Sports Illustrated lays off most of its staff

[swingline]

No, no, no @playthrough. Do tell.

 

[SportsGuyBCK]

There's a lot I want to say about Mr. 5-Hour Energy but will resist ... he tried to play a hand and it completely backfired.

Don't take him to Vegas ...

 

[wicked]

Arena Group's websites were always click-baity. "This major retailer is going out of business" would be the hed, and the first 20 graphs were filler about some former department store in Missouri. I hated myself for clicking every time I fell for it. I saw SI's heds go that way, too. I ashume that edict came from up top. I hope they can get back to journalism basics on headlines. (This is just an observation and not a dig at SI editors who I'm sure were following marching orders.)

 

[HanSenSE]

First time I saw a story on this, I thought Minute Maid was buying SI.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

First time I saw a story on this, I thought Minute Maid was buying SI.

*Seinfeld voice* What was the deal with frozen orange juice?

 

[playthrough]

No, no, no @playthrough. Do tell.

Well, between us (haha) ... the 5-Hour Energy guy is extremely bitter about losing the SI license, even though it was entirely his own darn fault (I won't rehash all of it but media writers have covered him well the last couple months). As a result, Minute Media seized control of SI before having the infrastructure in place to run the entire show so SI.com now is largely frozen in time from Thursday afternoon, with only a few Big Lead-authored stories being used to refresh the main homepage. The next issue of the magazine is also in limbo. Needless to say this really sucks for the college basketball writers this weekend.

I compare it to like buying a house where you might not take possession for 30 days because you're getting your personal affairs together and you let the previous owners have that period of time to exit -- but then you suspect those old owners could trash the place first so you move to toss them out immediately and take the house even though you're not ready to live in it. Flipping that scenario a bit, I believe the Arena Group could have basically collected rent for a month or two from Minute, operating SI.com as usual and printing a mag or two until Minute got up and running with tech and personnel.

But the 5-Hour guy's ego didn't appear capable of that nor was he letting go easily; he was trying to hold onto SI branding in other areas of Arena and Minute (rightfully) said "no effing way." Then on Thursday night, I believe the guy struck back by shutting down our si.com emails and locking us out of Google docs and other things. I lost some files and am pretty upset. Yet as I sit here right now I'm still an Arena employee. Minute Media has to onboard 100 or so of us -- ashuming they take all of us.

Absolutely bizarre time. Front Office Sports has a pretty good history/synopsis of it all, I feel like I should bookmark it and send to friends and family since I'm exhausted every time I try to explain it.

 

[goalmouth]

Better days ahead, @playthrough.

Maybe Bill Sornsin can make another video and put everyone at ease.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Better days ahead, @playthrough.

Maybe Bill Sornsin can make another video and put everyone at ease.

Wow is that ever a bad guy deep cut.

 

[baddecision]

Arena Group's websites were always click-baity. "This major retailer is going out of business" would be the hed, and the first 20 graphs were filler about some former department store in Missouri. I hated myself for clicking every time I fell for it. I saw SI's heds go that way, too. I ashume that edict came from up top. I hope they can get back to journalism basics on headlines. (This is just an observation and not a dig at SI editors who I'm sure were following marching orders.)

Some horseship website I visited yesterday promoted three articles with the same headline: "Best Buy/Michael's/Kohl's closing down this month." (The third one might not have been Kohl's but whatevs.) You click on it and the news is that Best Buy is going to be CLOSED ON EASTER SUNDAY. This is what our business has become.

 

[Starman]

Hmmm.

Sports Illustrated's Ex-Publisher Was a Transphobic 'Gangster': Suit

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/exsports-illustrated-publisher-was-transphobic-gangster.html

 

[playthrough]

Call him whatever you want, just keep including "ex-publisher" with it. He's gonna get smoked in court, the $45 million penalty for breaching the license was clear and his erratic behavior won't help. And I still can't figure out what his vision was for SI in the first place.

We're on to Cincinnati, er, Minute Media.

 

[ChristopherWalsh]

Was almost everyone retained? How did that part work out?