Business Description

The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (“Arena Group,” “we,” or “our”) is a brand, data and IP company that builds, acquires, and scales high-performing digital assets. We combine technology, storytelling, and entrepreneurship to create deep content verticals that engage passionate audiences across sports & leisure, lifestyle, and finance. We utilize a proprietary entrepreneurial publishing model designed to scale digital content with high efficiency and minimal capital intensity. Central to this strategy is the alignment of editorial incentives with audience engagement. Our entrepreneurial publishing framework replaces traditional fixed labor costs with a performance-based, variable cost structure where individual creators contributing content to our owned and operated sites ("Expert Contributors") earn a share of revenue generated by their specific channels. Our platform empowers creators and entrepreneurs to build thriving digital businesses leveraging our infrastructure, audience development expertise, and monetization engine to accelerate growth. Through our portfolio of owned and operated brands, including TheStreet , Parade , Men’s Journal , Athlon Sports , the Adventure Network (which includes Surfer , Powder , and Bike among other brands), and others, we deliver trusted content and meaningful experiences to millions of users each month. Our model blends the agility of entrepreneurship with the scale of a media network, driving growth for our partners, advertisers, and audiences alike. Our Verticals and Growth Strategy Our business model is to grow the audience across our verticals while striving to diversify revenue and drive gross profit through traditional media brands as well as new digital-first brands. We believe our vertical model allows us to leverage audience growth, technological efficiencies and cost savings across all of our brands. Our growth strategy focuses on the following pillars: Platform Scalability and Operational Excellence - we provide a unified technological infrastructure that allows both owned-and-operated brands and independent third parties producing and publishing content on their own domains ("Publisher Partners") to scale efficiently. By centralizing back-end operations, including content management, third-party search engine optimization, and data analytics, we reduce overhead and allow editorial teams to focus on high-impact content production. Strategic Audience Expansion - we aim to grow our reach by deepening engagement within our existing core verticals while selectively entering new high-value categories. Modernized Monetization and Distribution - to maximize the value of our audience, we are focused on diversifying revenue streams: • Yield Optimization: Utilizing proprietary technology to enhance programmatic revenue and first-party data collection. • Multi-Channel Syndication: Expanding the reach of our content through third-party platforms and strategic syndication networks to capture off-platform audiences. • E-commerce and Social Selling: Aggressively expanding our commerce capabilities to capture direct consumer spend. This includes: • Affiliate Revenue: Integrating contextually relevant product recommendations across our vertical sites to generate high-margin referral fees. • Digital Commerce Integration: Leveraging our 2025 acquisition of the ShopHQ brand and its extensive first-party customer data to bridge the gap between media and marketplace. By transitioning ShopHQ to a digital-first, dropship-focused model, we utilize creator-led "live selling" and social commerce to monetize our audience's intent in real-time. 5 Table of Contents Our business is organized into the following verticals: Sports & Leisure Vertical - our Sports & Leisure vertical is anchored by iconic legacy brands and high-velocity digital properties that capture the full spectrum of fan and enthusiast interests. • Anchor Brands: Athlon Sports, The Spun, and Lindy’s Sports, which was acquired in 2025. • Enthusiast Brands: Men’s Journal, Men’s Fitness , and Adventure Network , which includes specialized titles such as Surfer, Powder, Bike, TransWorld SKATEboarding , and Snowboarder .…