Greg Bishop placed it on a cardboard sheet. Not literally, but one imagines the feeling was genuine enough to endure. He wrote on X, “When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was write cover stories for Sports Illustrated,” after learning that he was included in the most recent round of cuts. “Today’s layoffs include me. I’m holding a cardboard sign as I stand by the side of the road. It reads like a joke: WILL WRITE FOR FOOD. Really, it wasn’t.
The conglomerate that had taken over as Sports Illustrated’s publisher just over two years prior, Minute Media, quietly let go of ten to fifteen employees in late May 2026. Bishop was one of them; he had written the kinds of cover stories that used to characterize the magazine for over ten years. Eight days prior to her fifteenth anniversary at SI, Stephanie Apstein found out she was out—a detail that takes on new meaning when you consider it. Michael Rosenberg, who used his trademark dry wit to explain his departure. Along with editors Jeff Ritter and John Schwarb, golf writer Bob Harig’s departure essentially destroyed the entire golf vertical.
As usual, the language of market realities was used to frame the cuts. Citing changes in the digital media landscape and a shift toward artificial intelligence, Minute Media announced that it was laying off about twelve percent of its global workforce, or about sixty positions across a five-hundred-person company. Additionally, the company abandoned its integration with VideoVerse, an Indian video technology company that it had paid about $200 million for in September of last year. The deal has expired. The authors are, too.
The pattern is more difficult to explain away. This was not a singular crisis. After acquiring the publishing rights, TheMaven eliminated over forty jobs in 2019. The Arena Group made seventeen more layoffs in 2023. Then, in early 2024, the newsroom nearly completely collapsed due to Arena’s failure to make a licensing payment; nearly all Guild-represented employees were notified, some right away and others after ninety days. Notably, Apstein received that information on the first day of her honeymoon. When Minute Media first entered the market in March 2024, its goals were to rehire some of the talent, maintain the print edition, and rebuild the brand’s reputation. They might have meant it at the time.
Former SI writer Michael Bamberger, who currently writes for Golf.com, wrote a tribute to Bob Harig that was more akin to a celebration of a certain style of journalism than a farewell. He mentioned authors like Alan Shipnuck, Rick Reilly, Dan Jenkins, and Herbert Warren Wind who transformed SI’s golf coverage into something worthwhile over several decades. “Much of what I know about this game came from reading the writers cited here,” Bamberger said. Reading it gives me the impression that he was discussing more than just golf.
Before SI, Harig worked for ESPN for fifteen of his twenty-five years on the golf beat. On Tiger Woods, he authored three books. By all accounts, he was the exact type of dedicated, well-connected reporter that magazines spend years attempting to develop and minutes choosing to ignore. With grace, he replied on X that there would be more. What that means for him and the coverage he leaves behind is still up in the air.
As this happens, it’s difficult to ignore the fact that institutional memory—rather than just talent—is vanishing. The people who understood the rhythm of a long season or the feel of a locker room, who had sources developed over fifteen years, and who knew where the stories lived. An algorithm does not inherit that knowledge. No content management system is used to store it. It follows the person out the door.
This year marks Sports Illustrated’s 63rd birthday. The issue with the swimsuit is still popular. The logo is still powerful. However, the masthead, which has been shrinking for the better part of ten years, now appears less like a publication and more like a brand being managed for some other goal, most likely one that calls for more automated content and fewer salaries. Right now, it’s genuinely unclear if that version of SI will be worthwhile to read. Once something is gone, it can be difficult to replace it.
