What is BotGate?!
Well.... Sports Illustrated recently found itself in a “bot” of trouble. The story, first reported by Maggie Harrison at Futurism, revealed that the magazine was using AI-generated authors and content for their articles. Writers like Drew Ortiz and Sora Tanaka were complete fabrications, with AI-generated profiles and headshots. The Arena Group, which manages Sports Illustrated, initially dodged the issue but eventually blamed AdVon Commerce, their content provider.
The Arena Group licenses the rights to Sports Illustrated content from Authentic Brands Group. Authentic Brands Group is named in the FOIA and was slated for a Sept 18, 2023 meeting in Clearwater, FL to review the proposed Kline Lot project. While no attendees list was provided, the confirmation of the schedule was signed off on by both Dohoney and Jones when on Aug 23, 2023 at 8:33 AM Dohoney emailed Khimberli Jones:
“It looks like our direction is taking shape. Let Odis know that I won’t be here Sept 6th or 7th but that meeting can go on with our dept reps. They know a date is coming, and we will secure a space here in City Hall for folks to talk once you confirm the date.”
For the meeting, the FOIA states:
Sept 18 – Meeting with ABG
Location: Clearwater
Goal to share proof of concept at Michigan
LJC (Lamar Johnson Collaborative) to fold in Massing, plans, renderings to EVH (Experiential Ventures Hospitality) deck
In June of 2022, it was reported that Clearwater, FL was to be the Global Headquarters of Sports Illustrated Resorts. Clearwater is also the headquarters of Chairman & CEO Chris Schroeder’s Experiential Ventures Hospitality and Sports Hospitality Ventures.
Additionally, ABG is listed as a development partner on EVH’s website, and on Nov 28, 2023 Santul Nerkar and Kevin Draper at the New York Times reported that, “In 2019, the media conglomerate Meredith sold Sports Illustrated’s intellectual property to the Authentic Brands Group. It also sold a 10-year license to publish Sports Illustrated to TheMaven, which has since been rebranded as the Arena Group. According to financial filings, Arena pays Authentic Brands $15 million annually for the right to operate Sports Illustrated.
Authentic Brands’ business model mostly involves buying fashion brands that are down on their luck or in bankruptcy — Brooks Brothers, Aéropostale, Forever 21 — and then shedding legacy commitments, cutting costs and operating the brand while banking on its name recognition.
The Sports Illustrated brand has been attached to nutritional supplements, and the chief executive of Authentic Brands once envisioned Sports Illustrated-branded medical clinics.”
On Oct 6, 2023, The Arena Group also finalized being acquired by the 5-Hour energy founder, and long time Farmington Hills, MI, resident Manoj Bhargava. After BotGate, he appointed himself interim CEO and, according to Front Office Sports, in an recent all-hands meeting told his team:
“No one is important,” Bhargava told staffers, per one source on hand for the presentation. “I am not important. … The amount of useless stuff you guys do is staggering.”
The meeting lasted more than 90 minutes, and Bhargava joked at one point, “Did anyone bring any 5-Hour [Energy drink]?”
Other highlights from Bhargava’s comments during the town hall:
A rant about recycling being “useless.”
He told employees they should “stop doing dumb stuff.”
He declared “PowerPoints are illegal” because such presentations are a waste of time.
In her article, Harrison also calls out, “But now that it's under the management of The Arena Group, parts of the magazine seem to have devolved into a Potemkin Village in which phony writers are cooked up out of thin air, outfitted with equally bogus biographies and expertise to win readers' trust, and used to pump out AI-generated buying guides that are monetized by affiliate links to products that provide a financial kickback when readers click them.”
Adding, “Basic scrutiny shows that the quality of the AI authors' posts is often poor, with bizarre-sounding language and glaring formatting discrepancies.” Read the rest of the article by Harrison on Futurism.
