BREAKING: NewsGuild of New York, Sports Illustrated Union take legal action over layoffs

“It’s clear that The Arena Group ownership is using an engineered dispute over the SI license as a cover to union-bust and unlawfully target our members,’  says Susan DeCarava, president of the NewsGuild of New York

NEW YORK – The NewsGuild of New York and Sports Illustrated Union took legal action against The Arena Group on Thursday, accusing the company of targeting employees for immediate termination because of their union activity. 

On Jan. 19, every member of the SI union was told they would be laid off as a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG) revoking Arena’s license to publish SI. Supervisors and managers at the publication, though, have not been laid off.

While most of the union employees were given 90 days’ notice under the New York State WARN Act, a handful were immediately let go, including one SI union officer and one who had recently filed a grievance against the company. 

On Thursday, The NewsGuild of New York filed an unfair labor practice charge on behalf of the Sports Illustrated Union against The Arena Group, accusing the company of discharging employees because of their support of the union, engagement in union activities and engagement in other protected activities.

“It’s clear that The Arena Group ownership is using an engineered dispute over the SI license as a cover to union-bust and unlawfully target our members,” said Susan DeCarava, president of The NewsGuild of New York. “Filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board is just the first step, as we continue to explore all options for our membership.”

Former CEO Ross Levinsohn, who resigned from the board of The Arena Group, cited union-busting and the layoffs as reasons for his leaving, along with accusing the board of acting illegally. 

“Today’s obliteration of Sports Illustrated’s storied newsroom and the union busting tactics is the last straw. These actions and the inaction of this board are illegal, riddled with self-dealing, and will almost certainly lead to shareholder lawsuits. In my more than 30 years inside of public and private companies, I’ve never witnessed more negligence in my career.” Levinsohn said in his resignation letter. 

STATEMENT from Sports Illustrated Union and The NewsGuild of New York on layoffs at SI

“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. 

Earlier today the workers of Sports Illustrated were notified that The Arena Group is planning to lay off a significant number, possibly all, of the Guild-represented workers at SI, a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG) revoking Arena’s license to publish SI. 

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 SI 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. 

“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. 

Response to reporting that The Arena Group has published AI-written content under Sports Illustrated name

We, the workers of the SI Union, remain outraged over reporting that Sports Illustrated’s operator, The Arena Group, published AI-generated content with fabricated bylines and writer profiles under SI’s name. We have been equally outraged by The Arena Group’s response: We have yet to receive an adequate explanation for how such a breach of trust with our audience could have occurred. And nobody in company management has personally taken accountability for this damaging mistake. Our journalists have been forced to bear the brunt of the reputational damage that the company brought upon SI.

We understand that the company has since been taken over by a new owner, Manoj Bhargava, and we look forward to a productive working relationship with him. But we can’t simply move on from this issue or let The Arena Group sweep it under the rug. Bhargava has made clear that he believes in straightforward accountability and plain speech, so we are calling for remaining Arena Group CEO Ross Levinsohn to:

• Publicly explain how these posts came to be published and take accountability for that process. Explain why and how The Arena Group entered into a partnership with AdVon Commerce, the third party that created the content, and a company that self-describes as providing machine learning and AI solutions.

• Submit to us a timeline with dates of the following events: entering into a partnership with AdVon, learning about concerns AdVon was using AI-generated content, opening an investigation into those concerns, hearing from reporters at Futurism, declining to comment for Futurism’s story, taking down concerning content from SI’s website, and terminating the contract with AdVon.

• Include a representative selected by union leadership in the company’s internal investigation into this matter.

• Publicly guarantee that all future editorial work at Sports Illustrated will be performed by humans and only humans. The company must commit to language enshrining this guarantee in its next contract with the SI Union.

The SI Union takes this issue incredibly seriously. If management fails to meet our demands, we are prepared to withhold our bylines from our work published by Sports Illustrated. 

We understand the power of a byline, and the commitment writers make to readers when they attach their name to a story. The Arena Group must show that it understands what a byline means, too. 

Staff Letter Regarding Ethical and Editorial Standards

Sports Illustrated's future depends on upholding the editorial and ethical standards that have guided us for decades. Monday, a Daily Beast article described Maven’s troubling decision to hire and retain a contractor as one of its NFL team reporters despite his record of criminal sexual misconduct. This incident follows multiple instances of plagiarism, unprofessional behavior and inaccurate reporting across the Maven network of contractor-operated team sites, which are published and promoted on SI.com. All of these episodes are embarrassing to the brand and inconsistent with a reputation built over decades, and they undercut the credibility of SI staff journalists.

Over the past year, Maven has cut vital personnel and resources from our full-time staff, while expanding a contractor model that is exploitative and antithetical to the principles of sound journalism. It incentivizes high-churn clickbait, and we have repeatedly raised concerns to management about the insufficient vetting and oversight of these contributors. We continue to believe SI’s coverage should be provided by full-time journalists. So long as this contributor network exists, though, we call on Maven to provide fair compensation and establish uniform standards and best practices.

We want to continue producing the work that has long distinguished SI. But we cannot excel if the work published under the SI name and those hired to produce that work are not held to the standards expected by our audience and the athletes and teams we cover. To do so, we call upon Maven to:

• Provide a transparent account of Maven’s vetting of the contractor referenced in the Daily Beast story and the process that management followed when alerted to his record of sexual misconduct. If such protocols are not in place or were not followed, Maven should explain why and work with the Guild to negotiate them. Maven must also provide an explanation of his current employment status.

• Hold the team-site network to the following standards:

  • All new team-site hires should undergo the same vetting process as regular SI staff;

  • Team-site operators should not be authorized to publish stories that have not been reviewed and edited, mirroring the editorial standards in SI’s newsroom;

  • Team-site operators should be paid enough to make a living primarily off their journalism, without compensation being tied to traffic metrics or site revenue.

If these basic thresholds cannot be met, Maven should take the team-site network off the SI.com platform.

• Designate a seat for the SI Union, to be filled by a representative of our choosing, on the new editorial board that was created as part of a recent agreement between Maven and ABG, the owner of the Sports Illustrated brand.

We are asking our owners and operators at ABG and Maven to respond to these requests by Aug. 24. The last several months have shown the vital, and complicated, role sports play in our society. Sports Illustrated's unbiased, independent and rigorous journalism has never been more needed, and we must act now to ensure we can continue producing this work.