The editorial staff of Sports Illustrated magazine will be fired by its publisher, The Arena Group, which is in the process of restructuring, the American press union said on Friday, jeopardizing the survival of this institution of American journalism.
“Sports Illustrated employees were informed today by The Arena Group that it plans to lay off a significant number, possibly all, of SI's union employees,” the New York branch of the press union wrote, the NewsGuild.
The move follows the revocation of a licensing agreement between Arena Group and Sports Illustrated rights owner Authentic Brands Group (ABG) after the former missed a payment deadline at the end of December.
Asked by AFP, The Arena Group and Authentic Brands did not respond.
In a press release, The Arena Group confirmed a “significant reduction” in its workforce, which amounts to just over 100 people, without specifying what was the responsibility of Sports Illustrated.
The company also manages TheStreet and Parade sites.
This is a new stage, perhaps the last, in the descent into hell of Sports Illustrated, which has passed from hand to hand in recent years as its commercial trajectory followed that of the moribund paper press.
In the early 1990s, up to 3.5 million copies
Sports Illustrated and its parent company, Time Inc, were first separated from the Time Warner empire in 2014, before being bought by the Meredith Corporation press group in 2018. The latter then sold SI to Authentic Brands in 2019 for $110 million.
Launched in 1954, "SI", its nickname, was the first American magazine to reach the threshold of one million copies sold per week, a circulation which would rise to around 3.5 million at its peak, at the beginning from the 1990s.
It is famous beyond the world of sport for its famous annual “Swimsuit Issue”, which features models and professional sportswomen in swimsuits.
Competed by the emergence of the Internet, in particular from the giant ESPN (television, radio, news site), Sports Illustrated saw its distribution and influence inexorably decrease.
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Martha Stewart, 81 years old and swimsuit model
According to the media organization AAM (Alliance for Audited Media), sales of “SI” had fallen to 1.24 million per week in the first six months of 2023. “We are calling on ABG to ensure continued publication of SI and allow it to serve its readership as it has done for nearly 70 years,” urged the union.