The parent company of Sports Illustrated is set to lay off its entire staff – but its HBCU offering won’t suffer.
Front Office Sports is reporting that The Arena Group has given notice that it intends to lay off the entire Sports Illustrated staff, citing an email. The email was later shared by Richard Deitsch, a former SI reporter who now works for The Athletic.
“Some employees will be terminated immediately, and paid in lieu of the applicable notice period under the [union contract],” the notice read. “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.”
Kyle T. Mosley, the managing editor and founder of HBCU Legends, says that his SI FanNation sites will not be impacted by the cuts.
“The Sports Illustrated and Arena Group matter has negatively impacted our colleagues in media. However, @SaintsNews, @hbculegends, and @PelicanScoop on the SI/FanNation platform are not affected by these events.
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This news comes roughly two months after it was revealed that SI had been using Artificial Intelligence to write part of its content while presenting the articles as being written by human beings. The company’s CEO Ross Levinsohn, was dismissed after that news broke