This is happening in a lot of industries where labor can be purchased cheaper through freelancers. The publican can just buy rights to the images themselves or pay the photographer on a contract basis for an event or season. It isn't just photography. I've seen this in many types of businesses. The cost of employment, especially for required benefits, is skyrocketing and it is much more cost effective to let the 'employees' be a freelancer and buy their own healthcare, retirement, etc. It is funny they left out the ACA impact, they even made mention of 401K, Dental, but didn't list the biggest benefit expense of all..
orts Illustrated, one of the world's top purveyors of the still image over the past six decades, has announced it will no longer employ staff photographers. That staff has waxed and waned over the years—and has been at zero previously, even in the magazine's heyday—but it was down to a half-dozen men who lost their jobs with the decision. One, Robert Beck, shot the magazine's two most recent covers.
The magazine will still arrive in mailboxes each week, and its pages will still be stuffed with images; to most readers, the loss will be vague at best, symbolic at worst. Sports photographers nearly have always been less famous than their subjects. It's not as if anyone ever wondered whether the person who shot Y.A. Tittle or Bobby Orr or Dwight Clark or Brandi Chastain or Michael Jordan or Phelps-Cavic or Usain Bolt or Muhammad Ali (or for that matter Tyra Banks) had a spot on the masthead, a 401(k), dental....
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120839/sports-illustrated-lays-staff-photographers-what-we-all-lose
On a related note, now that they are using freelancers, I volunteer to shoot the swimsuit issues.