Morning Brew Daily - Millions of Bets Flood in on 2024 US Election & Pharmacy Giants are Shrinking

Episode Date: October 16, 2024

Episode 432: Neal and Toby discuss the huge influx of bets being made on the US presidential election and why the lifted ban on prediction markets is huge. Then, Walgreens is closing up 1,200 stores, joining a growing number of pharmacies shutting down as payments for prescription drugs are drying up. Next, the highly anticipated ‘Joker’ sequel, which cost $200M to make, is struggling to break even at the box office. Plus, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back after going into complete overhaul since its string of controversies. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Sphere will get a twin as a new Sphere will be built in Abu Dhabi. Lastly, Boston’s Women’s Soccer team has a brand new name that breaks normal naming conventions of sports teams.  00:00 - Jane Street interns paid $250K/yr!? 3:15 - Prediction markets are surging 8:30 - Walgreens struggles to keep up 12:50 - Joker 2 is Hollywood’s latest flop 18:50 - Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show is back 22:10 - Las Vegas Sphere gets a twin 25:45 - Boston’ newest sports team gets its name 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 the new Wendy’s Breakfast Burrito! Visit https://www.wendys.com/morningbrew for more! Join us at our trivia night! Visit morningbrew.com/events to register  Get your Morning Brew Daily T-Shirt HERE: https://shop.morningbrew.com/products/morning-brew-radio-t-shirt?_pos=1&_sid=6b0bc409d&_ss=r&variant=45353879044316  Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, why Joker 2 became one of the biggest flops in recent box office history. Then the Las Vegas sphere is getting a twin in Abu Dhabi. So I guess what happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas. It's Wednesday, October 16th. Let's ride.

Kids, it is never too early to start thinking about next summer's internship. And those of you with full-time jobs might want to consider this one as well. Jane Street Capital, the quantitative trading firm where Sam Bankman-Fried used to work, posted an opening for a research internship with a base salary of $250,000. As the Financial Times pointed out, that's more than the salary of the UK Prime Minister, Kier Starrmer, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The best part, no finance background required. It's just a plus.

These roles come with an important caveat, though, Neil. that is, this is only one part of the Jane Street total compensation, which includes an annual discretionary bonus as well. So, God forbid, that your comp was only $250,000, I mean, a pittance. What if, what if you just end up doing classic internship things where it's like getting coffee, like sitting at your desk pretending to look busy, but you're making more than the prime minister of England along the way, annoying everyone. These are all the internship things that I did. I don't know about you, but... Yeah, I mean, basically. But if I was getting paid $2,000,000.

50k a year, I would do them gladly. I mean, if you work anywhere at this firm, which is growing so fast, it's becoming a huge part of Wall Street. The average compensation for each employee is $900,000. See, it's a pittance. That's why you need that compensation. You need that extra bonus. And yeah, I think if you do make it through an internship there, you do become Prime Minister of England. So it's actually a pretty nice little bonus right there. Now a word from our sponsor, Wendy's. Neil, you ever have these mornings where you're you're running out the door and think, I'll grab something later, and then you realize it's already noon. Toby, yesterday morning I left my house with two left shoes on. Of course I forget to grab

breakfast from time to time. Ah, two left feet. No wonder you dance so poorly. But you don't have to sacrifice chase just because you are running late. Whitty's breakfast burrito is packed with a full breakfast on the go. Eggs, potatoes, bacon, or sausage, and ooey-gooey cheese all wrapped up in a deliciously warm tortilla. You had me at Ui-Gui. Oh, you got to see this. cheese to believe it so melty, so ooey, you'll suddenly become a good dancer. How does that relate at all? Just let the cheese do its thing. If you're looking for a delicious breakfast on the go, head to your nearest Wendy's to try the Wendy's Breakfast Burrito. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly,

big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earned daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. Betting on the NFL, so 2023, this year's hot new gambling arena is the presidential election. With more ways to wager on the outcome of the U.S. election than ever, money has been pouring into these so-called prediction markets. On Polly Market, a crypto-based platform that operates outside

the U.S. bettors have placed $1.9 billion speculating on the future commander-in-chief. Kalsh, a U.S.-based platform that was given the green light to launch last week, has seen more than $12 million in trading volumes in just a few days it's been open for business. Proponents of election betting say it gives you a more accurate up-to-date picture on a candidate's chances than traditional polling. But critics say speculating on election results with real money could interfere with a democratic process. And until recently, those critics have been winning. This practice was mostly banned in the U.S. until an appeals court allowed it to proceed earlier this month. But now that the floodgates are open, prediction markets have begun to

play a big role in perceptions of the race. And the picture is a confusing one. In the past week, prediction markets have shown former President Trump suddenly building a sizable lead over Kamala Harris. On Kalshi, for instance, Trump has a 55 percent chance of winning. compared to Harris's 45%. Traditional polls, meanwhile, show a dead heat. Nate Silver's model pegs the race at literally 50-50. Toby, what do prediction markets know that Nate Silver doesn't? Yeah, the big question is, are they more accurate?

One argument is yes, they are more accurate because there is skin in the game. But on the other hand, you have people with deeper products or deeper pockets that could potentially manipulate the market. So where is this big delta in what some of the national polls are saying coming from versus what the prediction markets are saying. And I think polls are more of a thing where voters are telling you how they feel right now versus prediction markets are attempting to predict what's happening in the future. So that's one explanation of why one might say one thing and one might say another.

Another thing, too, is prediction markets are a lot more agile. So they may be reacting to real-time events versus polls happen over a longer period of times. And so if like a debate performance goes well or goes poorly, that might shift the line. If a policy comes out that people like or don't like, that might shift it as well. So those are some of the ways that they differ. Prediction markets aren't perfect by any stretch either, specifically polymarket in general, because they don't have a maximum bet size.

So a couple whales can come in and really shift a line to one way or another based off what candidate those whales specifically want. So they're not perfect, but they are a little bit more agile. And they're just another data point that you can kind of look at to see, potentially where this election is heading. Yeah, if you talk to Wall Streeters, economists, professors, they love prediction markets. It tells them a lot of insight. I mean, a statistics professor at Rutgers University, Harry Crane told CNN, if you wanted a single best predictor, one source of information to know what's going on in the elections, it is the prediction market. And how do these things work?

Well, think of it basically as a futures contract. If you were betting futures on a stock, It's very similar. You enter these election contracts, which are binary. You pay out $1 if the correct outcome is chosen and zero if you bet on the incorrect outcome. And so they function very similar to futures markets. And one way this can be useful to actual institutional investors. And that's where all of these platforms really want to get to. I mean, yes, we can have, you know, the average retail investor betting on the platform, but they're not putting in a lot of money so these platforms aren't making any money. If they can get hedge funds, institutional investors, on Wall Street actually putting money into these areas, then they can start making money. And so they're trying to convince them to, and they're going to use this line of attack, they're going to say, look, you can hedge your bets way on our platform in a very much more direct way than you can say if you would short the S&P 500. So say if you think Trump would be bad for your stock portfolio, then you can just wager on Trump in these election markets to hedge your bet in that sense.

So we'll see if these newfound platforms can get more of these institutional investors, but it does seem like there's going to be a long way to go because they're perhaps too illiquid to get more pro investors. I do think, though, that as we draw closer and closer to the election, we are going to see volumes start to spike. I mean, predict its CEO did say that. Like, he expects a 10-fold increase as the election day actually grows closer. So something that we'll have to watch is just as volume rampant.

does that actually start swinging it more accurately or more efficiently? We're not, this is really the first election where prediction markets are part of the story in a big way. So I guess we will be able to see potentially which one has been more accurate throughout the lifetime. Is it the polls or is it actually these prediction markets where there is money on the line? So this is going to be like the first real experiment in like this prediction market. Yeah. And they've been, you know, they have been scandalous before. in other countries in the world, like the UK, it's completely legal to bet on elections.

And remember this summer during the UK elections, we talked about a lot of those betting scandals that happened over there. I mean, one guy, one candidate, bet 8,000 pounds on himself to lose. And that, you know, raised a lot of hackles. And we'll see what happens here as we get closer to the election. Quick pop quiz here. What is the worst performing stock in the S&P 500 this year? Neil, it is Walgreens Boots Alliance. It didn't give me a chance to answer.

Thank you, Neil. But when you hit Rock Bottom, there's only one way. to go, and that is up. Yesterday, Walgreens announced its fourth quarter earnings, which topped estimates sending its stock soaring 15%. But it wasn't just a 6% beat on revenue that got investors looking on the bright side. The retail pharmacy giant is also closing 1,200 stores by 2027, approximately 10% of its locations. Wait, what? Its stock soared on news. It was closing stores. Yes, store closures led to investor ebullience because in investor's eyes, shuttering underperforming, locations was one of the only ways to achieve the cost cutting it was after. Walgreens has around

8,700 locations in the U.S., but about a quarter of those are unprofitable according to the company. So, Neil, sometimes you've got to clear out the old to make way for the new. Is this the start of Walgreens' turnaround or another indicator of its struggles? Well, this has definitely been one of the themes we've talked about a lot on the show this year, which is retail pharmacies across the board, getting squeezed in all directions. Walgreens is now cutting 14% of its stores. Right Aid filed for bankruptcy last year and is now closing 800 stores. CVS announced $2 billion in cost cutting, and it is laying off 5,000 workers. So these retailers are not doing well. And when I say getting squeezed on all sides, it means when you enter

the pharmacy or when you enter these stores, there's two sections. There's the front part of the store where you buy candy and cereal and off-brand things. And then the back of the store where you get your prescription filled. And both of those have come under a lot. a lot of pressure. The front of the store has come under pressure from Costco, Dollar General, Target, and Walmart, which are eating away market share. And then in the back of the store where you get your prescription fills, they are facing more competition than ever from Amazon, which announced a big pharmacy initiative last week, which we can talk about. And they are complaining that they're getting fewer reimbursements from so-called pharmacy benefit managers, which are

these middlemen of the pharmacy industry that negotiate between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the pharmacies, and they pay out these reimbursements, and Walgreens, CVS, right-AIDS car complaining that they're not getting as much reimbursements as well. The FDC is on the case saying that this is the result of intense concentration in the pharmacy benefit manager sector. But yeah, this is just, these companies need to turn things around, and they're doing that by closing underperforming locations.

One big concern, though, is that people need pharmacies. All of these closures, all of these shutdowns that we were talking about, push more people in rural communities into these so-called pharmacy deserts. Around half of U.S. counties has a pharmacy desert, and that is defined as a populated area 10 miles away from the closest retail pharmacy. That's according to the Journal of American Medical Association. So when you are looking at this grand scheme of things, when you are looking at Walgreens trying to target cutting costs of $1 billion, there is real impacts in the communities as well.

But as you said, they're getting hit from all sides. So at a certain point, the only way to cut costs is to just get rid of these underperforming stores, even though it might affect the communities that they are opened in. Yeah, so there is a gap in the market now where there's pharmacy deserts. And who is filling that? But of course, Amazon, which said on last Wednesday a week ago, it was expanding its national pharmacy network to nearly half of U.S. residents for same-day delivery of prescriptions by the end of 2025. It's going into 20 more cities.

So now you're going to be able to order half of the U.S. population is now going to be able to order medication on Amazon by, say, 4 p.m. and then get it delivered to your house by 10 p.m. So delivery, logistics, online pharmacies are absolutely disrupting this industry. And it stems from a 2018 acquisition of pill pack. I remember that very well for nearly $1 billion where Amazon started to build its pharmacy business. And so that's growing. That's been slow to grow, but that's growing now in a big while there's been retrenchment in Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid. So this is certainly a big trend to watch. There's an iconic scene in the dark night where Heath Ledger's Joker lights a huge pile of cash on fire. And that's basically what happened to Joker Folle Aude, the recently released sequel to 2019's Hit Joker starring Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga. After two weekends at the box office, it's become clear that the second Joker film is

having an even bigger collapse than Harvey Dent. Variety reported that the movie is on track to lose up to $200 million for its studio Warner Brothers, marking one of the most epic flops of the superhero era. The main problem, it cost a lot and no one went to see it. The second Joker had a budget of $200 million plus $100 million more in marketing spend. That includes $20 million for director Todd Phillips, $20 million for Walking Phoenix, and $12 million for Lady Gaga. Because, hey, as the Joker said in the Dark Night,

If you're good at something, never do it for free. But with those kind of expenses, the film would need to top $450 million at the global box office to break even, according to variety. And that is not going to happen, not even close. So far, the Joker sequel has grossed just $165 million globally, and it's expected to stall out at $210 million. Toby, this was very surprising, considering the first Joker was a massive hit with $1 billion in ticket sales. What went wrong? I'll tell you what I'm wrong. The movie stinks.

People don't like it whatsoever. It has a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. Cinema score gave it a D. It's just not that good of a movie. A lot of people are saying that they just overthought it. They turned it into a quasi-musical. There's multiple musical numbers throughout it. So everyone went there watching it and saying,

what the heck is going on here? And you kind of have to take it as it goes because Todd Phillips, which is the director, took this big risk, made this very dark, superhero film in the original Joker and people love that because it was a departure from kind of like the bubble gum pop that was Marvel.

They wanted a darker grimeier Joker. And then this time he took another risk and made it a musical introduced Lady Gaga to it and people just really didn't like it. So I think it's just a case of maybe you got an unlimited budget. The first one did so well. Warner Bros. said, all right, we trust

you, do whatever you want with it. And maybe they went a little too far artistically. Yeah, it's just kind of crazy to see how far this fell from the original Joker, which was one of the most profitable superhero movies, I guess you can call it a superhero movie, ever made because that was budgeted as just 65 million compared to the 200 million that Joker 2 was. And that made over a billion dollars in the box office. So whenever you have a movie that made $1 billion at the box office, that is just basically

a guarantee you're going to get a sequel. But the director Todd Phillips, who we should note did old school and all three hangover. so he has quite the reputation, kind of did a what many called kind of a middle finger to fans of the Joker by turning this into a musical and going away from what people liked about the first movie. So maybe now you can't just totally rubber stamp a sequel when something makes a billion dollars because it could flop hard and cost you $200 million on the back end. And the funniest part about this whole saga is that Joker 2 wasn't even the top clown movie at the box office.

There's this movie called Terrifier 3, which is this sort of B-grade slasher film with a budget of just $2 million. That opened at number one in the North American box office, outgrossing Joker 2, 18 million to just 7 million. So, I mean, there's some beautiful symmetry there that this B-grade movie is actually outperforming one of the biggest box office or what should have been one of the biggest box office tent pulls this year. Up next, the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is back. Not loving your AT&T or T mobile bill. Yeah, we've been hearing that a lot. Good news. Bring your AT&T or T mobile bill to Verizon and we'll give you a better deal. So get away from that unfortunate phone bill and get to Verizon.

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Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill three-burner gas grill. Or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to home depot.com. price match for details. After a six-year hiatus, the famed Victoria's Secret fashion show spread its wings once more last night. Its models returned to the runway for the

first time since 2018, the first show since the brand hit pause on the event, following widespread backlash connected to body positivity, the Me Too movement, and offensive comments from his chief marketing officer at the time. But it wasn't your same old V.S. fashion show. Yes, some familiar names like Tyra Banks and Adriana Lima made an appearance, but in of a wider audience, the show was made available on Amazon Prime's streaming service, so you could easily shop the looks on Amazon in real time as the models did their thing. At its peak, the annual fashion show brought in 12.4 million viewers, but subsequently lost its cultural sway as it grappled with a few years of declining sales and an identity crisis.

But new leadership, renewed interest from Gen Z, and a return of its most iconic media property, has Victoria's Secret looking poised for a comeback. Yes. The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is back and will reflect who we are today, plus everything you know and love. And there you can see that they're trying to straddle the line between going back to their roots, which was a brand that people did adore, but also shedding some of the baggage that came with it while looking ahead and embracing new trends that younger consumers might like. And they have been improving their sales. They've grown sales over the past four quarters increment to leave, but they still have a big hole to climb out of because they

They reached a peak of $7.5 billion in sales in February 2020. The next year, over the next year, that fell to $5.4 billion. And so they've only reached a peak maybe of $6.7 billion over the next several years. So they're trying to grow that back. But it does seem like there is a little more buzz about that brand, this particular brand. And they're trying to follow in the footsteps of other mall staples that have staged a comeback. Right. Gen Z loves old school fashion that they might have missed the boat on originally. I mean, just look at another left.

for dead. Millennial staple brand, mall brand, as you called it, Abercombeian Fitch. They have seen this massive comeback as Gen C. Interest has revived in it. So Victoria's Secret may be trying to copy that playbook. Unfortunately, though, this morning I got up and checked some subredits discussing what the fashion show was like. I actually had to go to bed, didn't watch it last night. And people were not impressed. These are some of the quotes that people wrote in the pop culture subreddit watching it. Awful looks, cheap looking wings, boring runway. where's the fashion, where's the glamour? This was the best they could do, really.

All the clothes look outdated and cheap. So despite positioning itself well, and despite trying to renew interest in it, if you are not creating fashion lines that your consumers are actually interested in, then it's never going to work that well. It's an interesting pairing, Amazon and Victoria's Secret. Victoria's Secret maybe wants to be a more elevated brand,

and yet here are your models walking in a fashion show put on by Amazon where you can quickly click and buy, on Amazon. There might be a little bit of dissonance there is that this is supposed to be an elevated higher fashion offering, and yet here you are on Amazon, which doesn't necessarily translate or feel like high fashion. So potentially they did really well. I'm sure they drove a lot of sales, but maybe they aren't towing that line as well as they have kind of in the years subsequently. And you saw some people with a disappointed perception of this fashion show that they brought back. Soon, when you say you're going to a show at the

a sphere, you're going to have to identify which one because the number of spheres is doubling from one to two. Sphere Entertainment, which operates the futuristic venue in Las Vegas, announced it was opening another sphere halfway across the world in Abu Dhabi. No details yet on when construction will begin, but for Sphere CEO James Dolan, the owner of the Nixon Rangers, it's a sign his grand plan to blot the earth with spheres is starting to take shape, the shape of a sphere. The vision for Sphere has always included a global network of venues, he said, and today's announcement is a significant milestone toward that goal. For Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, building a sphere is also part of a grand plan, that being to boost tourism to nearly 40 million visitors a year, up from 24 million last year. We don't know what type of entertainment is going to come to the Sphere in Abu Dhabi, but if it's anything like the one in Las Vegas, it'll be heavy on the jam bands, dead and co,

Fish have both played stints at the Vegas Sphere along with U2 and the Eagles. Vegas also recently put on its first live sporting event, UFC 306. Toby, thoughts on the new location. Well, one thing that is interesting about this new location is it's technically a franchise

man, I tell you what, everything's a franchise or a reboot these days, but so it actually involved a franchise initiation free that Abu Dhabi paid to Sphere Entertainment, which is the parent company. They are Abu Dhabi's on the hook for finance and construction, paying not financing fee, but then they will also be on the hook for recurring fees to use

sphere content to license its technology, to license its IP, because you can't exactly just queue up a YouTube video and put it across their screens. It does take proprietary technology. So that is the business model that James Dolan wants to advance here because the original sphere costs $2.3 billion to construct. So he does not want to go down that construction rabbit hole. He'd rather just get that franchise initiation free, get those royalties on top of it, let Abu Dhabi assume most of the construction risk. So this is clearly the model that he wants to advance going forward. And this was not the first choice for the second sphere. They wanted to bring it to London, but Mayor Sadiq Khan there last year rejected the offer over concerns of how

it would influence the surrounding area. So after London rejected it, the sphere went to Abu Dhabi and said, hey, you guys want it? And they were like, hell yeah, we want it. And maybe that says something larger about the overall trajectories of the Gulf versus Europe, if you want to look at it that way. But Abu Dhabi is an absolute tourism rocket ship right now. As I mentioned, it wants to grow from 24 million visitors last year to 30 million, 40 million by 2030. And it wants to stand out from Dubai, which is close by. But last year's tourism numbers are truly astonishing, 27% increase in hotel guests, 54% increase in international arrivals, 44% increase in the size of meeting, conferences, and exhibitions.

It has UFC coming in just two weeks. It has this thing called Yoss Island, which is one of the most insane tourism development projects anywhere in the world. It has the world's tallest indoor climbing wall. It has Formula Rasa, which is the fastest roller coaster in the world. It has a Warner Brothers theme park and SeaWorld, and then it has a 20,000 seat stadium. And now it's going to have the sphere. So this place is absolutely blowing up. and maybe it's taking tourism dollars away from London

who said, no, we don't really want the sphere. That's it, that's all it's got. Just the fastest roller coaster in the world's tallest climbing wall? I need a little bit more to entertain me. All right, let's move on. What's in a name? Shakespeare muses that in Romeo and Juliet. But if you're a new sports franchise

coming to a major city, there's actually a lot in a name. Just as Boss Nation, the latest National Women's Soccer League expansion team to unveil its branding. That's BOS as in Boston and Nation. as a nation. And if you get some boss BOSS energy from the name, that's on purpose, according to the team. It's also, as the brand experts that worked on the project yearly pointed out, an anagram for Bostonian. One thing the name definitely is is out there. It is a departure from typical

naming conventions when it comes to sports teams, but expect more unconventional names to start popping up, particularly as women's sports leagues continue to add new teams, which then have to navigate through a sea of already taken animal monikers to forge new pass with recognizable and trademarkable identities. So that is how you end up with a team name like Boss Nation. Neil. Do you like it? No.

You don't like it. No. No, I reflected on it and it just seems kind of dumb. And I would say a lot of the internet agrees with me. I'm just going to read some of the reviews. It sounds exactly like what someone who's completely out of touch but trying to be culturally relevant would come up with a team that sounds like. CHAPT prompt for a soccer team named by Fratboy consulting executives.

So I would say largely people are not happy with this name. They should have, one idea that they maybe should have gone with is the Boston Commons, which people do like. But it does speak to this larger issue, which is that North America has so many sports teams. It has obviously the big for MLS. And then the growth of women's sports has put even more pressure on teams to find unique names, ones that aren't trademarked. So you have three new NBA teams coming.

Toronto, one of the new ones is like, yeah, we are crowdsourcing this because literally we went through all the names and they're all trademarked. And there is a professional women's hockey league now that is six teams that they just name. So honestly, you're just like running out of names to possibly do. So maybe we're going to start seeing more conventions like Europe where they just say the name and they say blank club like Liverpool football club or Barcelona football club. And you just say the name of the city.

which is kind of what Boston's doing here. That's what the professional women's hockey league started out doing. They had six franchises. They didn't give them names yet. They just called them the city that they were located in because of those issues that are like, you can't start going down the branding rabbit hole without having all your ducks in a row because it is so difficult to find the trademarks. The Toronto WMBA expansion team was like, we have to navigate two countries trademark laws.

So that has been a disaster. It feels hard. Would you be the type of sports organization that would open it up? up to fan input right from the start. We just saw the Utah Hockey Club did this. They had this bracket of names, the Yeti, the Blizzard, and they allowed people to vote on which ones they like. They actually settled on Utah Hockey Club, which is maybe the... Did they? Yeah, that's, well, that's what I think. Well, that's what they are for the first year, but there's six. Oh, they're still, they're still going through the process. So you can either open it up to fan input like that, or you can

just go, like branding agency, kind of like Boss Nation did. So which one would you do? Well, it seems like you're trying to strad of the line, like Washington Commanders, did. They've named themselves Washington Football Club for the first year, which seems to be convention when you're a new team. You just put the blank club, you know, Washington football team. And then you solicit fan input. Maybe you get fans to narrow it down kind of exactly like what Utah is doing. But you obviously reserve the right to ultimately make the decision because you do have trademarks that you know about and can't violate. The fans have no idea. But the fans might get some good ideas and it makes them feel more part of the community. so I think I would have exactly do what Utah is doing, which is help fans or ask fans to narrow it down so they feel part of it. And then just say, like, we'll make the final decision from here because we just, you know, we can't totally listen to you because we might be illegal. All right, that's all the time we have for today. Thanks for starting your morning with us and have a wonderful Wednesday getting a little chilly out there. Fall has definitely arrived.

For any questions, comments, or general feedback on the show, send an email to Morningbrewdaily at morningbrew.com. And if you find Morning Brewed Daily a useful part of your morning, please share it with friends, family, and co-workers, or ignore all that and just take Toby's recommendation. My recommendation is to share today's show with someone who you want to go see an R-rated clown movie with. I won't say which one you should choose between Joker and Terrify a 3, but just please choose wisely.

Okay, let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer. Raymond Liu is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Yuchinawa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup is officially making the switch from ice coffee to hot coffee today. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our shows of production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow.

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