Sources: Esports Illustrated Resumes Operation

Esports Illustrated returns to the land of the living

The Esports Advocate has learned that Esports Illustrated will announce later today—barring any last-minute complications or delays—its return to publishing after being technically offline (not updated with new content) for several months due to a change in Sports Illustrated (SI) publishing rights. Operator Gaudhammer Gaming Group (G3) and the new publisher Minute Media have finally come to an agreement to resume operations, sources tell us, though the duration of the brand licensing deal and other terms were not available and will probably not be publicly disclosed.

Sources tell TEA that Esports Illustrated will continue to focus on the video games, companies, players, and organizations involved in competitive gaming. G3’s previous brand licensing deal was with The Arena Group, which held a publishing agreement with SI owner Authentic Brands Group for more than a decade.

Authentic Brands Group had an agreement with The Arena Group at the beginning of 2024 (which G3 had its original licensing agreement with when it launched last year), but that deal fell apart following a number of developments including The Arena Group failing to make a quarterly payment on its publishing agreement, unsubstantiated accusations that SI was knowingly using a company to publish AI-generated stories, and challenges related to The Arena Group’s new majority investors. Following the missed payment in January, Authentic announced that it had revoked The Arena Group’s publishing deal for SI. In March, Authentic and Minute Media announced a new deal and that the SI owner would take an undisclosed equity stake in the media company. Minute Media adds SI to a publishing catalog that includes FanSided, The Players’ Tribune, and 90min, among others.

In November 2023, The Arena Group announced that it had signed a definitive agreement to combine with Bridge Media Networks, the wholly owned subsidiary of Simplify Inventions. Under the terms of the deal, 5-Hour International Corporation Pte. Ltd. (the makers of 5-Hour Energy) agreed to purchase $25M USD of common stock of the combined company (New Arena), along with The Hans Foundation, who would also purchase $25M of preferred stock. Following that transaction, Manoj Bhargava, the billionaire founder of 5-Hour Energy, was blamed for the publisher going through multiple rounds of layoffs in an effort to cut costs and make the organization leaner, and in early January, missing a $3.75M quarterly licensing fee to Authentic Brands Group. A report in AdWeek suggests that this was Bhargava’s plan all along in an effort to make The Arena Group run leaner, but generate more profits.

These and other issues related to the change in publishers put Esports Illustrated in limbo for a few months as it negotiated a new licensing agreement.

In 2019, G3 was founded by Anthony Gaud, a seasoned video game executive who has worked for nearly two decades in the space for such companies as The Walt Disney Company, Nexon America, Kabillion, DAG Entertainment, Warner Bros. Games Boston, Mainframe Studios, and Hasbro, among others. In addition to operating Esports Illustrated, G3 focuses much of its efforts on “Real Money Video Gaming,” with the goal of providing insights and services to game developers, esports organizations, and content creators who want to engage the space in a legal and ethical way.