Making of a Media Mogul: Indian American Entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava Named Interim CEO of Sports Illustrated

The Arena Group, publisher of Sports Illustrated, has named Indian American entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava as its interim CEO, the company announced yesterday (Dec.11). The appointment comes a few days after the company fired president and COO Andrew Kraft, along with media president Rob Barrett, and corporate counsel Julie Fenster, after a Futurism exposé revealed how Sports Illustrated had been publishing articles from fake writers with AI-generated headshots. 

Bhargava is founder and CEO of Innovations Ventures, the company known for producing the 5-hour Energy drink.^. This August, he bought a majority stake in The Arena Group, home to more than 265 brands, including Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade Media, Men’s Journal, and HubPages. Reporting on the sale, Forbes noted that Bhargava has “experience in media and a track record for strong branding, and has made his fortune selling the popular caffeine brand.”

According to an Axios report, the company’s investment will help it “scale and expand its ad business.” At the time, the Arena Group, “one of the few publicly traded digital media holding groups” was “profitable and consistently growing,” but its stock was “heavily impacted by the slowdown in digital advertising,” the report added. “It also gives it a sizable cash influx, which the company said it will use to reduce its debt load.”

The Lucknow-born Bhargava moved with his family to the U.S. as a teenager, settling in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood, The Wall Street Journal said in a November 2015 profile. He attended the prestigious Hill School, prior to enrolling at Princeton. But he never earned a college degree. He dropped out and, after holding a string of odd jobs, returned to India to become a monk. This is where his “real education began,” he told The Journal. 

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After more than a decade at the monastery, he moved back permanently to the U.S. He worked a number of odd jobs ranging from a taxi driver to a printing press operator. It was in 1990 that he would start his first company, a plastics company, that he built and sold to a private equity firm. 

In 2004, Bhargava was at a trade show and came across an energy drink. He dreamed of an energy drink without sugar, unknown stimulants, and with less fluid ounces. Out of his planning, he created a small, 2.49 ounce bottle, that provided 5 hours of energy. “Everyone asks, how did you do that,” he told The Journal. “I tell them, we weren’t that smart. We just didn’t do dumb stuff… and that pretty much differentiated us from all other corporations.”