The storied mag Sports Illustrated and its internet site have a new publisher.
In a deal announced Monday, the sixty-five-year-vintage mag’s editorial content could be managed by a virtual outfit called Maven. Ross Levinsohn, the debatable former publisher of the Los Angeles Times, has been named CEO.
Three weeks later, Sports Illustrated was bought for $10 million through a brand and marketing firm, Authentic Brands Group. As part of that deal, its previous proprietor, Meredith Corp., could have had editorial management for up to two years. Instead, Authentic Brands has now reached an agreement with Maven.
Maven, a Seattle-based media agency, was founded by James Heckman, who previously worked at Fox and Yahoo. Heckman and Levinsohn, who became a government at Fox and Yahoo, have long been professionally intertwined.
They plan to rename the enterprise Sports Illustrated Media and extend the brand worldwide in partnership with Authentic Brands.
Though the business enterprise did not offer a piece of writing that was imaginative and prescient, the deal increased questions about the editorial future of Sports Illustrated. The business practices of Levinsohn and Heckman were the challenge of an earlier NPR investigation.
As a writer for the Los Angeles Times and an investor in a digital outfit called True/Slant, Levinsohn embraced a method he termed “gravitas with scale” — a version that turned primarily based on unpaid contributors and supposed activity losses the traditional newsroom newshounds in The Tribune publishing chain.
Levinsohn was sued two times as an executive and became accused of fostering a place of job environment that turned conducive to sexual harassment, NPR has previously mentioned. His company employers settled each proceeding against him and his co-defendants for undisclosed sums.
Maven paid $ forty-five million in opposition to destiny royalties of Sports Illustrated, consistent with a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. Under these terms, Authentic Brands can pay Maven a proportion of revenues and a ten- to 12-month licensing settlement that may be renewed for a total of a hundred years.
Monday’s sale is just the latest cutting-edge media acquisition for Maven. This closing week, it bought the financial news web page TheStreet for $16.5 million.
The first issue of Sports Illustrated hit newsstands in 1954. The mag, which focused its coverage on sports, additionally featured deep dives into the arenas of civil and human rights, politics, energy, and cash through the lens of recreation.
