ABG announced on Monday that it had reached an agreement with Minute Media, a London-based digital media company (the sites The Players’Tribune, FanSided and 90 min). The former publisher, The Arena Group (2019-2024), had not honored its payment deadline at the end of December, plunging the magazine further into crisis.
From 3.5 million copies per week to 1 million per month
In a generally moribund context for the written press across the Atlantic, SI has experienced turbulent recent years. Bought in 2018 by the Meredith Corporation press group, it was sold a year later to ABG, for 110 million dollars (101.5 million euros). Without putting an end to his difficulties.
Sales of the monthly, which reached 3.5 million copies in the early 1990s, when the title was weekly, are now around a million copies. Long a model of the sports press and even beyond, the brand was also discredited after the announcement of the use of artificial intelligence for the writing of certain articles.
This new long-term agreement (ten years, with an option for two extensions of ten additional years each) should allow the magazine created in 1954 to regain stability. The employees will soon be decided on their fate by the new publisher.
2024-03-19 11:51:21
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