Digital sports-media outlet CHGO let go of five front-facing staffers and some production personnel Wednesday in a round of layoffs across parent company ALLCITY Network’s five markets.
Greg Boysen, Vinnie Duber, Ryan Herrera, Herb Lawrence and Nicholas Moreano were the on-air talents affected, ALLCITY CEO Brandon Spano told the Sun-Times. The layoffs are part of a shift in resources as the company expands its revenue departments amid a push for wider distribution on free ad-supported TV channels.
“We created a new content plan for 2025,” Spano said. “We would like to cover sports in the exact same manner, but the reality is that certain sports command a different scale of audience and advertiser interest at the local level, and we’re moving our resources to better align with that.”
Baseball and hockey beats were affected the most. Boysen was on the Blackhawks beat, Herrera covered the Cubs, and Duber and Lawrence covered the White Sox. ALLCITY’s overall coverage of baseball will undergo the biggest change. In-season shows will come out two to three times per week instead of daily, and offseason content will depend on news.
The Sox’ historic struggles on the field affected the beat’s audience share enough to necessitate two layoffs.
“Unfortunately, the White Sox are a really tough team to [cover],” Spano said. “Herb’s incredible. He’s one of the best talents we’ve ever had and a great person. Vinny Duber’s as good of a writer as you’ll find on a beat. But sometimes you feel like you care more about the White Sox than the White Sox care about the White Sox. So that makes it tough.”
Also affected were talent known as “fourth chairs,” a fourth person who worked on a bigger beat. That included Moreano on the Bears beat. The Bulls beat was unaffected.
Spano said this marks the first time ALLCITY has had a round of layoffs. He said the percentage of cuts companywide was “pretty small.”
“We grew the revenue department both in each local market and nationally,” Spano said. “That essentially comes down to sellers. We have to take resources from areas where you’re not generating interest or you have extra resources and then put those in areas where the business is growing.”
Spano said he doesn’t foresee making further changes in 2025. ALLCITY, which launched in 2019 in Denver, also has outlets in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Dallas. CHGO launched in March 2022.
Statement from ALLCITY CEO Brandon Spano:
"As ALLCITY Network continues to mature, we must make strategic changes in order to scale efficiently. Unfortunately that means that there were important creators who were let go today and each one of them was very important to us. Each of these impacted employees have been offered severance, health care coverage, and other benefits as part of the restructuring.
As much as we would like to cover all sports in the exact same manner, the reality is that certain sports command a different scale of audience and advertiser interest at the local level and we're moving our resources to better align with that. These decisions were made using the large pool of data that has been accumulated over the last few years. It doesn’t mean that we’re no longer covering all teams in a city, but it does mean that we are reimagining what that looks like while being more conscious of our commitment to it. This means a smarter mix of daily shows, short-form content, and tentpole coverage.
Ultimately, we believe these changes create long-term sustainability for our employees as we continue to scale and add networks across the country."
