It has been a week since the notable Sports Illustrated went through an artificial intelligence journalism opprobrium. Now, the organisation has seen the entrance of Manoj Bhargava.
According to Front Office Sports, Bhargava is the 5-Hour Energy drink owner and his firm had earlier purchased a stake in "The Arena Group," which operates SI.
On Wednesday, Bhargava had a video call with the staff of The Arena Group. As per FOS, the new owner shared, "No one is important. I am not important. … The amount of useless stuff you guys do is staggering."
EXCLUSIVE: One week after suffering an embarrassing artificial intelligence scandal, Sports Illustrated’s latest owner laid down the law with his new employees.
"Stop doing dumb stuff."@byajperez and @MMcCarthyREV's story ⤵️
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) December 6, 2023
The meeting went on for more than an hour and Bhargava joked as well, expressing, "Did anyone bring any 5-Hour [Energy drink]?" according to the report.
TAG shared this statement with Front Office Sports, "Today, Manoj conducted a virtual town hall and spoke with the staff of The Arena Group, and took questions. Also today, some adjustments to the business have been made to improve efficiency and revenue, and also some changes to senior management have been made."
Due to the changes coming to Arena Group, COO Andrew Kraft and President of Media Rob Barrett have exited. The impact on both Sports Illustrated and The Arena Group has been pivotal due to the report provided by Futurism, which said the notable organisation has used artificial intelligence for its subject generation.
As per the report by Front Office Sports, Bhargava acquired a major share in the Tag Arena Group in August. Regarding the deal, which was done in millions, TAG chief executive Ross Levinsohn shared, "Like most in the media world, the greater reach you have, the more opportunity you have. This dramatically accelerates our path to being a diversified media company featuring great brands."
However, after the artificial intelligence scandal, Sports Illustrated has received a torrent of attention that has been mostly unfavourable. Nevertheless, The Arena Group put the question to their external business party, known as AdVon Commerce, regarding the matter.
Their spokesperson expressed this in the statement, "AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans."
"However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy — actions we don’t condone — and we are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership."
