The apparent downfall of Sports Illustrated has shocked the sports media world, but Jessica Smetana felt like this was a not so shocking outcome.
On The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Monday, Smetana pulled back the curtain some on the situation. She helped launch the SI union, which has been impacted hardest by the recent decision to lay off the vast majority of the publication’s remaining staff. But she noted that the union kept SI going.
“Because of the union, I think Sports Illustrated has existed longer than it probably would’ve after the initial sale in 2019,” she said. “Because a huge chunk of the staff was laid off in 2019, and it’s almost like incredible that the magazine has been able to exist since 2019.”
Smetana got the impression that Authentic Brands Group never cared about SI as a sports media outlet and institution. The same could be said for Arena Group, which operated Sports Illustrated.
“It was just very unorganized and messy from the start because I do not believe that ABG cares or even wants to pretend to care about journalism or any of the stories that made Sports Illustrated an iconic brand,” she said. “I think that they simply want to put the sports illustrated name on things that they can sell like vitamins, a hotel, a throw blanket, whatever the thing is.”
Jessica Smetana continued that Arena Group management was threatened by the union. She said the issues between Arena Group and Authentic Brands Group compounded the situation.
“I think this really comes down to a power struggle between these two groups of people and really trying to figure out how they can continue to make money off of Sports Illustrated without giving any sort of a shit about quality work and quality journalism and the things that made Sports Illustrated a valuable brand name to begin with,” she said.
Jessica Smetana added that while previous management of SI deserve some blame for never finding a way to make the publication profitable in the internet age, the point still stands that ABG and Arena Group should shoulder the brunt of the blame.
“I do believe that the current owners and operators of Sports Illustrated deserve a ton of blame and honestly should be ashamed of themselves,” she said.
