Sports Illustrated’s owner FIRES its CEO after publication used AI to produce product reviews written by fake authors

The owners of Sports Illustrated fired CEO Ross Levinson after he was accused of publishing works created by artificial intelligence, using photos of fake authors and creating fictitious profiles.

Arena Group Holdings, which owns the 79-year-old periodical, made the announcement after a board meeting “to improve the company’s operating efficiency and earnings.”

Levinson, 59, has served as SI’s CEO and publisher since 2019 and has led The Arena Group since 2020.

He will be replaced on an interim basis by Manoj Bhargava, founder and CEO of Innovations Ventures LLC, best known for 5-Hour Energy Drink.

Bhargava, who bought a majority stake in the company in August this year, also owns a group of television stations.

In addition to Levinson, chief operating officer Andrew Craft, media president Rob Barrett and corporate lawyer Julie Fenster were also fired.

However, Bhargava’s spokesman claims that all this was planned even before the scandal broke.

“This included significant changes to the leadership team,” Vince Bodiford told the magazine New York Postchanges that they hope will “improve the company’s operational efficiency and earnings.”

Levinson called the company “well positioned for the future” in a LinkedIn post.

“It was an incredible trip. We were able to significantly expand the business from tens of millions of users to more than 100 million and from tens of millions in revenue to hundreds of millions. We have grown across all key categories and added brands such as SI, The Street, Parade, Men’s Journal, Powder and Surfer to our platform to help create a major digital player.”

He made no mention of the controversy, saying he was “most proud” of the team he had built.

The legacy magazine was accused of content that was allegedly written by non-existent authors. Sports Illustrated said the work came from a “third party” who certified that their articles were written by humans.

Investigation conducted Futurism discovered that several “authors” with bio pages on Sports Illustrated’s website were fake, including fictitious interests, hobbies and even an AI-generated headshot.

Like the authors, some articles on the website’s review page have been accused of sounding like they were written by an “alien” – with bizarre descriptions and formatting inaccuracies.

According to the report, after the magazine’s publisher, The Arena Group, was first asked to respond to the allegations, all of the strange content disappeared.

Drew Ortiz, the purported writer, had a profile that emphasized that he “has spent most of his life outdoors, and is happy to walk you through his endless list of the best products to keep you safe from the dangers of nature.”

“These days, there’s rarely a weekend that goes by that Drew isn’t hiking, camping, or just back at his parents’ farm.”

The report claims that Ortiz does not exist – he has no social media presence or posting history.

And his profile photo was found on a website that sells headshots created using artificial intelligence. The fake image of Ortiz is described as a “neutral white young male with short brown hair and blue eyes.”

A few months ago, Ortiz’s page disappeared completely and began redirecting to the page of someone named Sora Tanaka. Her image was also listed for sale on AI’s website, which said: “a joyful young adult woman of Asian descent with long brown hair and brown eyes.”

Her supposed fake description on the Sports Illustrated website read: “Sora has always been a fitness guru and loves to try different foods and drinks. Ms. Tanaka is thrilled to share her fitness and nutrition expertise with the product review team and promises to bring you only the best of the best.”

The third allegedly fake Sports Illustrated writer is Domino Abrams, whose biography says he was a stay-at-home dad. It was also revealed that his headshot was created by artificial intelligence.

The report also claims that their bylines will change too – without an editor’s note explaining why someone’s story was suddenly credited to someone else.

At the end of the stories, it was stated that the work was “created by a third party” and “Sports Illustrated’s editorial team was not involved in the creation of this content.”

One insider told Futurism: “There are a lot of them. I thought: what are they? This is ridiculous. This person doesn’t exist.

“At the bottom (of the page) there will be a photo of the person and some kind of fake description, like, ‘Oh, John lives in Houston, Texas.’ He loves playing in the yard and hanging out with his dog Sam.” Something like that. It’s just crazy.”

Another source told the publication: “The content is absolutely AI-generated, no matter how much they say it’s not.”

Arena Group partnered with AdVon Commerce, the company that supplied the poles. However, the publisher said it has since severed ties with the firm.

In a statement to Variety, an Arena Group spokesperson said: “The articles in question were product reviews and constituted licensed content from an external third party company, AdVon Commerce.

“A number of AdVon’s e-commerce articles were featured on certain Arena websites. We constantly monitor our partners and were in the process of reviewing them when these allegations were made.

“AdVon has assured us that all articles in question were written and edited by humans.

“According to AdVon, their authors, editors and researchers create and curate content and follow policies that include the use of both anti-plagiarism and anti-AI software in all content.

“However, we learned that AdVon forced authors to use a pseudonym or pseudonym on some articles to protect the authors’ privacy—actions we do not condone—and we are removing content while our internal investigation continues and have since ended the partnership.”