Entrepreneurial Publishing Model Demonstrates Success as The Arena Group Expands Data, IP and E-Commerce Efforts

The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE American: AREN) (“The Arena Group” or “Arena”), a brand, data and IP company, home to many of the nation's most recognizable brands, including Parade, TheStreet, Men’s Journal, Athlon Sports, ShopHQ and the Adventure Network (including Surfer, Powder, Bike Magazine and more), today announced financial results for the three months ending September 30, 2025 (“Q3 2025”).

Financial Highlights for Q3 2025:

• Quarterly revenue for Q3 2025 was $29.8 million compared to $33.6 million in Q3 2024 while gross margins remained above 50%. Q3 2024 included a one-time $3 million increase to net income from a licensing agreement.
• Net income rose to $6.9 million from $4.0 million in Q3 2024.
• Net margin improved to 23.2% and Adjusted EBITDA margin to 39.9%, up from 11.9% and 33.3% in Q3 2024, respectively.
• Trailing twelve-month (TTM)¹ income from continuing operations of $30.5 million, divided by 47.6 million shares outstanding as of September 30, equates to earnings per share of $0.64. This represents a price-to-earnings ratio of over 7.0x based on the share price of $4.87 as of NYSE American Market close on November 10.
• Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 2025 was $11.9 million, a 6.3% increase over Q3 2024 Adjusted EBITDA of $11.2 million.
• Reduced net leverage below 2x after making $10 million of principal payments year to date (paid off revolving credit facility) and amassed a cash balance of $12.5 million.

“Despite persistent audience volatility across the industry, we delivered another highly profitable quarter,” said Paul Edmondson, CEO of The Arena Group. “Our diversified model and variable cost structure continue to prove resilient, allowing us to drive margin expansion, generate cash and grow net income even when traffic fluctuates. Profitability is no longer episodic - it’s becoming consistent and repeatable.”

Operational Highlights for Q3 2025:

• Sports & Leisure: Arena’s continued focus on revenue and audience diversification was on display in Q3, with non-advertising revenue growing nearly 200% for bands like Athlon Sports and Men's Journal. This was led mainly by off-property distribution & syndication.
• TheStreet: The financial brand significantly grew its audience reach in Q3, with on-site traffic up 20% compared to Q3 2024, and revenue from content syndication efforts up 200% over the same period.
• Parade: The lifestyle brand’s traffic was up 25% vs. Q3 2024. Non-advertising revenue, which includes performance marketing and syndication efforts, more than doubled vs. Q3 2024 (+111%).
• Total pageviews to commerce content grew 82% in Q3 2025 compared to Q3 2024.

The Arena Group continues to execute its disciplined M&A strategy, acquiring the digital assets and IP of two properties in October 2025: ShopHQ and Lindy’s Sports. The company funded these transactions with cash on hand. The acquisitions expand the company’s ecommerce and sports portfolios, deepen its brand ecosystem and add new monetization opportunities.

“Our Entrepreneurial Publishing model continues to scale efficiently - allowing us to grow without the heavy fixed costs of traditional media,” said Edmondson. “We’re now extending that model into video and social selling/commerce, while accelerating our evolution into a data, AI, and ecommerce-driven business. With more than 40,000 new users registering every day, our new intelligence platform, Encore, will connect user behavior across ads, newsletters and content to the most valuable actions. We believe this will allow us to curate high-intent audiences for advertisers and turn engagement into measurable, recurring value for our partners and our business.”

About The Arena Group

The Arena Group Holdings, Inc (NYSE American: AREN) 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. Through our portfolio of owned and operated brands including Parade, TheStreet, Men’s Journal, Athlon Sports, ShopHQ and the Adventure Network (Surfer, Powder, Bike Magazine and more), we deliver trusted content and meaningful experiences to millions of users each month. Visit us at thearenagroup.net to learn more.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We report our financial results in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States of America (“GAAP”); however, management believes that certain non-GAAP financial measures provide users of our financial information with useful supplemental information that enables a better comparison of our performance across periods. We believe Adjusted EBITDA provides visibility to the underlying continuing operating performance by excluding the impact of certain items that are noncash in nature or not related to our core business operations. We calculate Adjusted EBITDA as net income (loss) as adjusted for loss from discontinued operations, with additional adjustments for (i) interest expense (net), (ii) income taxes, (iii) depreciation and amortization, (iv) stock-based compensation, (v) change in valuation of contingent consideration, (vi) liquidated damages, (vii) loss on impairment of assets, (viii) loss on sale of assets; (ix) employee retention credit, (x) employee restructuring payments, and (xi) professional and vendor fees. Our non-GAAP measure may not be comparable to similarly titled measures used by other companies, have limitations as an analytical tool, and should not be considered in isolation, or as a substitute for analysis of our operating results as reported under GAAP. Additionally, we do not consider our non-GAAP measures as superior to, or a substitute for, the equivalent measures calculated and presented in accordance with GAAP. Some of the limitations are that our presentation of Adjusted EBITDA:

• does not reflect interest expense and financing fees, or the cash required to service our debt, which reduces cash available to us;
• does not reflect income tax provision or benefit, which is a noncash income or expense;
• does not reflect depreciation and amortization expense and, although this is a noncash expense, the assets being depreciated may have to be replaced in the future, increasing our cash requirements;
• does not reflect stock-based compensation and, therefore, does not include all of our compensation costs;
• does not reflect the change in valuation of contingent consideration and, although this is a noncash income or expense, the change in the valuations each reporting period are not impacted by our actual business operations but is instead strongly tied to the change in the market value of our common stock;
• does not reflect liquidated damages and, therefore, does not include future cash requirements if we repay the liquidated damages in cash instead of shares of our common stock (which the investor would need to agree to);
• does not reflect any losses from the impairment of assets, which is a noncash operating expense;
• does not reflect any losses from the sale of assets, which is a noncash operating expense;
• does not reflect the employee retention credits recorded by us for payroll related tax credits under the CARES Act;
• does not reflect payments related to employee severance and employee restructuring changes for our former executives;
• does not reflect the professional and vendor fees incurred by us for services provided by consultants, accountants, lawyers, and other vendors, which services were related to certain types of events that are not reflective of our business operations; and
• may not reflect proper non direct cost allocations.

The following table presents a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income (loss), which is the most directly comparable GAAP measure, for the periods indicated:

Forward-Looking Statements

This Press Release of The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (the “Company,” “we,” “our,” and “us”) contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). Forward-looking statements relate to future events or future performance and include, without limitation, statements concerning our business strategy, future revenues and income from continuing operations, cost reductions, market growth, capital requirements, product introductions, expansion plans, our stock price relative to our peers and our share repurchase program (as disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024 filed with the SEC on April 15, 2025 (the “2024 10-K”) and in our other SEC filings and publicly available documents). Other statements contained in this Press Release that are not historical facts are also forward-looking statements. We have tried, wherever possible, to identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “intends,” “plans,” “believes,” “seeks,” “estimates,” and other stylistic variants denoting forward-looking statements.

We caution investors that any forward-looking statements presented in this Press Release, or that we may make orally or in writing from time to time, are based on information currently available, as well as our beliefs and assumptions. The actual outcome related to forward-looking statements will be affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties, and factors that are beyond our control or ability to predict. Although we believe that our assumptions are reasonable, they are not guarantees of future performance, and some will inevitably prove to be incorrect. As a result, our actual future results can be expected to differ from our expectations, and those differences may be material. Accordingly, investors should use caution in relying on forward-looking statements, which are based only on known results and trends at the time they are made, to anticipate future results or trends. We detail other risks in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including in Part I, Item 1A, Risk

Factors, in the 2024 10-K and in the Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2025 (the “Q2 10-Q”). The discussion in this Press Release should be read in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes thereto included in Part II, Item 8 in the 2024 10-K and in the Q3 10-Q.

This Press Release and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements attributable to us or any person acting on our behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by the cautionary statements contained or referred to in this section. We do not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to our forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this Press Release except as may be required by law.

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