Yesterday was not a pleasant one for the Sports Illustrated staff. A large number of writers were laid off as TheMaven and Authentic Brands officially took over the iconic sports magazine.
Authentic Brands Group purchased Sports Illustrated from Meredith earlier this year. Initially, it was reported that Meredith would continue to run SI on a day to day basis. Instead, TheMaven, a digital publishing company swooped in with a deal to run both the print and digital operations by replacing a large number of staffers with freelance bloggers.
Earlier in the day, Deadpan reported as much as half of Sports Illustrated’s staff would lose their jobs. The Wall Street Journal reported that the number was closer to 20%.
No final number has been given, but several writers have been tweeting that they were let go. That led to their former co-workers launching a Twitter feed called Sports Illustrated United. Several writers and digital content creators that held on to their jobs posted and retweeted the same message asking Authentic Brands Group and Meredith Corp to back out of the deal with TheMaven.
Everyone that tweeted the message tagged it with #SaveSI.
Sports Illustrated Films Senior Producer Lee Feiner started a Venmo account to fund a celebration of his now former co-workers’ time with SI. He promised anything left over after Thursday’s party would go to those who lost their jobs.
