The article was written by Joe Reedy and David Bauder, writers for the Associated Press.

On Friday, the employment status of those responsible for creating Sports Illustrated became uncertain when the company supporting the popular brand’s print and digital offerings informed employees that their license had been revoked.

The Arena Group, responsible for Sports Illustrated and its affiliated entities, announced in an email to employees on Friday morning that due to the revocation, they will be terminating employees who work specifically on the SI brand.

Authentic Brands Group owns the Sports Illustrated brand and had been licensing it to Arena. Authentic later said in a statement it intends to keep Sports Illustrated going. The company is negotiating with Arena and other publishing entities to determine who will do that, according to a person with knowledge of the talks who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly about them.

Until those negotiations are resolved, it’s unclear which journalists would actually do the work of making Sports Illustrated. It was not clear how many jobs were affected.

The employee union of Sports Illustrated released a statement stating that the layoffs announced by Arena would affect a large number, potentially all, of the workers represented by NewsGuild.

“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, said in a statement.

The guild’s statement urged Authentic to guarantee the ongoing release of SI and enable it to cater to our audience as it has for almost seven decades.

Authentic stated that they will fulfill their promise to ensure the continuous growth and development of the brand in a manner that benefits readers, sports enthusiasts, and consumers. They are dedicated to maintaining the highest level of care for the traditional ad-supported Sports Illustrated media platform in order to uphold the brand’s integrity and legacy.

On Friday, the Arena Group announced that they are in talks with Authentic regarding the license and are dedicated to providing high-quality content throughout the ongoing negotiations.

Arena acknowledged that it did not fulfill its obligation to pay $3.75 million in quarterly dues and received a notification from Authentic stating their intention to terminate the licensing agreement. In response, Arena declared on Thursday that it will downsize its workforce of over 100 employees by a considerable amount.

In 2019, Authentic granted publishing rights to The Arena Group for a minimum of 10 years. However, the group’s management of Sports Illustrated has faced numerous challenges since then. In December, they dismissed CEO Ross Levinsohn due to criticisms over the magazine’s supposed use of AI-generated articles.

During the past six years, Sports Illustrated has faced challenges. In 2018, it was bought by Meredith Publishing in the acquisition of Time Inc., the company that originally launched the magazine in 1954.

In under a year, Meredith sold the magazine’s intellectual property to Authentic for $110 million. Authentic possesses the intellectual property of various brands and celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali, and Reebok.

Sports Illustrated used to be published every week, but in 2018 it changed to being published every two weeks, and then in 2020 it changed again to being published once a month.

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Reedy reported on the events in Los Angeles while Bauder, a writer for the Associated Press, reported from New York.

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The latest sports news from AP can be found at: https://apnews.com/sports

Source: wralsportsfan.com