The media company formerly known as Maven has rebranded itself as The Arena Group.
2021 has proven to be one of the most consequential in recent memory for the publishing company behind Sports Illustrated, which has spent the past 18 months or so expanding its portfolio of news sites, situating fresh leadership, and raising millions of dollars from investors. And on Monday, the company formerly known as Maven announced the next phase in its growth strategy: A rebranding, as well as a refinement of its operational focus. The company’s new name is The Arena Group, and here’s what’s happening next.
Sports enthusiasts who follow the company’s most high-profile media brand will no doubt pick up on the allusion to sports “arenas” in the rebrand. But what the new name actually reflects is a subtle shift of the company’s business strategy — toward building up “scalable media verticals” that the company will refer to as “Arenas.”
The company says it’s actually been moving in this direction, toward a vertical-centric business model, ever since Sports Illustrated CEO Ross Levinsohn was elevated to the top executive spot at the parent company a year ago now. Also over the past year, the company has gone from strength to strength — raising, for example, more than $40 million in new capital. Growing digital revenue more than 90% year-over-year in the second quarter. As well as growing subscriptions, which now account for 55% of overall revenue across the company’s properties.
A new identity, and “refined strengths”
Meanwhile, Levinsohn and his lieutenants have now crystallized where the company goes from here, via this new strategy. For now, it’s led to the identification and creation of two specific verticals, sports and finance. And cementing those verticals has guided a couple of recent developments at the company, including the recent purchase of sports news website The Spun. As well as the launch of a cryptocurrency-focused media brand called Crypto Investor, which includes a subscription-based weekly newsletter product and amounted to an expansion of Maven-owned TheStreet.
“For the last year, we focused on strategically investing in our business lines, expanding our offering and growth,” Levinsohn told me ahead of the rebranding announcement. “Our core verticals have gotten deeper, bigger and now offer broader consumer propositions. We wanted an identity that captured those refined strengths. The Arena Group reflects the dynamic, tech-powered media ecosystem that we’re building, bringing together consumers, publishers, storytellers, and advertisers.”
It’s not a complete shift in direction for the company, because the company doesn’t plan to abandon serving publishers that don’t fit neatly into a specific vertical. The Arena Group will still service publishers that live on its publishing and technology platform. And as The Arena Group expands into new verticals, those and other publishers could have an opportunity to be part of something bigger.
The vertical that’s anchored by Sports Illustrated, meanwhile, offers an instructive example as far as what the company’s expanded focus looks like in practice.
In August, the media company cited Comscore numbers to announce that the sports vertical — Sports Illustrated Media Group — is now “the fastest growing sports property” in the US. With more than 42 million monthly users, the vertical has seen growth of nearly 300% over the last year. That media group, by the way, includes brands like FanNation, Hockey News, and Morning Read, in addition to The Spun. “With 293% growth in unique visitors year-over-year,” Levinsohn said at the time, “the change in ranking validates our strategy of premium storytelling, robust local team coverage, brand partnerships and serving consumers’ insatiable appetite for breaking sports news.”
The Arena Group will apply this same model to coverage of finance, its other key vertical at the moment.
Right now, the media company boasts a collection of 17 partner finance-themed news sites, anchored by TheStreet. And in terms of a snapshot of where TheStreet’s business is at right now, subscriptions there are up on a double-digit percentage basis. The company also claims that TheStreet — which it acquired back in 2019 — now reaches more consumers with household incomes greater than $100,000 than it did prior. “These evolving dynamics,” the company says, “will shape how The Arena Group expands its finance vertical to engage its new, younger audiences with clear financial prowess.”
The Arena Group fast facts
- Overall, the company today has more than 300 employees.
- Over the past year and a half, its content partnerships have grown to now total more than 200. Hiring, meanwhile, has also continued through the pandemic — it’s up 10% this year over 2020, and 35% over 2019.
- Across all verticals, The Arena Group says it’s grown digital subscribers by 18% over the last 12 months. And on a trailing 12-month basis, the company has generated more than $142 million in revenue through June 30. That’s up 53.7% compared to the same period through June 30, 2020.
