After Sports Illustrated was called out for publishing articles by seemingly non-existent authors with AI-generated highlights, the company that runs SI said the content in question came from a third party that had provided assurances that it was written by humans.
The Arena Group, which publishes Sports Illustrated, said it has ended its partnership with AdVon Commerce, the company that supplied the seats. AdVon Commerce representatives did not respond to a request for comment.
Arena Group’s statement came after a track published on Monday by Futurism provided evidence that photos of several writers listed on Sports Illustrated’s website were available for purchase on a website that sells AI-generated headshots. For example, the bio of a writer on SI’s website named “Drew Ortiz” said that “Today, there is rarely a weekend when Drew isn’t camping, hiking, or just returning to his parents’ farm.” The photo of “Drew Ortiz” as it appeared on the Sports Illustrated website was available on an AI-generated image website with the description “neutral white young adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes,” according to the Futurism report. According to the Futurism piece, after reaching out to Arena Group for comment, the fake writers’ resumes disappeared. Articles with alleged AI-generated author letters now include a disclaimer that says, “This content is generated by a third party” and “Sports Illustrated editorial staff was not involved in the creation of this content.”
A spokesman for the Arena group said in a statement to Variety, βThe articles in question were product reviews and were licensed for content by an external, third-party company, AdVon Commerce. A number of AdVon’s e-commerce articles were running on some Arena sites. We constantly monitor our partners and were in the middle of a review when these allegations were made. AdVon assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans.”
The Arena Group spokesperson continued, βAccording to AdVon, their writers, editors and researchers create and curate content and follow a policy that includes the use of both anti-plagiarism and anti-artificial intelligence software throughout content. However, we learned that AdVon had authors use a pen or pseudonym on some articles to protect the authors’ privacy – actions we do not condone – and we are removing the content pending our internal investigation, and have since terminated the partnership.
In 2019, Authentic Brands Group bought Sports Illustrated from Meredith for $110 million (before Meredith was acquired by IAC’s Dotdash). ABG subsequently granted media licensing and publishing rights for the SI brand to Maven, which changed its name in 2021 to Arena Group Holdings. New York-based Arena Group says it operates more than 265 brands, including Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade, Men’s Journal and HubPages.