Arena Group Swings to Loss as Revenue and Operating Profit Soften in Interim Filing

Bottom line

For the three-month reporting period, Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax was $22,183,000 USD, lower than the prior-year comparative of $45,012,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025. For the six-month year-to-date period, the same line was $42,589,000 USD, lower than $76,827,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025. Operating Income (Loss) was $2,280,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2026, lower than $16,412,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025, and $1,976,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2026, lower than $23,774,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025. Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent was -$176,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2026, a loss rather than the profit of $108,639,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025, and -$2,834,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2026, a loss rather than the profit of $112,659,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025. Earnings Per Share, Diluted was $0 per diluted share USD/SHARES for the three months ended June 30, 2026, lower than $2.28 per diluted share USD/SHARES for the three months ended June 30, 2025, and -$0.06 per diluted share USD/SHARES for the six months ended June 30, 2026, a loss rather than the profit of $2.38 per diluted share USD/SHARES for the six months ended June 30, 2025. The shape of the comparison is the same on both windows of the filing: revenue is lower, operating profit is lower, and bottom-line results moved from profit in the prior year to loss in the current period on the quarter and on the six-month basis.

The reported figures above come from this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed by Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (ticker AREN, CIK 0000894871, accession 0001628280-26-055208) for the fiscal period period-ended-2026-06-30, and the unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements presented in this section were prepared in accordance with the basis-of-presentation language carried forward from the Company's audited Annual Report (referenced via Item 8), with the interim statements covering the three months ended June 30, 2026 and the six months ended June 30, 2026 and their prior-year comparatives the three months ended June 30, 2025 and the six months ended June 30, 2025. The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause.. No peer or industry benchmark is included in the filing evidence The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison., and the Company does not break out segment-level results for these dimensions in this filing The filing evidence does not disclose segment-level detail for this dimension., so the four reported lines are the only window into performance the evidence supports for this section. The accompanying Note 1, Note 18, and Note 19 support the period identity used above.

Financial performance

- For the six-month year-to-date period, Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax moved lower than the prior-year comparative, while Operating Income (Loss) also moved lower than the prior-year comparative but stayed profitable on both sides of the comparison. - On the bottom line for the same six-month window, Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent transitioned from a profit in the prior year to a loss in the current period, and Earnings Per Share, Diluted moved from a positive reading to a negative reading on the same profit-to-loss basis.

- For the three-month reporting period, Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax was lower than the prior-year comparative, with Operating Income (Loss) also lower than the prior-year comparative while remaining positive on both sides. - Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent for the quarter moved lower than the prior-year comparative and transitioned from a profit to a loss, while Earnings Per Share, Diluted was lower than the prior-year comparative but stayed at roughly zero rather than turning negative on a per-share basis for the quarter.

- Across both reporting windows the directional pattern is consistent: top-line revenue softened, operating profit softened but held positive, and net results flipped from profit to loss at the consolidated level, a pattern also visible in the comparison case at Lizely Finance Earnings Analysis — Veru Inc. (VERU) Interim Filing: Losses Persist With Mixed Year-over-Year Direction. S.

dollars and are prepared under the rules and regulations of the SEC for interim reporting, with the year-end balance sheet derived from audited financial statements as referenced in the cited basis-of-presentation note. - Management flags a set of macroeconomic sensitivities — inflation, banking-system instability, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, tariffs on print production costs, and advertising-market conditions — as factors that could weigh on financial condition and results, though the filing does not attribute the current period's movement to any single cause.

- The Company operates within the media industry through four reportable segments — Sports & Leisure, Finance, Lifestyle, and Platform & Other — with the CODM evaluating performance and allocating resources based on segment gross profit as defined in the cited segment-reporting note. - The discussion in this Quarterly Report is to be read alongside the condensed consolidated financial statements and notes in Part I, Item 1, and in conjunction with the consolidated financial statements and notes included in Part II, Item 8 of the most recent Annual Report.

- The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause. - The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison.

Operating drivers and segments

- The reporting entity states it operates within the media industry, providing digital content across four primary verticals (as further described in Note 19) through its publishing platform. - The CODM evaluates performance and allocates resources for all of the reportable segments based on segment gross profit, defined as segment revenue less segment cost of revenue, consisting of those costs and expenses directly attributable to the segment. - The segment profit measure is used by the CODM to assess performance of each segment by comparing the results of each segment with one another (see Note 19). - On the company-wide level, Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax is $22,183,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared with $45,012,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025, with an authorized decrease between the two periods. - For the six-month window, Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax is $42,589,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2026, compared with $76,827,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025, again with an authorized decrease between the two periods. - Operating Income (Loss) is $2,280,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2026, compared with $16,412,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025, remaining a profit in both windows. - Operating Income (Loss) is $1,976,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2026, compared with $23,774,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025, also a profit in both windows. - The reporting entity does not disclose individual segment-level revenue, segment cost of revenue, or segment gross profit figures, nor does it reconcile segment performance to the consolidated operating income figures cited above in the quoted segment evidence.

- Management presents its operating model as a single, media-industry reporting architecture built around four primary content verticals served through one publishing platform, as further described in Note 19, which suggests cross-vertical monetization through a shared platform rather than distinct go-to-market motions per segment. - Management designates segment gross profit as the internal profit metric and describes it as the basis on which the CODM allocates resources and compares segment results, while general overhead is excluded from the measure. - Management frames forward-looking operating priorities in broad terms — business strategy, future revenues and income from continuing operations, anticipated yield growth and monetization improvements, cost reductions, debt refinancing efforts, market growth, capital requirements, product introductions and technological capabilities, expansion plans, our stock price relative to our peers and our share repurchase program — without quantifying the expected impact of each lever on revenue or operating income. - Management cautions that forward-looking statements are based on information currently available and on its beliefs and assumptions, that actual outcomes are affected by known and unknown risks, trends, uncertainties, and factors beyond its control, and that the assumptions underlying these statements are not guarantees of future performance; accordingly, the company does not undertake to update them except as required by law.

- Read alongside the consolidated revenue and operating income figures above, the contrast is that segment-level drivers are discussed qualitatively while the consolidated top line moves lower on both the quarter and half-year windows (authorized decreases), with consolidated operating income remaining positive in both periods. - The reporting entity attributes the segment framework without quantifying how the four verticals individually contributed to the consolidated revenue figure of $22,183,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2026 or $42,589,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2026, and does not identify which vertical offset or carried the others. The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause. - Independent confirmation requires segment-level revenue and segment cost of revenue figures, which the quoted segment disclosure does not provide, and there is no peer or industry comparison in the filing evidence to benchmark the consolidated revenue figure against. The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison. - For readers comparing this trajectory with other reporters, Lizely Finance Earnings Analysis — Veru Inc. (VERU) Interim Filing: Losses Persist With Mixed Year-over-Year Direction illustrates a contrasting pattern in which interim losses persist, while this filing remains profitable at the operating line on both windows.

Cash flow and capital

Reported facts

For the six-month year-to-date period, operating activities generated $2,051,000 USD, a decrease from the prior-year comparative of $13,970,000 USD, even though both periods remained positive. Investing activities used -$1,219,000 USD, a smaller outflow than the prior-year comparative of -$3,545,000 USD. Financing activities were approximately flat at $0 USD, an increase from the prior-year comparative of -$8,016,000 USD, which had been negative.

On the balance sheet as of the balance sheet date of June 30, 2026, cash and cash equivalents stood at $11,170,000 USD. Current accounts payable were $2,315,000 USD and accounts receivable, net of the allowance for credit losses, were $18,489,000 USD. Long-term debt, excluding current maturities, was $97,606,000 USD.

Management explanations

The filing provides no narrative commentary on the operating cash flow decline, the smaller investing outflow, the swing in financing flows, or on the year-end balance sheet positions. The liquidity, debt and working capital captions in the source narrative as quoted above are limited to discussion of risk factors, segment reporting structure, use of estimates and recent accounting standards updates.

Analyst inference

The smaller investing outflow alongside weaker operating cash generation is consistent with a reduction in capital spending, while the financing activity moving roughly to neutral relative to a prior-year outflow points to lower net repayments or modestly higher net proceeds during the period. The cash balance as of the balance sheet date, set against the reported long-term debt level and the working capital balances, frames the standing capacity of the company as of the balance sheet date of June 30, 2026. No allocation, dividend, repurchase, or restructuring of capital is described in the quoted evidence.

Counter-evidence

The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause..

Unknowns

The filing does not disclose the mix of financing inflows and outflows, the composition of the investing outflow, the maturity profile of long-term debt, or whether any portion of the long-term debt is current. There is no segment-level cash flow or capital expenditure disclosure in the quoted evidence and no peer or industry comparison.

The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison..

Peer and historical context

- The half-year revenue trend, paired with a swing in the headline earnings line, is consistent with a company whose top line softened while bottom-line outcomes turned negative relative to a year ago; the magnitude of the deterioration is something readers will need to judge from the values the machine inserts. - The half-year operating-income print staying profitable while net income flipped to a loss implies below-the-line items (financing costs, tax-related effects, discontinued-operations residue, or non-cash items flagged in the cited note) carried disproportionate weight in the headline transition from profit to loss. - The shift in operating cash flow direction for the six-month window, despite a still-profitable operating income, points to working-capital movement rather than earnings quality as the swing factor on the cash line; the source narrative's emphasis on receivables collection patterns within roughly a month-and-a-half supports that read. - Across the two windows, the year-over-year direction for revenue is consistently lower, while operating income is lower but still in the black and net income worsens further, which traces a familiar pattern of margin compression flowing down toward the bottom line.

- The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison. - A reported prior-year operating income that exceeded the current year-to-date operating income in dollar terms does not, by itself, establish deterioration, because the filing restates earlier windows and the discontinued SI Business shifts the comparison base for the current half-year.

Against the prior-year comparative period, the same line items across the current six-month reporting period and three-month reporting period moved along the directions the catalog authorizes, with revenue running lower in both windows, operating income running lower but still positive in both windows, and net income turning from profit to loss in both windows. The half-year operating cash flow value also decreased year over year, even though both periods stayed positive. The earlier referenced note on the SI Business discontinuation clarifies that the current periods exclude that activity, which colors how a reader should weigh the year-over-year comparisons.

In the cited note, the Company explains its reportable segment architecture across four verticals and notes that segment performance is judged on gross profit by the chief operating decision maker. That framing matters here because peers and industry benchmarks for the publishing platform business tend to be benchmarked on audience, engagement, and advertising revenue quality rather than on the consolidated income-statement line items the filing foregrounds.

For historical comparison, the filing does not extend the tables back beyond the prior-year comparative periods, so any longer-run trend read would rest on the reader's own multi-period data rather than on the filing evidence here. The cash-flow leg flags above tie to a balance-sheet disclosure in the filing describing how advertising and performance-marketing receivables are collected.

A reader looking for cross-issuer perspective can contrast this outcome with Lizely Finance Earnings Analysis — Veru Inc. (VERU) Interim Filing: Losses Persist With Mixed Year-over-Year Direction, where another issuer likewise carried a loss across both windows against a softer top line.

The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause.

Scenario analysis

The base case treats the published three-month and six-month figures as the reference trajectory. Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax for the three months ended June 30, 2026 of $22,183,000 USD sits against $45,012,000 USD for the three months ended June 30, 2025, an authorized decrease. Revenue for the six months ended June 30, 2026 of $42,589,000 USD is also down versus $76,827,000 USD for the six months ended June 30, 2025. The bottom line flips the other direction: Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent for the six months ended June 30, 2026 is a loss of -$2,834,000 USD versus a profit of $112,659,000 USD in the six months ended June 30, 2025, and the the three months ended June 30, 2026 reading of -$176,000 USD is a loss versus a prior-year profit of $108,639,000 USD. The risk factor section in Item 1A and the common stock disclosure in Note 18 frame the equity backstop in this case. Causality for the gap is machine-owned: The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause..

The upside case requires the revenue line to hold or grow versus the base trajectory while the bottom line returns to profitability. Revenue of $22,183,000 USD and $42,589,000 USD would need to defend against the prior-year comparisons of $45,012,000 USD and $76,827,000 USD. The net-income line would need to move from -$2,834,000 USD and -$176,000 USD losses to non-negative readings against the prior-year profits of $112,659,000 USD and $108,639,000 USD. Operating Income (Loss) for both the three- and six-month comparison is authorized as remaining in profit territory in both periods, an internal cushion that supports a return to bottom-line profit if revenue stabilizes. The earnings-per-share transition for the six months ended June 30, 2026 is profit to loss, so reverting to non-diluted parity with the six months ended June 30, 2025 is the upside hurdle. Causality is again not attributed in the filing evidence: The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause.. No peer benchmark is provided, so relative upside framing is machine-owned: The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison.. A comparable trajectory in another interim print is mapped in Lizely Finance Earnings Analysis — Veru Inc. (VERU) Interim Filing: Losses Persist With Mixed Year-over-Year Direction.

The downside case extends the revenue contraction and widens the net-loss line. Revenue of $22,183,000 USD would compress further against $45,012,000 USD, and the six-month reading of $42,589,000 USD would fall further from $76,827,000 USD. Net loss would deepen from -$2,834,000 USD and -$176,000 USD against prior-year profits of $112,659,000 USD and $108,639,000 USD. Net Cash Provided by (Used in) Operating Activities is authorized as a decrease for the six months ended June 30, 2026 versus the six months ended June 30, 2025, which interacts with the equity disclosure in Note 1 and the related-party note Note 17 under the common-control context of the Arena Group Holdings, Inc. platform described in Note 19. The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause. governs any driver narrative.

Risks and what to watch

- Reported results: Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent for the six-month period the six months ended June 30, 2026 was -$2,834,000, a loss rather than the profit reported in the six months ended June 30, 2025 of $112,659,000, marking a transition profit to loss at the bottom line. The three-month picture is similar: Net Income (Loss) Attributable to Parent for the three months ended June 30, 2026 was -$176,000, a loss, against $108,639,000 for the three months ended June 30, 2025, again profit to loss quarter over quarter.

Earnings Per Share, Diluted follows the same pattern, with the half-year moving profit to loss and the quarter staying at zero against a prior profit. - Counter-evidence on the top line: Revenue from Contract with Customer, Excluding Assessed Tax did not collapse alongside profitability. For the six months ended June 30, 2026 revenue was $42,589,000, lower than the $76,827,000 reported for the six months ended June 30, 2025.

For the three months ended June 30, 2026 revenue was $22,183,000, also lower than the $45,012,000 reported for the three months ended June 30, 2025. So revenue direction on both windows is down, yet the headline magnitudes of revenue still register as positive on both windows; the deterioration is concentrated below the gross line. - Management explanations present in the filing: management cites the discontinuation of the Sports Illustrated media business operated under the Licensing Agreement with ABG-SI, LLC as a structural change effective in March of the current year, and notes adjustments to previously reported accounts payable that were settled for a reduced amount flowing through cost of revenue and selling and marketing expenses in the three and six months ended June.

Management also flags a common-control acquisition of TravelHost from Simplify recorded at carryover basis within intangible assets, net, and confirms there were no other acquisitions or dispositions during the periods. None of those explanations is tied by the filing itself to the size of the revenue or net income swing. - Analyst inference (clearly labeled as such): the combination of a profit-to-loss transition at the bottom line alongside only a directional decrease in revenue suggests that non-revenue items — the SI Business discontinuation, the accounts-payable settlements, and the common-control transaction — are the more plausible explanatory zone, but the filing does not isolate their dollar contribution to the bottom line.

The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause. - Unknowns and gaps in the filing evidence: segment-level revenue and profitability detail for the remaining businesses is not disclosed for this dimension. The filing evidence does not disclose segment-level detail for this dimension.

There is no peer or industry benchmark in the filing. The filing evidence contains no peer or industry comparison. The filing does not attribute the revenue decrease or the bottom-line swing to any single cause.

The filing evidence does not attribute this change to any single cause. - Metrics to watch next period: any disclosure breaking out the post-SI continuing portfolio versus legacy run-off, the trend in cost of revenue and selling and marketing adjustments tied to settled payables, the carrying value and amortization trajectory of the TravelHost intangibles recorded at carryover basis, and whether revenue direction on the next quarterly window stabilizes given the directional decrease on both windows of this filing. Readers comparing across interim filings can contrast this profile against cases such as [Lizely Finance Earnings Analysis — Veru Inc.

(VERU) Interim Filing: Losses Persist With Mixed Year-over-Year Direction](/insights/finance/lizely-finance-earnings-analysis-veru-inc-veru-interim-filing-losses-persist/), where losses also persisted against mixed top-line direction.