Nizel Pradhan
Arena Club will provide a bridge between the physical and digital worlds of sports collecting while giving collectors a transparent grading process through computer vision and machine learning and a frictionless way to transact
Arena Club, a groundbreaking new sports card collecting platform headlined by Co-Founder and CEO, Brian Lee and Founding Partner, Derek Jeter, has officially launched today. Arena Club will provide a bridge between the physical and digital worlds of sports collecting. All users on the platform will have their own showroom where they can buy, sell, trade and display their cards. Collectors want a transparent way to grade cards and a frictionless way to transact. Through technological advancements and an authentic community, Arena Club provides a convenient and consumer-friendly approach that will lead the revolution in this space.
Collectors will have the option to store graded cards in the Arena Club vault or receive them in protective “slabs.” The Arena Club vault is a state-of-the-art facility to assure the safety of the stored cards.
Arena Club will provide users with a quicker, more accurate and transparent grading process through computer vision and machine learning, advised by Jia Li, who is an AI Fellow and Adjunct Professor at Stanford and was the Head of Research & Development at Google Cloud. Before joining Google, she was the Head of Research at Snap and led the Visual Computing and Learning Group at Yahoo! Labs. For every card graded on the platform, Arena Club will release a transparent grading report to collectors that explains in detail a justification for the grade.
Brian Lee is a highly regarded entrepreneur with an impressive background. Lee was the Co-Founder and CEO of The Honest Co., and Co-Founder and President of LegalZoom.com. He is the Managing Partner of BAM Ventures and has served in this capacity since 2017.
“Arena Club was built by a team of trading card enthusiasts who created the platform with the hobby community in mind,” said Brian Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Arena Club. “From top to bottom, our team is honest, ethical and fair. Arena Club will transform the collectible world through transparency, authenticity and technology.”
For Derek Jeter, the opportunity to partner with some of the best entrepreneurs in the world to build the future of collecting attracted him to Arena Club. Jeter, a 14-time MLB All-Star and 2020 Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, spent 20 years playing shortstop for the New York Yankees and is a five-time World Series champion.
“I am proud to be part of the team at Arena Club and to work closely with Brian to bring this innovative platform to life,” said Derek Jeter. “We recognize that there is a real need in the grading industry for clarity, speed and trust, and Brian has put together a team that is committed to providing that to the marketplace.”
Arena Club’s Co-Founder, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer is Jesse Glass. Glass was the former CFO and operating partner at BAM Labs and brings an impressive background of work with successful startups to Arena Club. Warren Laufer has joined Arena Club as the Vice President of Business Development and will bring his expertise in the sports collectibles industry to the company. Laufer is also a Partner at Mint 10, a Venture Capital Fund that invests solely in the sports collectible ecosystem.
In addition to Glass and Laufer, Arena Club is joined by Board Members Jeremy Liew (Lightspeed Ventures), Neil Sequeira (defy.vc), David Nathanson (Former Head of Business Operations Fox Sports), and Board Advisor Ryan O’Hara (Former CEO of TOPPS).
For more information on Arena Club, you can visit their website here or their social media channels on @arenaclubofficial on Instagram and @joinarenaclub on Twitter.
Arena Club is reimagining the sports card collecting experience. The platform provides a bridge between the physical and digital worlds of sports collecting, which will enable frictionless buying/selling, trading, and displaying collectibles. In addition, Arena Club is significantly improving the grading and authentication process through computer vision and machine learning.
