Morning Brew Daily - Amazon Dethroning Walmart? & DOGE Hits Snag in Treasury Overhaul
Episode Date: February 7, 2025Episode 514: Neal and Toby discuss Amazon’s slowly catching up to Walmart, set to bring in more revenue than the King of Retailers. Then, a judge temporarily blocks Trump’s buyout offer to hear ar...guments in the courts. DOGE is forced to take a step back as lawyers give it only limited access to the Treasury payments system. Meanwhile, Panama’s President dispels some claims that the US gets a free pass through the Canal. Workday is the Stock of the Week and Billabong is the Dog of the Week. Finally, a roundup of the biggest Super Bowl news heading into the Big Game. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://wise.com/business for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC. APY as of 1/16/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. *Terms and Conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Good morning brew daily show.
Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, from conspiracy theories to the color of the Gatorade Shower,
everything you need to know ahead of Super Bowl 59. Then a moveover Walmart, a new company has laid
claim to the title of highest revenue generating business in the world. It's Friday, February 7th,
let's ride. Good morning and happy Friday. Look, if you're spending an entire paycheck on a carton of
eggs these days, you might as well prepare them to perfection. And scientists now say they've discovered
the recipe to cook the best possible boiled egg. It'll just take you 32 minutes. In a study published
Thursday in the journal Communications Engineering, the scientists recommend putting eggs in a
steamer basket, then transferring them between two bowls of water every two minutes, one boiling
and the other set to 86 degrees Fahrenheit lukewarm until 32 minutes are up. That process,
known as periodic cooking, yields a velvety yolk and a meaty but soft white. To be it.
Bobby, my deviled eggs for the Super Bowl party are about to blow people's minds.
When I first heard about this study, I was like 32 minutes, way too long.
But then I thought a chalky yolk is one of the most tragic substances on Earth.
I would rather starve than eat a chalky yolk.
So I am all in on this method.
And I also happen to be a big fan of Gordon Ramsey's scrambled eggs cooking style,
which also involves taking it on the heat, off the heat, back on the heat.
So I've kind of already done this.
If I'm willing to devote that much time to making scrambled eggs,
why wouldn't I spend, you know, half an hour doing this method?
We have to try it.
I will absolutely try it this weekend.
It's been lofty, but that perfect texture, that velvet yolk,
I think it's worth the extra time.
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Like a river overtaking the dam that once controlled its flow,
Amazon is almost certainly set to bring in more revenue
than its rival Walmart this past quarter for the first time ever.
For a decade, Walmart has reigned as the world's biggest company by revenue.
But analysts project Wally World will announce sales of $180 billion
when it reports earnings later this month,
while Amazon announced yesterday that it had brought in $187 billion in revenue
in the fourth quarter.
This was a long time coming.
Amazon had been growing at a 12% clip year over year,
while Walmart's revenue growth was just 6%.
As the two have duked it out for the title of biggest retailer in the world,
they have also grown more similar.
Amazon has invested heavily in groceries,
while Walmart has dipped its toe in a prime-like membership service,
built out a robust e-commerce operation,
and experimented with advertisement revenue.
But Amazon still has an ace in the hole,
in the form of its cloud business, Amazon Web Services.
AWS revenue has more than doubled since 2020,
and now accounts for 17% of its total sales.
Neil, despite reaching that $187 billion in quarterly sales
to take it above its rival,
Amazon did issue disappointing revenue forecast,
which caused its stock to slip,
but isn't too much cause for alarm.
No, Amazon and Walmart,
this is certainly one of the most interesting rivalries in business.
If you look at Amazon's A's In The Whole, as you said, it is Amazon Web Services.
Walmart has nothing like it.
This is a $100 billion business for Amazon, and it's growing double digits every single quarter.
Last quarter, it grew 19%.
Amazon also has an advertising business that's growing 18%.
So if you look at where the growth is for Amazon, it is in advertising and it is AWS, and it is also in AI, something Walmart doesn't have Amazon.
Amazon said it was going to spend $100 billion on AI, mostly on data centers and things like
that over the next fiscal year.
So very interesting rivalry.
Amazon has a few more cards to play, especially in the tech area.
And that's why its market cap is so much bigger than Walmart's.
Walmart is mostly a pure play retailer still.
And its market cap, despite a very good year last year on the stock market, it's still around
$800 billion.
Amazon has zoom past $2 trillion.
It's interesting because Walmart gets the bulk of its sales from selling stuff and it's building up these side businesses like advertising, digital sales, etc.
Whereas Amazon is competing in the retail sector just to, you know, competing on speed of delivery and competing on price.
And then all their profit comes from these web-based businesses, things like AWS.
So it is interesting to see how they are both in the same arena, but like one just has this extra web-based thing that really takes it to.
the next level. Let's talk about Amazon's AI investment because they kind of shocked investors
yesterday when they reported earnings saying that they do plan on spending $100 billion on AI,
which is bigger than any other of its big tech peers. And it makes you a little cautious if
your investor because we just went through that whole deep seek debacle where this Chinese AI company
proved that you could train these models for a lot less. So then when you hear we're going to spend
$100 billion on AI. We're like, wait a second. I thought,
you would spend a little bit less because it's more efficient,
so we don't have to spend as much money.
But that being said, Andy Jassy was like,
listen, we see this big outlay as a good sign for AWS.
We wouldn't do it if we didn't think that it would lead to more revenue generation.
You got to spend money to make money even at the highest echelons of corporate America.
So he still feels pretty confident that this is the right investment to make.
Yeah, and that was the common theme across big tech earnings.
Amazon was the last big tech company of the Magnificent 7 outside of Nvidia to report earnings over the past two weeks.
And they sounded a very similar tone. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta, they all said we are going to spend not only the same on CapEx for AI.
We're going to spend even more. Their combined capital expenditure forecasts are totaling 320 billion.
That's up from 246 billion in 2024. And that's up from 150 billion.
billion in 2023. They all said the same thing. We're going to continue to spend, never mind
deep seek. So that deep seek revelation has not changed plans whatsoever. And we have Nvidia coming up
in the next few weeks and we'll see what they say. The blizzard of news keeps raging from Washington,
D.C. And we're here to shovel it all up for you. First, that deadline for federal workers to take
deferred resignations has been extended past yesterday's midnight cut off by a federal judge who ordered a
hearing on Monday to determine whether he'll block it indefinitely while litigation proceeds.
That litigation came from the American Federation of Government Employees and other unions,
who in lawsuits alleged that what the government was doing, offering employees the opportunity
to resign while still being paid for eight months was illegal.
Bloomberg reported that about 50,000 people have so far taken the deal, which is about
2.5% of the federal workforce.
The Trump administration was targeting 5% to 10% of workers to opt in.
Toby, the fate of federal workers now shifts to the courts, but they remain in a state of limbo.
Yeah, definitely a state of limbo. The administration is looking at this pause in a different light.
They don't see it as a pause. They're saying, actually, what a great way to increase the number of resignation.
So it is increasing that time people can reply to that fork in the road email and say, I do want to, you know, take this deferred payment.
That being said, we still don't know if it will be legal.
There's a lot of challenges that we've covered on the show already about.
the fact that Congress has not passed a budget for funding beyond mid-March.
So how can you guarantee that you will pay these employees beyond that date?
So, again, we have reached sort of a Trumpian limbo space where he issues an order.
Some court pushes back against it and it leaves you in the lurch for, you know, a period of time.
We're in that period of time right now.
Right.
But the thing is they might not wait for these people to take resignations before issuing sweeping layoffs.
Reports out yesterday indicated that the Trump administration was preparing an order that would cut thousands of health workers.
USAID also is reportedly going to be essentially gutted from more than 10,000 employees worldwide to about 290.
And we already have reports of small businesses and contractors laying off workers across the economy.
And of course, that is in focus because we have the jobs report coming out in two and a half hours.
at 8.30 a.m. Eastern, that won't show all of the chaos that's been developing Washington
and federal workers and everyone, all the 7.5 million employees across the country connected
to the federal government, but it'll be a, you know, it'll be a very important jobs report,
and then the next one for February will be even more important.
Okay, let's move across town to the Treasury Department,
where another court has curbed Elon Musk's access to the government payment system
that distributes trillions of dollars each year.
Following a legal challenge over Musk and Doge's reported entry into that system,
a federal judge barred the U.S. Treasury from handing over data from its payments portal to outsiders
and limited access to two Doge staffers who can see Treasury Department data, quote,
as needed and on a read-only basis.
Then, near hours after that court ruling, one of those two Doge staffers who was granted access to
Treasury data, 25-year-old Marco Ellis, resigned after the Wall Street Journal found links to a deleted
social media account that supported racism and eugenics.
In one post, the account wrote, just for the record, I was racist before it was cool.
What does Scott Bassett, the newly confirmed Treasury Secretary, think about all this?
In an interview with Bloomberg, he defended Musk's work in his department and said he and
Elon are, quote, completely aligned in terms of cutting waste and increasing accountability
and transparency for the American people.
He described Doge employees as highly trained professionals and not some roving band
running around doing things.
Remember, this was very sensitive data that these Doche employees did get access to, stuff like social
security numbers, your birthday, home addresses, telephone numbers, bank account information,
which was why there was kind of this uproar, even if it was read-only access, which I'll actually
touch on in a second. You don't want two people that weren't elected, you know, combing through
this data. But then Wired actually did report later that they probably didn't have only read-only access.
they had direct access to the Treasury payment systems, this 25-year-old engineer.
So it is a little scary to have these unelected people coming in and digging through this system
that covers nearly all payments made by the U.S. government and that has a lot of sensitive data
on U.S. citizens.
Yeah, and that's why I think U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bassett was saying everything's kosher
here.
I'm overseeing everything.
I'm in control in that interview with Bloomberg.
but again, another push by the Trump administration and Doge that has been sued and blocked, at least temporarily by the courts.
There will be a more formal hearing in a few days to figure out what's going on over there.
Finally, a spat is escalating over the Panama Canal, one of the world's key shipping routes,
after Panama's president accused the U.S. of lying about a deal over American military ships.
Here's what's going down.
On Wednesday, the U.S. State Department posted on X that Panama agreed to allow U.S. government ships to access the waterway,
without paying a toll. Remember, Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveled to Panama over the weekend
as part of the Trump administration's push to assert more control over the canal and get China to back
off. But yesterday, Panamanian President Jose Raul Molino said, huh? We never said your ships could pass
through for free. Or in his words, I am incredibly surprised by yesterday's statement. They're making an
important institutional statement from the entity that governs U.S. foreign policy based on a falsity,
and that's intolerable. After the blowback, Rubia said,
okay, maybe you're right at a press conference.
He said that the U.S. expects Panama to remove the fees,
but acknowledge that Panama has a process of laws and procedures that they need to follow.
Yeah, and actually that process is tied to a 1977 treaty,
the tree that actually originally handed over control of the canal to Panama.
There's a clause in that treaty that requires equal treatment of all canal users,
so you can't do these carve-outs for specific nations like Rubio and Trump are pushing for.
What's ironic, too, is that over the past 20,
six years, the U.S. has paid $25 million for warships and submarines to pass through. That comes out
to less than a million dollars a year. It is not a big chunk of change that we're talking about.
It does seem to be more of like a symbolic victory that Trump and Rubio are pushing for because
it just really isn't. I mean, look at the percent of the total ships that pass through each year.
0.5 percent are U.S. Navy vessels. So it just doesn't affect that many things, which is why it's
interesting that this administration is making such a big deal out of, you know, trying to get
free passage for these ships. Up next, stock of the week, dog of the week time.
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It is Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time,
where Neil and I pick one stock that had a perfect sleep score
and one stock that stayed up all night scrolling Instagram Reels.
Neil, I won the pre-show game of Ruin a Movie
by changing one letter in the title.
So I am up first, and my stock of the week is Workday,
which saw its share price jump after an ounce
it was laying off 8.5% of its 20,000-plus employee workforce.
Workday is a workforce management software that you'd ironically probably use to figure out
if you wanted to lay off employees at your own business, but the reason investors view
its restructuring so positively is because its purpose is to increase its focus on AI investments.
Workday is far from the only company rearranging their organizations to make room for AI.
Most of big tech from meta to Google to Salesforce have laid up.
off employees to make room for the only two letters investors care about these days.
So, Neil, when you see an announcement of layoffs under the premise that a company will
redirect those resources towards AI, it's pretty clear that the market will like it.
It's certainly a pattern. Earlier this week, Salesforce also announced it was going to lay off
1,000 workers and hire a few in other positions, and that position is salespeople for its AI.
Dropbox did this last year as well. The CEO Drew Houston said it was a really tough
decision to let go of a lot of people and then make room for investments in AI. So it's all about
making space for investments in AI. A lot of companies, we just talked about Amazon spending
$100 billion. A lot of these companies don't have infinite resources like Amazon does to
spend $100 billion. So they need to make cuts elsewhere. And those cuts are human workers.
The fears that many had about AI replacing human work and leading to a lower reduction
and the amount of humans that need to work at these tech companies appears to be coming true in 2025.
Yeah, Clarnah is another big name that has cut a lot of employees to, you know, make space and replace them with AI.
They say they've saved $10 million annually for using AI for its marketing needs.
And then very ironically, Clarnah also drastically reduce their usage of software platforms like Salesforce and Workday and replace them with AI.
So it's not just humans.
it also is, you know, the other software stack that usually are used to run, you know, these big
organizations. So it is cuts all the way down. And it is interesting to see how like these
layoffs are just met so positively by the market. Whenever you say those magic words, it's like,
we are cutting costs in this area, putting it towards this area being AI instead. The market
usually tends to like that. Figures I get dog of the week because this one strikes at the heart
of my identity, a millennial who grew up in the suburbs and wanted to dress like a skateboarder,
Quick Silver, Bilobong, and Volcom, popular outdoor clothing brands for skaters, surfers, and the wannabes are closing virtually all of their stores across the country after their parent company liberated brands filed for bankruptcy.
The silver lining, or I should say QuickSilver lining, you can still buy those clothes.
The brands will continue to make them just under a license from a different company, but it won't be from their namesake stores.
More than 120 of the locations will close in the coming weeks.
What went wrong at Bilobong?
Liberated CEO blamed macro forces like a rise in interest rates, inflation, and supply chain delays,
while also criticizing the fast fashion industry for allowing shoppers to, quote,
cheaply, quickly, and easily order low-quality clothing garments.
Toby, a sad day.
Quicksilver was always a must stop on the high school mall date.
It absolutely was.
It is kind of the end of an era, too.
So you can blame a lot of things.
Obviously, you can blame interest rates, inflation, supply chain delays.
Those are all very valid, but the last thing that its CEO said was shifting consumer preferences, which I think you cannot ignore either.
I really think that these brands kind of rode the wave of, you know, the board short era, the, you know, skateboard era.
But now if you go to the beach, for instance, you're seeing a lot of thigh out there, you know.
Five inch in scenes.
I haven't seen it in seem longer than five inches in a long time.
So I really think the thighs killed Villavon, killed Quicks, Silver, Quil, Vulcum, these brands that kind of rose a very specific aesthetic to prominence.
But yeah, they aren't going, they're not dying per se.
You just won't see them in the malls anymore where you were taking all your dates, Neil.
Okay, Super Bowl 59 between the Chiefs and the Eagles is two days away.
Here is a preview of the biggest business storylines around the game as you apply layers of one and two of the dip.
Besides Patrick Mahomes and Seguan Barkley, the start of this year's Super Bowl will be the Caesar's Superdome in New Orleans,
which is celebrating its 50th year in existence as the home of the Saints.
This is a remarkable building that pound for pound may have hosted more legendary sports moments than any other venue in the United States.
Eight Super Bowls counting this one the most of any stadium.
Final four is college football championships, heavyweight boxing bouts.
It's where college freshman Michael Jordan lifted North Carolina to a title over Georgetown and Tom Brady became a household name with his first improbable Super Bowl win over the Rams.
But time has run its course in New Orleans maybe seating its crown as the top host for championships.
to Las Vegas, which hosted last year's Super Bowl, and has emerged as the new epicenter for live
sports events. So in a way, the Super Bowl feels like both a celebration of the Superdome, an absolute
space age icon, but also a retirement party from heavy hosting duties. It's the fifth
oldest home field in the NFL and the last remaining of its kind. It is iconic, though, and it is
sad because it is aging. It recently underwent a big renovation to try to modernize it. But, you know,
New Orleans is one of the smallest cities that has an NFL team in the country.
It's always punched above its weight when it comes to hosting events because the city is a very
fun backdrop for, you know, things like a Super Bowl.
That being said, it just might be over, you know, it's just over its head at this point
because these events are so big now.
Vegas looks like it's a better place, you know, take that mantle because it's got more
hotel rooms.
It's more of a walkable city.
It's got multiple things within a certain radius as well.
well. So New Orleans was, you know, kind of the de facto party hosting destination. Now it looks
like maybe that time is coming to an end. Yeah, after the last year's Super Bowl, Roger Goodell was like,
you can bet we're coming back to Las Vegas. But the Superdome is a very important part of New Orleans
and New Orleans history. It's called, quote, the city's living room because it not,
doesn't just host Saints games, but it hosts conventions, weddings, proms, hundreds of other events.
It had the RNC when Pope John Paul the second came.
He was at the Superdome.
And then, of course, you can't talk about the Superdome without its role in Hurricane Katrina after that hurricane
wiped out parts of the city.
It served as a refuge for thousands of people.
And perhaps the most iconic moment in the Superdome history was the first Saints game
after Katrina when there was a blocked pun and the Saints romped at home.
and just this feeling of celebration and coming together for that city just still gives me goosebumps.
Another storyline heading into the big game is a switchup happening in the end zone.
As Sequin pounds in his fifth touchdown of the game, you might notice that the NFL has switched out its on-field slogan and racism for Choose Love instead.
An NFL spokesperson said that the reason behind the change is tied to the New Year's terrorist attack in New Orleans,
as well as other recent tragedies like the LA wildfires and the plane crash in D.C.
However, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell did recently reaffirm the Lee's commitment to DEI
in his annual Super Bowl address, including policies like the Rooney Rule,
which require teams to interview minority candidates for coaching and executive positions.
You know, this is the first time since 2021 that people watching will not see
and racism stenciled on the field.
Yeah, the NFL certainly made a lot of headlines this.
week with the end zone change and also Roger Goodell's statements around DEI.
At a time when many Fortune 500 companies are backing away from DEI, it's very interesting
that the NFL has put its foot in the ground and said, no, this is very important to us.
Goodell said, quote, we got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing
for the National Football League and we're going to continue to do those efforts.
That hasn't stopped criticism from coming into the NFL from, you know, being laid on the NFL for
its coaching decisions. This year, seven of the 32 NFL teams have a head coach that are people
of color, which critics say is not close to enough, considering, you know, the amount of
black and other people of color athletes who are participating in the NFL. And then in terms
of the pipeline to head coaching positions, there were zero offensive coordinators, people of
color in the NFL this year. The offensive coordinator is, you know, the stepping stone to becoming
a head coach. So you can say NFL is talking the talk. They've had this Rooney role for since
2003, but it's not necessarily walking the walk. Moving on, this year's Super Bowl is also a feast
for people who dabble in conspiracies. A number of unexplained mysteries surround the game,
making it fertile ground for unfounded, but certainly fun, speculation that the NFL follows a
predetermined script. First, the Super Bowl logo. For the third time in four years, the colors on the
Super Bowl logo strangely appear to predict the teams that will be playing in the game,
despite the logo being released many months before.
The 2025 Super Bowl logo, which was revealed last February, has red and green colors mirroring
the Chiefs and the Eagles colors.
This theory started back in 2022, when the logo included orange and yellow matching the
Bengals and Rams who matched up in that Super Bowl.
The next year, it was red and green for the Eagles and Chiefs, and now it is again for
their rematch.
The other conspiracy is a little more serious, and it suggests that the NFL and its refs are in the bag for the Chiefs rigging the league so that they can win three championships in a row.
And of course, there's some Taylor Swift voodoo thrown in since she's dating Chiefs tight end Travis Kelsey.
People noted how she may have sprinkled fairy dust on the Superdome when she played Erez Tor shows there last year, manifesting her boyfriend to be competing in the game months later.
Toby, you buying any of these?
I believe them all, especially the fairy dust spring.
I do want to talk about the chiefs and the fact that, you know, the refs had to come out and say, the league had to come out and say, no, the refs are not colluding. One thing that they pointed to is that there are 17 officiating crews across consisting of 138 officials that, you know, refereed Chiefs games and the league was like, do you really think they're all colluding to assist one team? That being said, though, there is some data that, you know, you could point to that say maybe the Chiefs do get more.
favorable calls, especially in the playoffs.
If you look at the 2023 and 2024 post seasons,
the Chiefs have been called for 16 fewer penalties
for 160 fewer yards than their opponents.
But what you have to look at is how much of those penalties
add to the win probability of each game.
And over those six games,
their win probability has jumped 27%
based off the calls that they have gotten.
That is just behind the Green Bay Packers amongst all teams.
So it is interesting that you,
you can point to their postseason runs since Patrick Mahomes really took over and look at how much
win probability was added. The final thing I will say on this, though, you can go back to the 2013
to 2017 New England Patriots, and they got even more lopsided treatment than the current
Chiefs. They were getting called for 22 fewer penalties, 276 fewer yards than their opponents.
So I think basically whenever some team is good, something happens where the refs kind of contribute to
that in some way. So do I believe the conspiracy theories? No, but just follow the data. That's all I'll say.
Finally, sportsbooks are expecting $1.4 billion in legal wagers on Sunday's game, which would be a new
record. And while a lot of those bets will likely be on the Chiefs for the Eagles to win, we want to
surface some prop bets you should be aware of. Prop bets are those side bets that don't directly
influence the outcome of the game, but are fun to root for it nevertheless. Think what color would
the Gatorade be? Will the coin toss be heads?
or tails. So Neil, while I got you here, I'm going to get your thoughts on some of the more
interesting prop bets this year. Up first, will the National Anthem be longer or shorter than
120 seconds? Some background. It is being performed this year by John Baptiste. Hey, soul, jazz,
musical genius. Are you taking the over or the under? I'm going over because John Batiste
is probably going to bring out his piano and I watched the tape. He did the All-Star game for the NBA in
2017. He had the piano. He does a little flourishing. That clocked in right at about 120 seconds,
but this is a much bigger stage. And when you're on the big stage, you got to soak it up.
And there has been a trend of longer national anthems. Seven of the last 11 performances have
been 120 seconds or more. So I think it's not going to come in that much over 120.5 at the
over under, but I'm still going over because John Batisse, he's going to tickle the keys. It's going to be
great. I love that pick. Unfortunately, I was going to pick everything opposite than
you, but I do think John Faptiste is going to put on a show. All right, up next, what color will
Tom Brady's tie be? Remember, Tom is announcing the big game for the first time. He's in the
booth instead of on the field. Here are the options. Blue is the favorite at plus 175 and then in
descending order of how likely. You have gray, no tie, red, black, green, pink, and then yellow at
plus 1,200. What's your pick here now? I think blue is the way to go. Remember, this is the $375 million question
because Tom Brady was signed to that massive deal.
This is his coming out party as a broadcaster.
He has a minority ownership in the Raiders,
which he certainly doesn't want to draw attention to.
So you can basically eliminate gray and silver.
No tie, you know, no.
This is the Super Bowl.
Red is also eliminated with green as well
because you don't want to see like you're a homer for the Chiefs or the Eagle.
So I'm going blue.
I think it's going to either blue or black.
I think, yeah, that's why you got to go black
because there's so much better.
value there because blue and black, they're very similar, but black is plus 1,200 while blue is only
plus 175. I'm chasing that extra value. All right, up next, what song will Kendrick Lamar
perform first at the Super Bowl? He is the half-time performer. People are very excited. Some of the
favorites are humble is the overwhelming favorite at minus 155. And then you have Not Like Us,
the summer anthem that was a distract of gray to Drake, squabble up, and then swimming pools drank.
any name standing out to you there, Neil.
I'm going chalk with Humble as well.
I'm boring. Sorry.
That's what I think is going to happen. I'm sorry.
And then the last song, I think, certainly will be not like us.
Maybe the more interesting bet is how many Drake disc tracks will be on there.
At least two is minus 420.
So the betting Las Vegas definitely thinks that there will be at least two Drake disc tracks.
So pour one out for Drake.
That's a lot.
It's going to be hard for him.
Yeah, that's a lot of eyeballs looking at your disc tracks.
Okay, I mentioned this one in the intro, but what color will the Gatorade be?
Neil, you went very deep on this.
The last two Super Bowls have been purple.
Do you think purple three peats?
Yeah, it's very interesting.
I did not know that purple was the last two.
That's what the chiefs, the chiefs also won the last two.
So I guess they've opted for purple.
What I'm going to go with is clear.
So clear has good odds at plus 900.
and it had probably the most epic run of any Gatorade flavor
flavor ever, 2005 to 2008, those four Super Bowls.
It was clear or water, and I think we're in a nostalgic moment.
We're going back to Clear.
So, wait, clear is a flavor.
It's not just water that we're talking about.
It's a flavor.
I don't know exactly what flavor, but you see Gatorade.
There's a few flavors that are clear, and I think we're going with that.
Gotcha.
Okay, I said that was the last one, but I have one more question for you, actually, Neil.
Will Travis Kelsey propose to Taylor Swift on?
the field. As of Thursday, the odds
for no proposal were far better
minus 2,000 compared to
plus 800 for a proposal. Does
Travis get down on Wendy? I think he's
classier than to do an on-field proposal.
Plus, they're going to lose.
Oh, there you know.
It wouldn't be the right moment for them.
Okay, let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much
for starting your morning with us and have a
wonderful Friday and an even better
weekend. For any questions, comments, or
feedback, send an email to morning brewdaily
at morningbrew.com. And if you're
enjoying the show, share it with a friend, family member, or coworker. Don't worry if you're lacking
ideas. Toby has been brainstorming all morning, and he's got instructions for you. I want you to share
the pod with someone you are watching the Super Bowl with. Here's the plan. You send them this podcast,
tell them to listen to Neal's prop bet picks. Then you bet the opposite on every single one of them.
It's the fade Neil Parlay, and you might make millions. All right. Let's curl the credits.
Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Loo is our producer. Olivia Graham is our
associate producer. Yuchinawa Ogu is our technical director. Scoop Stardaris is on
audio. Hair and makeup is going on the record. Eagles 27, Chiefs 23. Devin Emery is our chief
content officer and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. I wish you all
well.
