Authentic Brands Group, the intellectual property giant that own Sports Illustrated, has filed a lawsuit against The Arena Group, the weird consortium of media brands that stopped paying Authentic Brands Group earlier this year for the license to publish Sports Illustrated, and its owner Manoj Bhargava, the 5-Hour Energy founder, for breach of contract, tortious interference, and copyright violations over The Arena Group's alleged failed attempt to wrest away Sports Illustrated from Authentic Brands Group (ABG) and keep essential data from new Sports Illustrated licensees Minute Media. The heinously off-putting string of nouns in that sentence alone hints at the level of chaos SI and its staffers have faced since Meredith Corporation sold the magazine to ABG in 2019. That same year ABG sold a 10-year license to publish SI to The Arena Group (TAG), then known as The Maven, in exchange for $45 million. While TAG immediately laid off one-third of the workforce and steadily degraded working conditions throughout its publishing tenure, things worsened sharply this past January, when TAG reportedly failed to pay a quarterly installment of $3.75 million to ABG for the publishing license.

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