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Arena Group, parent of Sports Illustrated, fires CEO Ross Levinsohn

By Josh Beckerman

Arena Group Holdings (AREN), whose brands include Sports Illustrated and TheStreet, said it terminated the employment of Chief Executive Ross Levinsohn, and named Manoj Bhargava as interim CEO, effective Monday.

The company said this follows last week's termination of operations president and COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster.

Arena has received significant media attention since a November article by Futurism said Sports Illustrated used AI-generated authors. Arena said, following the Futurism report, that the articles in question were product reviews licensed from AdVon Commerce, and said it "learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudo name in certain articles to protect author privacy - actions we strongly condemn" and that Arena ended the partnership with AdVon.

Arena said Monday that its board "took actions to improve the operational efficiency and revenue of the company."

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12-11-23 2053ET

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