CHGO Sports is laying off five front office employees as part of a new content plan and resource allocation

Digital sports media company CHGO laid off five front-line employees and some production staff on Wednesday as part of 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 talent affected, ALLCITY CEO Brandon Spano told the Sun-Times. The layoffs are part of a shift in resources as the company expands its revenue divisions and pushes for broader distribution on free, ad-supported TV channels.

“We have created a new content plan for 2025,” Spano said. “We would like to cover sports in exactly the same way, but the reality is that certain sports attract different levels of audience and advertiser interest at the local level, and we are shifting our resources to better align with that.”

Baseball and hockey sticks were the most affected. Boysen was on the Blackhawks’ route, Herrera was covering the Cubs, and Duber and Lawrence were covering the White Sox. ALLCITY’s overall baseball coverage will see the biggest change. In-season programs appear two to three times a week rather than daily, and out-of-season content depends on the news.

The Sox’s historic on-field problems affected the Beat’s viewership to such an extent that two layoffs were necessary.

“Unfortunately, the White Sox are a really difficult team to cover,” Spano said. “Herb is incredible. He is one of the best talents we have ever had and a great person. Vinny Duber is as good a writer as you can find on a beat. But sometimes you feel like the White Sox are more important to you than the White Sox. So that makes it difficult.”

Also affected were talent known as “fourth chairs,” a fourth person working on a larger beat. That included Moreano on the Bears beat. The Bulls’ hitting remained unaffected.

Spano said this is the first time ALLCITY has experienced a round of layoffs. He said the percentage of company-wide cuts was “pretty small.”

“We have expanded the revenue department both in each local market and nationally,” Spano said. “It essentially depends on the sellers. We need to pull resources from areas where you don’t have interest or have additional resources and then deploy them to areas where the business is growing.”

Spano said he doesn’t expect any further changes in 2025. ALLCITY, which was founded in Denver in 2019, also has locations in Phoenix, Philadelphia and Dallas. CHGO was launched in March 2022.

Statement from ALLCITY CEO Brandon Spano:

“As ALLCITY Network becomes more mature, we need to make strategic changes to scale efficiently. Unfortunately, that means key creators were laid off today, and each and every one of them was very important to us. Each of these affected employees was offered severance pay, health insurance and other benefits as part of the restructuring.

While we would like to cover all sports in exactly the same way, the reality is that certain sports attract varying levels of audience and advertiser interest at the local level, and we are shifting our resources to better align with them. These decisions were made based on the large pool of data collected over the past few years. That doesn’t mean we’re no longer covering all teams in a city, but it does mean we’re reimagining what that looks like while becoming more conscious of our commitment to it. That means a smarter mix of daily shows, short-form content and tentpole reporting.

Ultimately, we believe these changes will create long-term sustainability for our employees as we continue to scale and add networks across the country.”