September 14, 2022

The Appetizer

“… Buy your mom an iPhone”

– Apple CEO Tim Cook when a journalist said that he couldn’t send certain videos to his Android-using mother.

Now, on to the numbers. Drum roll, please …

• 32%: The percentage of S&P 500 index members trading above their 200-day moving average. The five-year average is 63%.
• 8.3%: The latest reading on inflation (CPI).
• 65: The current pace for home runs by year end for New York Yankees’ slugger Aaron Judge.
• 5: The number of points out of a possible 500 that the average reading score for U.S. 9-year olds fell between 2020 and 2022, the largest decline since 1990.
• $450,000: The amount Rutgers University football players spent on DoorDash in the span of 14 months.

Dig In
Football Is Back!

Football is back, and it just keeps growing.

On the college side, as UCLA and USC anxiously await their pieces of the $7.5 billion Big Ten TV deal, student athletes can finally cash in on their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Nebraska’s De’Coldest Crawford, anyone?

That’s huge, but let’s talk about the real growth. No, not rising NFL beer and ticket prices. Fantasy sports.

Online fantasy games first appeared in the late 1990s, but growth really took off around 2008 due to better free games and smartphone access. Now, 50.4 million Americans play fantasy sports, with 61% saying they watch more live sports because of fantasy.

The NFL has embraced its top spot in the $7 billion market; if you haven’t noticed, updates on key fantasy players now scroll across the bottom of your TV screen during games. Partner NBC Sports plans new fantasy content during broadcasts this year. There’s even a physical sportsbook opening at the Arizona Cardinals stadium.

Whatever it takes to generate more revenue and engage more people.

Weekly Specials

Someone didn’t like the Arthur Ashe Stadium doubling as a barbershop last week. U.S. Open security ejected two fans from the venue after one buzzed the other’s hair mid-match.

New UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has her work cut out for her as the country faces a recession. She’s also the first PM to work with a new monarch since Winston Churchill. No pressure.

Is that a runaway train? Kind of. Major freight railroads are reopening hump yards to help improve service and deal with labor shortages. At a hump yard, a locomotive pushes unhooked railcars over a hill and lets gravity pull the cars through a series of switches to create new trains. The practice cuts train-building time nearly in half.

NASA announced Artemis I could potentially launch on September 23, but a lot needs to go right. First, they need to repair the leak that led to Labor Day weekend’s cancellation, and then they need the U.S. Space Force to provide a critical waiver to allow the launch to proceed. Third time’s the charm.

Corporate Lunch

Apple announced a new iPhone (among other things) at its annual event. Samsung was unimpressed and said “let us know when it folds.” Google will have its own event for new phones and a watch on October 6.

Twitter is using Elon Musk’s text messages to try and convince a Delaware judge that buyer’s remorse led Elon to abandon his takeover, not concerns about the business.

Disney changed its mind on spinning off ESPN. The Disney CEO said that sports betting is one of the reasons for keeping the network.

Instagram will eventually remove its Shop page amid “shifts in company priorities.” The company will focus e-commerce efforts towards advertising.

IKEA is launching an all-black furniture collection in partnership with Swedish House Mafia. The collection also includes a turntable.

Kim Kardashian founded a private equity fund, partnering with Jay Sammons, a former partner at the investment firm Carlyle Group.