While sports fans enjoy the unforgettable moments of this month’s NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Finals, Jason Arasheben is studying like a college student before his exams.
Arasheben, a famous jeweler whose clients include rappers Drake and ASAP Rocky, explores the history of the competing teams, the connections to their cities and all the other interesting facts that can be poured into an extravagantly bejeweled ring. He also searches his personal contacts for anyone who could facilitate a meeting with the wealthy owners of the winning franchises.
“You just have to connect the dots,” says Arasheben, the CEO of Jason of Beverly Hills jewelry house near Los Angeles. “Billionaires talk to other billionaires.”
In recent years, Arasheben has developed into the jeweler of choice for title-winning teams and has carved out a corner of the market. long dominated by Jostens — by creating dynamic rings with reversible faces and removable compartments.
“He reimagined what the championship ring is all about,” said Eric Tosi, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Vegas Golden Knights, who won the Stanley Cup last year.
“Every team that wins a title, regardless of sport, gets a ring,” Tosi continued. “But how can you stand out? How can you do something that has never been done before? He did that.”
Arasheben uses both word of mouth and cold communication to acquire new customers, and his reputation has grown quickly. Over the past five years, he has designed championship rings for nine professional teams, including the reigning NBA, MLB and NHL champions.
ARASHEBEN, WHO BEGAN making and selling jewelry at the University of California, Los Angeles, created his first professional sports rings when the Los Angeles Lakers won back-to-back NBA titles with Kobe Bryant in 2009 and 2010. A close acquaintance, he said, introduced him to Jesse Buss, a son of Jerry Buss, then owner of the Lakers.
Jason from Beverly Hills now has more than 100 employees and competes with jewelers such as Tiffany & Company and Baron. But at the time it was a start-up company with about six employees and sparse infrastructure.
Arasheben said he and his team occasionally slept in sleeping bags at the factory and that in 2009 the factory completed the final ring about 30 minutes before the unveiling ceremony. (He has also designed four rings for the Golden State Warriors, the Lakers’ 2020 ring, the 2023 Denver Nuggets ring and the 2022 ring for the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces.)
Just before the Milwaukee Bucks won the 2021 NBA Finals, a mutual friend connected Arasheben to Alex Lasry, whose father, Marc, was previously part of the franchise’s ownership group. But that relationship alone didn’t seal the deal.
The team’s president, Peter Feigin, said Arasheben’s hands-on approach convinced the team to select him over three other options. “What separated him is that he took responsibility at the CEO level and wanted to do it,” Feigin said.
Along with team leaders, Bucks players Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton assisted in the creative process. Antetokounmpo’s brother Kostas had won the NBA Finals with the Lakers the previous season, and Feigin said Giannis wanted a bigger ring than his sibling’s.
Arasheben suggested making a removable top that could turn into a hanger.
“Athletes are competitive by nature, but owners are competitive too,” he said. “They want to surpass every previous ring, so the rings get bigger every year. I’m not sure how much bigger they can get, otherwise they’ll be records.”
THE MORNING AFTER the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in 2022, Tony Pastoors, the team’s vice president of football and business administration, had an email from Arasheben waiting in his inbox.
“’I’m from LA. Your team is from LA. It only makes sense,’” Arasheben said, recalling his pitch. “Tony’s battery was probably drained by the amount of time I called and emailed him.”
Pastoors already knew Arasheben, who had designed the Super Bowl ring for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers the year before, and had met star Rams players Jalen Ramsey and Odell Beckham Jr. as personal customers.
Rams owner E. Stanley Kroenke and his son, Josh, were especially interested because they wanted a local jeweler, Pastoors said. When Arasheben and Pastoors met for a meal, he brought the Buccaneers ring and the most recent Lakers ring, which stunned everyone, including the restaurant servers.
“It was a real ‘wow’ moment,” Pastoors said. “As always with Jason, he found a way to bring some flash.”
Pastoors said some players worked with Arasheben as he solicited feedback from executives. Arasheben also called Pastoors to ask about some of the artificial turf and footballs used during the Super Bowl.
“He said, ‘Why on earth do you need a ball?’” said Arasheben, who integrated bits of that material into the ring.
STANLEY CUP RINGS are predominantly silver in color. But the Vegas Golden Knights wanted a gold ring to match their name, said Tosi, the chief marketing officer.
“We thought this would be a differentiator,” Tosi said. “When you’re in Vegas, expectations are high for the quality of the look and the stories behind it.”
Yellow diamonds are harder to come by than white ones, Arasheben said, and the shades must match throughout the ring to avoid a sloppy aesthetic. He traveled to Canada, Belgium and Israel in search of diamonds, he said.
“I didn’t tell them how hard that was going to be because that’s not their problem — it’s my job to find out,” Arasheben said of his first hockey championship ring.
Arasheben would not reveal how much his rings cost the teams, but they could order hundreds to accommodate players, owners, coaches, executives and staffers.
The Golden Knights’ ring features the team’s helmet-and-shield logo embossed above yellow stones. But about three weeks before the unveiling ceremony, Arasheben added white diamonds to the logo for contrast and even more bling.
“That made it exaggerated,” Tosi said.
THE PROPERTY OF the Texas Rangers preferred a conservative ring without special features after winning the World Series last year, said Travis Dillon, senior vice president of marketing.
Still, the team’s art director recommended Arasheben after hours of research into his rings in other sports, Dillon said. It would be the first World Series ring for both the Rangers and Arasheben.
“I came into the meeting already having a really trusted resource,” Dillon said. “They had strong approval internally.”
Throughout the design process, Arasheben presented digital copies and wax molds of modest style rings. But during the latest meeting with executives, he unveiled a removable top.
Everyone loved it, Dillon said, because the mechanic served a purpose and allowed more stats to be included in the base. Arasheben said he was nervous about the possible reactions to his surprise. But he had to try.
“That’s what’s expected of us,” Arasheben said. “That’s why we got into this industry.”
