Awful Announcing
Awful Announcing obtained an April 29 e-mail from The Maven SVP Glenn Nelson linking Texans' writer Patrick Starr to Patrick Colon, a former high school coach and teacher who pled guilty to two counts of improper relations between an educator and a student in 2008. Starr continued to write for SI/The Maven through at least June.
Maven general manager (sports) Scott Kennedy has asked SI/Maven team channel writers to get more content in their "community" sections, and suggested they could use fake accounts to do so.
The SI brand is now on everything from "brain formula" to "nitric oxide."
In a series of tweets Thursday, Buck pushed back on SI's claim that he said Fox "will add" virtual fans as well as crowd noise.
"I still cringe every time I see it... I wish they had run the headline by me."
Revoking the Sports Illustrated license is a possibility if ABG feels TheMaven has damaged the SI brand.
After criticizing Maven for trying to implement permanent salary cuts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Grant Wahl has now been fired.
"There's a total lack of confidence in the leadership," says the Washington Post's Ben Strauss.
Wilder announced yesterday was her final day at Sports Illustrated.
Amidst projections for a $30 million drop in revenue this year, Maven has laid off nine percent of its staff, including six percent of the remaining editorial staff at SI.
"The Astros of the 2010s were the most innovative organization in the history of sports. As it turned out, the ‘new way to win it all’ involved factors that no one could have imagined - myself included. Cadence13, Prologue Projects, and Left/Right are the ideal partners with whom to reveal the full story of the Astros’ exhilarating rise and shocking fall."
This partnership will include a combined "digital experience" on SI.com, and a co-branded network of team sites.
TheMaven announced that it beat its revenue projection for this year and that it expects "more than $27 million in operational savings at Sports Illustrated" in 2020 (compared to the magazine's 2018 numbers) from cuts, including further print issue reductions.
Around 15 SI staffers (who mostly work for the print magazine) are already represented by the NewsGuild of New York. SI employees are now looking to form a wider union with that organization that would see around 80 newsroom employees represented.
"I'll let Mark represent us birds in the sports world. If you see him, tell him Big Bird says, "Heeeyyy!'"
