An executive working for the publisher of crisis-hit Sports Illustrated reportedly demanded a story about transgender boxing be removed from an upcoming issue of the magazine.
The piece written by Chris Mannix was due to be included in the March edition of the magazine – which would have been at newsstands towards the end of February.
But The Washington Post claim an executive at Arena Group – SI’s publishers – told editors not to include it just days before it was due to go to print.
The piece was focused on USA Boxing’s new transgender policy, which will allow male boxers who transition to fight in the female category from 2024, that was announced at the end of December.
Boxers must meet certain criteria to be able to fight, including declaring their new gender identity, completing gender reassignment surgery and regular hormone testing.
A Sports Illustrated executive reportedly pulled a transgender boxing piece from the magazine
It’s believed Mannix spoke to both advocates for transgender athletes competing and those who remain opposed to it for the piece on the divisive subject.
The final draft was sent around to editors on Tuesday but a new NBA story was then ‘unexpectedly circulated’ instead just 24 hours later. It’s claimed this happened after Arena Group executive Orestes Baez spoke to Sports Illustrated’s editor in chief Steve Cannella.
A spokesperson for Baez insisted the article was no longer newsworthy and that it was still due to be published online.
‘The story was not pulled,’ the spokesman said.
‘I’m sure it may not be normal, but as you can imagine, Orestes is new to that team, and there’s a lot of changes in the newsroom.
‘I think they’re trying to figure out their roles and new places.’
Baez is currently acting as a de facto general manager of Sports Illustrated after Manoj Bhargava – Arena Group’s largest shareholder – recently fired several executives.
When asked for comment by the Washington Post, Cannella referred questions to Arena Group and Mannix did not reply to their message.
The move – something staffers said ‘they’d never seen’ before – particularly irked staff because of their previous reporting on transgender participation in sports.
It is the latest controversy to hit the iconic media brand after staff received warning there would be mass layoffs last month.
USA Boxing adopted a ‘Transgender Policy’ in its rule book for 2024 onwards in December
The Arena Group informed employees that a ‘significant number, possibly all, of the Guild-represented workers at SI’ will be laid off.
It came as a result of Authentic Brands Group (ABG), the group that purchased Sports Illustrated for $110million in 2019, ended its agreement with Arena to publish in both print and digital.
Arena missed a $2.8m payment as part of the licensing agreement three weeks earlier.
More controversy engulfed the publication months before when Sports Illustrated’s reputation was damaged by being less than forthcoming about who or what is writing its stories at the dawn of the artificial intelligence age.
The once-powerful publication fired a company that produced articles for its website written under the byline of authors who apparently don’t exist. But it denied a published report that stories themselves were written by an artificial intelligence tool.
The piece focused on USA Boxing’s transgender policy, which was announced in December
The Futurism website reported that Sports Illustrated used stories for product reviews that had authors it could not identify. Futurism found a picture of one author listed, Drew Ortiz, on a website that sells AI-generated portraits.
The magazine’s author profile said that ‘Drew has spent much of his life outdoors, and is excited to guide you through his never-ending list of the best products to keep you from falling to the perils of nature.’
Upon questioning Sports Illustrated, Futurism said all of the authors with AI-generated portraits disappeared from the magazine’s website. No explanation was offered.
Futurism quoted an unnamed person at the magazine who said artificial intelligence was used in the creation of some content as well – ‘no matter how much they say that it’s not.’
Sports Illustrated said the articles in question were created by a third-party company, AdVon Commerce, which assured the magazine that they were written and edited by humans. AdVon had its writers use a pen name, ‘actions we don’t condone,’ Sports Illustrated said.