For those who do not know how magazines work, the CEO oversees the advertising sales team and runs the business. Since they made all the money and journalists were a cost, administration and sales got all the cash, while hacks were the first fired.

Now it seems that Sports Illustrated CEO Ross Levinsohn might have crossed a line when he thought he could hire AI to do some of the Sports Illustrated writing. After all it would save money and allow more bonuses to the dwellers of mahogany row.

The alleged AI-generated content was first reported by tech-focused publication Futurism. According to a post by a spokesperson for Arena Group on SI's X account in November, the questionable content included articles and product reviews from AdVon Commerce, a third-party content provider.

"AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans," the X post read.

Though it denied the report that the famed publication produced articles written by artificial intelligence, Arena Group pulled the alleged AI-generated stories from SI.com pending an ongoing internal investigation.

Manoj Bhargava, the 5-Hour Energy founder who owns a majority stake in Arena Group, was named the company's interim CEO on Monday, according to the company's statement.

Levinsohn stepped into the CEO role at Arena Group — which owns more than 250 brands reaching more than 100 million readers — in 2020, his LinkedIn profile shows. According to the profile, he has held senior leadership roles at HBO and CBS Sportsline, in addition to serving as Yahoo's interim CEO in a career that spans three decades.

Arena Group's latest firing follows three terminations last week, including COO Andrew Kraft, media president Rob Barrett and corporate counsel Julie Fenster.