “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 Sl 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.”
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This news is rocking the sports world as Sports Illustrated has been a mainstay in the general media of sports for decades. From cover athletes to swimsuit editions, Sports Illustrated has made a mark on American society that makes it seem impossible that the brand has reached this new low.