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THE HEADLINES
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LOVE (AND MONEY) AND BASKETBALL
The United States Supreme Court struck down the federal law that prohibits sports gambling in all states besides Nevada. Time to get in on the action.
States were prohibited from allowing sports gambling under the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) of ’92 (bad year). New Jersey amended their state constitution to allow sports betting in 2012, causing all the major sports leagues and the NCAA to sue. While lower courts initially ruled in the league’s favor, New Jersey will hoist the trophy to Queen’s “We Are The Champions.”
With the decision, it’s widely expected that other states will follow suit. Considering Americans wager $150B illegally through offshore bookies each year it seems that the gambling industry, sports teams, and government win with this decision. Looks like Pete Rose was just ahead of his time.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “This ruling really excites me. In the past I’ve had to cross the border just to lose tons of Monopoly money at the casino in Windsor, Canada. Now I can lose my hard earned dollars right in my home country. U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A!”
“WHAT WOULD YOU SAY … YOU DO HERE?”
… Elon Musk, probably.
In a memo circulated on Monday, Elon Musk hinted at a re-org, the business world’s equivalent of name-dropping “Voldemort.” With Model 3 production slowing significantly and losses in the executive ranks, it was time for Elon to stir the pot (read: desperate times call for desperate measures).
The man who fired his car into space also mentioned that there would be a reduction in what he referred to as “barnacles.” Barnacles, according to Musk, are third-party contractors.
Just because they’re flattening and cleaning the bottom of their aforementioned, figurative (presumably electric) boat doesn’t mean that Tesla will stop hiring. According to Musk, HR will continue to recruit for hourly and salaried positions critical to an upswing in Model 3 production.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “A flat hierarchy just means that more people get to stick their nose in your work and pretend to be your manager. Bad news for the 9-5’ers just trying to coast through a career.”
NOT AMUSED
The network home of “Survivor” is saying “the tribe has spoken” to controlling shareholder Shari Redstone and her holding company, National Amusements. CBS will sue Redstone to halt the recombination of CBS and Viacom (which is also majority owned by Redstone).
Currently, via a dual-class share structure, Redstone holds 80% voting power but less than 10% of shares. The board is proposing reducing that power by issuing a share dividend to all shareholders which would reduce National Amusement’s voting rights to 17%.
It appears that Ms. Redstone was caught off guard by the decision, but one can only imagine she is doing her best Eduardo-going-after-Mark right now.
With the company’s annual meeting planned for Friday, CBS has gone all psycho-ex and filed a restraining order on Redstone, to make sure she does not make any favorable changes to the board or company bylaws.
Water Cooler Talking Point: “For the record, National Amusement’s business model revolves around operating 950 movie theatres across the world. Can you really blame the CBS board for not wanting Shari and her popcorn and slushie empire running the show?”
IN OTHER NEWS
- Two of the three executives that oversee Goldman Sach’s trading division, Pablo Salame and Isabelle Ealet, will be leaving the firm as of next month. The division, once one of Wall Street’s most well-respected, has seen steady declines post-crisis. Blaming banking regulations for decreased profits is like holding drug testing responsible for your dip in home run production.
- Chili’s is the latest company to announce that credit and debit card data may have been compromised. Nothing screams “middle-class American” quite like having your bank data stolen from a fast-casual chain.
- Amazon Fresh will no longer allow third-party vendors to sell their goods alongside Amazon’s selection. The reason? Two words: Whole Foods.
- Google is rolling out Google One, a paid cloud storage function which definitely isn’t Google Drive. One will revamp the current consumer storage plan pricing structure, allow for family plans (no word on “Framily”), and one-tap access to Google Experts. See what they did there?
- US indices were up yesterday:
- DOW: +0.27%
- S&P 500: +0.09%
- NASDAQ: +0.11%