What They Did
Sports Illustrated is one of America's most iconic sports media brands, founded in 1954. The Arena Group was a publicly traded digital media company that held the license to publish Sports Illustrated across print, web, and digital platforms.
How LLMs Killed Them
In November 2023, Futurism reported that Sports Illustrated had been publishing AI-generated articles under fictitious author names, complete with AI-generated headshots. The articles were product reviews produced by a third-party company called AdVon Commerce. The scandal triggered executive firings, a stock crash, and ultimately the loss of the Sports Illustrated brand license.
Timeline
- November 2023: Futurism exposed AI-generated articles with fake author profiles on Sports Illustrated's website.
- November 2023: Arena Group stock plunged 28% on the news.
- December 2023: Three senior executives fired (COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, corporate counsel Julie Fenster).
- December 11, 2023: CEO Ross Levinsohn fired. Replaced by interim CEO Manoj Bhargava (5-Hour Energy founder).
- January 2024: Arena Group missed a licensing payment to Authentic Brands Group. Massive layoffs of SI staff followed.
- 2024: Authentic Brands Group transferred the Sports Illustrated license to Minute Media (publishers of The Players' Tribune and Mental Floss).
By the Numbers
- Stock crashed 28% after AI scandal broke
- 4 senior executives fired in rapid succession
- Dozens of SI staffers abruptly laid off in January 2024
- Arena Group lost the Sports Illustrated brand entirely
- The scandal was traced to third-party AI content from AdVon Commerce