Ross Levinsohn will be the new CEO of Sports Illustrated (AFP)

Sports Illustrated's media operations were sold for the second time in less than a month in a deal announced Monday that puts former Yahoo top executive Ross Levinsohn at the helm of the iconic sports magazine.

The Maven, a small publicly traded firm focused on digital publishing, said it acquired rights to operate Sports Illustrated from Authentic Brands, which last month paid $110 million to buy the magazine from Meredith Corp.

In the announcement, Maven said Levinsohn, who served as interim CEO at Yahoo in 2012 and later headed the interactive arm of Tribune Publishing, would become the CEO of the licensed business.

Maven will pay guaranteed minimum royalties to Authentic Brands, which will maintain the rights for certain branded Sports Illustrated products and services.

The news underscored the upheaval in the publishing world.

Sports Illustrated, a 65-year-old magazine that was part of the Time Inc. group that later became Time Warner, was sold in 2017 to Meredith Corp. along with dozens of other titles including Time, which Meredith sold last year to tech entrepreneur Marc Benioff.

Maven announced separately it would acquire the online financial news site TheStreet for $16.5 million.

According to a statement, Maven is building a coalition of independent media partners on its digital distribution and monetization platform which reaches more than 100 million consumers.