this:
One of the biggest and most familiar series of gun magazines commonly found on newsstands has been sold.
Industry wires
report that the
Arena Group's Chair and CEO, Ross Levinsohn, notified employees last week that the company has signed an agreement to sell the firearm-related
Athlon Outdoors business, noting that the line "did not easily fit in any of our other Arenas." The buyer was not named.
Arena owns over 300 media and lifestyle brands including Sports Illustrated, TheStreet, Parade, and Men's Journal and 100 million monthly users. In the latest quarter, the company posted a
$11.2 million net loss, citing a decline in both print and digital subscription revenue.
Meanwhile, its now-severed Athlon Outdoors subsidiary holds such well-known magazine titles as American Frontiersman, Ballistic, Combat Handguns, Guns of the Old West, Personal Defense World, Tactical Life, Skillset, and others including popular annuals such as the Gun Buyers Guide.
Did you know Guns.com Has a Print Magazine Now?
Most of Athlon's brands came via the defunct New York-based Harris Publications which went belly up in 2016 after 40 years on the market. At the time, Harris cited assorted reasons including "the rapid ascendance of digital media" as reasons to shut its doors. Parade Media acquired the brands and was subsequently
picked up by Arena in 2022.
In the past several years, Athlon has hosted a growing
Outdoors Rendezvous with industry groups and content creators, a sort of a mini-SHOT Show, to help generate buzz on new guns, ammo lines, optics, and accessories. It is unclear if the event will endure the changeover to new management.
One of the biggest and most familiar series of gun magazines commonly found on newsstands has been sold.
www.guns.com
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this:
so the new owner it appears, will only have a digital subscription..???
Bringing a new vision and a female-owned perspective to the outdoor industry, while still staying true to what the firearm community was built upon, Emily Long is the powerhouse ushering in this new era for the brands of Athlon Outdoors. Along with several familiar faces from the previous content and sales teams, including Linas Cernauskas, the newly appointed content director, much of what consumers loved will continue.
“I am truly excited to lead Athlon Outdoors and bring high quality firearms focused content to a wider and more diverse audience. Being able to combine my years of working as a constitutionally minded attorney and my enthusiasm for the outdoors is the best of both worlds,” said Emily Long, CEO and investor at Bleecker Street Publications. “We’ve hand-selected the people involved from Athlon Outdoors and other partners so that we can truly build something that receives the attention it deserves.”
