Motley Fool Money - Better Burgers?

Episode Date: April 1, 2016

Chipotle serves up a Better Burger. McDonald's expands in China. And Lululemon jumps. Plus, Washington Post sportswriter Barry Svrluga talks about the business of baseball.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money. The best thing they'll like, but you can get them to the price. From Fool Global Headquarters, this is Motley Fool Money. It's the Motley Fool Money radio show. I'm Chris Allen, joining me in studio this week from Million Dollar Portfolio, Jason Moser.

From Motley Fool income investor James Hurley, and from Motley Fool Deep Value, Ron Gross. Good to see you, Chris. Good to see you, Chris. We've got the latest headlines from Wall Street. Just in time for opening day, we will dig into the business of baseball. And as always, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. But we begin this week with the big macro. The jobs report from March showed an additional 215,000 jobs. Unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 5 percent, Ron. What'd you think of the report?

I liked it. And don't be too harsh on that unemployment rate. Was I being hard? Put Chris in his place, Ron. It's actually a good reason for it. The labor participation rate actually ticked up to 63 percent. It's the highest level since March 2014. We've had a problem with the labor force participation rate for quite a bit of time now. We're actually seeing people return to the labor force in this latest report. So that plays with the math of the unemployment rate. So it's for a good reason that we saw that take up. We also saw a take up in the U6 rate, which we often talk about

as the wider unemployment rate, which is at 9.8%. Wages, also another sticking point we constantly talk about showing an increase of about 2.3 percent annualized. It's an increase. It's still not where we need it to be. Well, not to belittle all this analysis. Well, I mean, Ron knows this stuff. But the question is, what's the real story? Is it a minor tweak in some of these rates or is it what the Fed is going to do with this information?

I think the markets are going to watch the Fed. It seems like everyone has given up on the chance of an April rate increase, but now everyone seems to fully believe in a June increase. Yeah. Well, even December, I think we're at a 70% likelihood of an increase for the December. It comes a little bit less than that in June. But you are correct. Where did we go from here? Well, everything has become sort of the give-and-take economy, right?

I mean, employment is starting to improve a little bit. We see the auto numbers for the big three. While they did okay, they missed analysts' expectations as far as a number of vehicles sold. And when you have a situation where financing is obviously very cheap, then you start to wonder, is the consumer really, employment can be fine, but if wages aren't really increasing, well, then that could be a problem as well. Spending doesn't really pick up. So you kind of wonder, it's a little bit of a give and take. Janet Yellen has been pretty clear that she's going to sort of take baby steps here and pushing the interest rates up as we go along.

So I don't think we can expect any rash actions here anytime soon. One interesting article I saw raised a red flag. It said there remains weakness in the temporary job market. Three months in a row, it's been very weak. That often is an early indicator of weakness in the permanent market because the hope is temporary turns into permanent. And so if there's weakness there, it could be a red flag. to watch in the coming months.

But heading into the summer, isn't the summer one of the parts of the year where typically temporary employment ticks up? We'll have to keep an eye on it so far, you know, last three months very week. Let's get to some of the company news of the week. Lanar is America's second largest home builder. First quarter profits came in higher than expected and shares up this week. Look like a pretty good report on the surface, James. You know, Chris, I keep reading all these articles about millennials, how they're little tyrants in the workforce and they're difficult to manage.

I got to give them credit. They're gainfully employed and they're buying houses. And this was a big driver here. First time homebuyers were kind of a 30% of Lenar's customers, which is a big number, average selling price up 12% year over year. The issue was basically low supply. I mean, demand was good, but it was also low supply. In other words, we've finally absorbed all the foreclosed homes. And now these young people are out there buying homes again. I don't think it's a bubble in the making, but it's just an issue of the cycles evening out now. And mortgage rates, which were historically low for quite some time, had ticked up a bit, but they're back down to be, you know, it's a wonderful time to borrow money to buy a home. And you get that night's deduction as well. So it'd be interesting to see. We just talked about the Fed in rising interest rates as those tick up. What does that do to the first-time homebuyers? Do you get the sense that Lanar and some of the other home builders are maybe making business decisions based on what happened in 2008, 2009? Are they being a little bit more cautious, at least in terms of their forecasting?

Chris, whatever they're doing, it's working. The S&P is up 100-something percent since 2009. The low point, early 2009, Lenar stock, is up 600 percent. So it's effective, whatever their strategy has been. Last week, Marriott was going to buy Starwood hotels for $13.6 billion in cash in stock. Earlier this week, OnBang Insurance from China came in with a higher bid, only to drop that big altogether just a few days. days later, what in the world is going on, Jason? This dance has been happening back and forth

for a few months now, and it really did look like Anbang had the winning bid, and then they just dumped it. Yeah, this has turned into quite the soap opera. I think, honestly, that Starwood is probably happy that this is working out the way it did. I think, so we look at Starwood and think, okay, well, management certainly has the responsibility to consider every offer on the table. It would seem on the surface that accepting the highest bid makes the most sense. It would be the most responsible thing to do. But maybe not if you look at this from a longer-term perspective.

And so I think it makes more sense for Starwood to be a part of Marriott as opposed to a part of the Yan Bang consortium, because there wasn't really a hotel specialty dynamic to that relationship, whereas obviously, that is just what Marriott does. I do think this really also is a testament. It shows the value in knowing where you stand in the negotiation. I mean, it's one thing if you're Radio Shack and you're trying to liquidate assets. It's an entirely different thing if you're Starwood. And you know you have this really valuable portfolio of brands in a growing and global industry that's creating a little bit of a bidding war here.

But ultimately, I think it's going to work out okay. It's going to force Marriott to pay, I think, about a billion dollars more than they initially offered from the very beginning. But it looks like Marriott Management is very excited to get this thing moving forward. And it's just an issue of the Chinese government, right? I mean, they would have taken the bid had the government not put the kibosh on. I think it ultimately came down to the fact this was going to be more red tape involved than they really wanted to deal with, something in regard to the American ownership of a Chinese-based company. It could not exceed a certain percentage.

And en banc is notorious for having a very, let's just say, tough to understand ownership structure. They're the Pac-Man's of 2016, buying everything they can eat. Marriott shares fell when this news broke. And I'm wondering if at least some investors look at this and think, you know what, we don't want Marriott buying Starwood at this price. They're going to pay too much for it. I could see that if Marriott came back with another deal.

We look at Marriott and Starwood both down for the week after everything is said and done. Starwood, that's more understandable because, honestly, the stock fell because this higher bid is going to be thrown to the side. But I think, again, we have to look at this from a little bit of a longer-term perspective and understand that these are two very good operators in a very relevant industry where scale really matters. They're going to be able to take advantage of a lot of cost efficiencies. And I think the shareholders of Marriott will be glad this all works out here over the long haul. The Burger Wars are heating up. McDonald's CEO, Steve Easterbrook, said the company plans

to add 1,300 new restaurants in China. This news came on the same day that McDonald's got a new competitor, Chipotle filed to trademark the name Better Burger. What could go wrong. What could possibly? Let's start with McDonald's, though. This is a big expansion that they're looking to make in China. Really big, and they've struggled in China. They're actually closing 90 restaurants in China.

2014, they had some supply issues and supplies of chicken and burgers were not available, and they're still trying to regain the trust of the Chinese consumer, who are actually pretty wary about some fast food concepts. So they have an uphill battle there. But as you said, it's a very big expansion. They'll franchise them, which typically in China, people get nervous about because you want to have some control. It be interesting to see how it works out with them giving up the control to the franchisors. But it's a huge market, as we know. It does make sense. It's all going to be in the execution. Remember, there's going to be more competition in that market, too, as Young Brand splits off

their Chinese operations. And while Yum Rands has Pizza Hut and KFC in China, Taco Bell doesn't really have a presence at all, but they are going to change that. Now, how Taco Bell is received amongst the Chinese population. In general, Mexican food is not hot there. Pizza Hut is a luxury restaurant in China. You know, they bring fancy wines, like steaks. It's just like a hot date type of place. A bit of a similar dynamic when we were living in Cairo, Egypt, too. Pizza Hut and KFC to a lesser degree, but certainly Pizza Hut. I'm a little torn on the Chipotle news because on the one hand, diversifying as they have

with shophouse and pizzeria locale and now presumably a burger chain, diversifying makes sense to me. On the other hand, I look at the troubles they've had over the last six months and I think, you know what, given that to date, they've only opened about a dozen shophouse restaurants. They've had that concept for years, but they've only expanded to about 12 or 13. There's only about three pizzeria locales. So they're clearly taking a very slow approach with this. Yeah. I don't think that would be any different here with the burger concept.

And I think what will happen is they'll open up one store. They'll test it for probably about a year, trying to figure out what they can do to differentiate themselves. Because like you said, I mean, the burger market is a very big one. It's very saturated. So if you're going to be successful, I think you have to do two things. You have to put yourself in markets where the demand. demand is probably there, and then you have to do something a little bit different.

The thing about burgers, they tend to be, they tend to breed fairly loyal followings. For everybody that likes five guys, you have another contingency that'll say, nope, I think burger joint is better. Or elevation burger. It's something else that we've never even heard of. So I think there's plenty of room to play in this market. Just like there is in the pizza market, it's just figuring out what they can do to differentiate themselves, because we know that the model there works fine. Agreed. The model works fine. I just think the burger markets is just too saturated. There's just too many burger

joints out there. It's the new cupcake. You know, every place was a cupcake place a few years ago and then they all closed down and then all the burger. Are you a burger officiato yourself? I'm not. I like a burger. I like a burger. I don't lie. I think that. He's clearly anti-cupcake. Yeah. Yeah.

There's too many choices and I can't imagine they'll differentiate themselves in any major way from all the other choices out there. So, hey, go go slow, take a measured approach, test it, but I don't see it being a big deal. And I would say to investors in Chipotle today, take solace and knowing that they will

take it slowly. And if it doesn't work, they will bag it. I mean, this is not going to be something where they're rolling out 50 burger joints a year now in the hopes of overtaking this market. Up next, we'll give you an inside look at the stocks on our radar. Stay right here. This is Motley Fool Money. As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about, and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So, don't buy yourself stocks based solely on what you're here. Welcome back to Motley Full Money.

Chris Hill here in studio with Jason Moser, James Early, and Ron Gross. Sun Edison bills itself as the largest global renewable energy development company, and it is getting smaller by the day. Shares down more than 60 percent this week, James. There's a lot going on, and on top of all of that, the U.S. Justice Department came knocking on their door with a subpoena. You know, Chris, I had 50 cents in my pocket today, and I debated between buying some chips from the vending machine or a share of Sun Edison. This is just a classic example of a company that's stuffed way too much in its mouth and then couldn't digest it, had to spit some out and whatever else happened.

So, I mean, these guys hide debt. They're getting sued after a failed acquisition. DOJ investigation, CFO resigned. Everything is bad about this company. It's just an obvious example. You don't have an unlimited runway in renewable energy no matter how feel good of a thing you're doing. You have to control yourself. and they didn't. So the fact that the stock has dropped from the mid-30s to 50 cents a share in six months,

you don't look at that and think, ooh, maybe I'll take a flyer. Ron, I got to ask Ron. It does seem like a Ron kind of a stock. I would like to do like a liquidation analysis or a balance sheet analysis or just take a quick look at tangible book value. And where are we in relation to the stock price? Ron, if they're already, you know much more about this than I do. If they're already entering debtor and possession financing, isn't that? I mean, if you're an equity holder, you're probably going to get wiped out right. I didn't realize we were at that point. You know, Einhorn owns 7% himself and Greenlight owns 4%.

How's that working out? Apparently not very well. McCormick's first quarter profits rose 32%. The Spice Maker also raised guidance for the full fiscal year. They're getting it done, Jason. They are. The surprise here is that we're not surprised. It's just more of the same from this company.

They've done a wonderful job through the years of just grooming and developing this brand that has just owned an entire aisle in virtually every grocery store you set foot in. And I don't see that changing. I mean, they have just done a tremendous job in building that brand over time, and consumers buy it almost without even thinking about it anymore. I know I certainly do, and I think I'd be willing to bet that probably every homeowner has at least one McCormick product in their pantry somewhere. Just a very funny quote from the call, you wonder why they're doing so well.

Well, here's the money quote right here. Management says, quote, consumer demand for flavor is strong and on the rise, end quote. Because, I mean, who doesn't love flavor, right? We all love little flavor. And a big driver for this company continues to be what they call the comprehensive continuous improvement program, which is just code for... Whoever made that slogan got paid way too much. I'm telling you that. It's code for we're constantly focusing on how to cut costs and be as efficient as possible. You look at the top line growth versus the bottom line growth of this company.

It's working because they remain to grow. They remain very, very profitable, and I think that continues. I just got to say, every time I see McCormack. I feel like an idiot because years ago, this was an income investor recommendation. It made good returns, and then I sold. And it's just gone up, up. It's up 240% in 2009. This is an example of finding a best-to-breed stock and just sticking with it. Almost regardless of valuation.

I don't disagree at all. This is a good example of that. Shares of Lulu Lemon, Athletica, up 12% this week after our fourth quarter profits came in higher than expected. Nice end of the fiscal year, Ron. Yeah, they had a good year. This is a company that has had a checkered past on a number of fronts. from product to management. But things are going well now. So the holiday season was very strong. Same star sales up 5%. If you exclude currency, with profit up 6%. Guidance was actually a little

bit weak, but the stock seemed to shrug that off and was strong. They want online sales to grow to a quarter of revenue by 2020. That's up from about 20% now. So the company is executing well and expanding its kind of product offerings as well. All right. Let's get to the stocks on our radar this week. We'll bring in our man, Steve in from the other side of the glass to hit you with a question. Jason, Moser, you're up first. What are you looking at? Sure. It's an MDP holding we have today, Boston Beer, ticker S-A-M. And I was reading this week a conference called the Meeting of the Maltz. I just love that name. But Dick Yengling,

Jim Cook, and Ken Grossman, the founders of Yingling Brewery, Boston Beer, and Sierra Nevada. We're talking a lot about the saturation in the craft brew market today. And I think a lot of people aren't really taking a long enough view here in that a lot of these breweries are very small. They are not built to last. And the venture capital that's investing a lot of money in them, well, those funds have finite lives as well. At some point, they're going to be wanting to realize returns on those investments. Boston beer has a very good competitive advantage, not only the brand, but the distribution and the production facilities it has today, not to mention a very smart leader in Jim Cook. So I think this is a business we plan on holding

on for a long time in NDP. Steve, question about Boston beer? You have a favorite bad beer. Boston beer is a good one. You have a favorite bad one. You're talking about just your regular old kind of a mass brew. You bet. You know, I was in the golf business a lifetime ago. Greenville, South Carolina, it was all about the Silver Bullets. Steve Coors life. James Early, what are you looking at?

I'm going with a stock called Omnicom. This is an income investor recommendation. And this is a stock that I just, I've tried hard to get people to love. It's just tough because it's sort of like steak it at a seafood restaurant. It's a dividend stock, but it's an advertising company. It's a company that the TV show called Mad Men was based on. It has great margin, great profits, 40-something percent return on equity. I'm looking at the numbers right now. 2.4 percent yield isn't huge. The stock is up 10 percent this year. I think it's an overlooked dividend stock just because it's in a weird industry. And the ticker? OMC. Steve? If I were a layperson, how would I begin to make sense of the advertising industry

and what makes a good business in that space? It's cyclical. Obviously, talent is what's what's useful, but this company has a bunch of different agencies so they can serve competing businesses. Normally, if you're Coke and I'm Pepsi, we wouldn't go to the same agency because of conflict of interest. But if one parent company has many different sub-agencies, then they can do that. Omnicom does. That's part of their business model. Ron Gross, what are you looking at? Steve, I've got to go back to Perry Ellis, which I know you know well. P-E-R-Y. They are quietly becoming a stronger business under the radar as they execute on their strategic plan. They report fourth quarter results next week. Stocks currently trading at a

PE of 10 looks very undervalued. Steve? How does Perry Ellis get away from being the T.J. Max brand that we have come to love? I don't know if they need to necessarily get away from it. They just need to get the right merchandise at the right price points into the stores. I think if they stick to their bread and butter, then sales will grow in profits along with them. What do you like, Steve? I'm going with Omnicon. Is that it, James? It is, Steve. Thank you so much. I must have sold it well. Yeah. I'm in. All right, guys. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Chris. ESPN's Tony Cornheiser says he is quite simply one of the best sports writers in America. Barry's Verluga is next. This is Motley Full Money. Welcome back to Motley Fool Money. I'm Chris Hill. Opening days this weekend, so to talk through the business of baseball and more, we turn to Barry's Verluga. He's the National Baseball writer for the Washington Post, author of the fabulous book, The Grind Inside Baseball's Endless Season.

And he joins me now from across the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Barry, thanks for coming back on the show. Chris, thanks for having me. Major League Baseball is a $9 billion industry, and at least on the surface, it looks like there's good money being made by the players and the teams and the networks. When you look at the business of baseball,

does it look healthy, or do you have questions about its health? I really don't. I mean, I think that there's a popular narrative, and actually now I think the revenues are up to $9.5 billion, pushing forward all the time. I think there's kind of a popular narrative. We get to the World Series every year, and if it's, you know, the Royals are in it, and there's kind of small market teams, and it's not the Yankees and the Red Sox and the postseason all the time

that these national TV ratings are not peaking, and, oh, they're the lowest since this or that, and the All-Star Game ratings aren't what they used to be. It's not the midsummer classic that everybody kind of, you know, marked their summer around. It really can take on the kind of vibe of a dying sport. And, of course, you know, they've got to be aware of their demographics and aware of what's largely an aging fan base and try to figure out ways to get younger people playing the game and engaged in the game and, you know, kind of trying to wake up and figure out what the score was last night and be really involved. But if you look at it as 30 individual businesses, these businesses are really doing quite well.

A lot of the money comes in through the local television contracts, and that business is booming. The Royals are a great example. They, you know, their attendance skyrocketed last year. Attendance across the majors was almost 75 million people last year. it's the seventh highest, seventh-th-most attendance of any year in Major League history, and all of those years have come since 2005. So this is a year in which a new collective bargaining agreement expires, or a new one will be negotiated because the current one expires at the end of the 2016 season,

and I think the general sense, and you can never, you know, bank on anything in one of these labor negotiations, but the general sense is that both sides know they've got a pretty good thing going, and the players are making lots of money, the owners are making money, and there's not sort of a line in the sand. You know, we're at a tipping point. We need a salary cap or we need more than a luxury tax. There's really kind of a – there are going to be some sticking points, but I think in general the attitude is we've got something good here.

Let's keep it going. We are, however, starting to see standoffs between television networks and the cable providers, not on the next, national level yet, but we have seen it in cities like Houston and L.A. and now New York City, where Comcast has blocked out the channel that airs the Yankee games. And it does seem like if things are at the moment good between the owners and the players, maybe behind the scenes, things are getting a little chippy in terms of the television deals. And I think that's what we're going to see in surely the next decade, but maybe even more in the near term. You know, a lot of

these rights fees were signed, or these deals for these huge, you know, rights fees were signed in an era before we had the idea that, oh, yeah, we are going to watch games on our phone, and we do want it to travel with us. And, you know, the days of bundling ESPN and other sports properties into these huge cable television packages and charging a couple hundred hundred dollars a month for your service at home. It seems like the consumer is kind of running out of patience with that. And it'll be really interesting to see, you know, as we go forward and so many things, you know, from the Olympics to baseball to the NCAA basketball tournament are fueled by these giant TV contracts,

you know, is that model sustainable anymore as viewers' habits change, as the networks become less popular or less, you know, viewers become less dependent on them because they can get content from so many different ways. I think that's a kind of a very large picture view of not just major league baseball and their TV issues, but sports TV issues as a whole. One of the biggest stories of the preseason had less to do with baseball and more to do with international politics with President Obama going down to Cuba and taking in a game.

What do you think the president's move towards normalization of relations with Cuba means for the business of Major League Baseball? Well, I think it's interesting on a couple levels. One, it's clear that baseball is going to be at, front and center of any sort of diplomatic negotiations between the two countries. It's something that has a deep history with both countries and is really, you know, in a lot ways, more interesting and sexier as something to put out in front of a diplomatic negotiation than, say, you know, sugarcane trade or something like that. So I think there was a lot of pomp and circumstance

around Obama not only going to Havana and going to Cuba, but to sitting in that. that stadium for nine innings between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Cuban national team. But if you talk to scouts and executives around Major League Baseball, even if relations with Cuba are normalized and we're a long way from that, you know, actually happening, and the impact on the major leagues over the next year, two years, five years doesn't seem like it's going to be that great. Most of the talent, most of the top-level talent, Yacio Pueig and Jose Brayu and Jose Fernandez, have, and Yonis, Cepidus, they have already defected, and they're already here, and there are, in fact, more than 100 other players over the last several years

who have defected and done the very harrowing journey and, you know, had to take a raft or whatever to get to the United States and be scouted. A lot of them won't even make it to the majors. Some of them won't be signed. And what's left behind in Cuba is an aging national team, a lessened-out talent base. It would be good for the Cuban player to have normalized relations, and it would be great to have a safer path

in a more normal way to get into the American baseball system. But from baseball's perspective, if relations are normalized, you're not going to look at, you know, 15 or 20 Yasiel Puegs coming over in the first two years. It'll be much thinner talent flow than that. You're listening to Motley Full Money talking with Berries for Luga from the Washington Post. Last time you're on the show, one of the things we talked about was how the NFL is able to bring in casual fans in a way that's harder for baseball to do. as we get set to kick off the 2016 season, what is a storyline that you're watching that you think casual baseball fans

might find pretty compelling? Well, I think, you know, I think every, even casual fan, the kind of frustration that can define a city or define a region's attitude. I grew up in New England, and of course, for generations, you know, all New England,

England had known as disappointment and frustration. And so that turns it to the Chicago Cubs this year who haven't won a World Series since 1908 or 108 years removed from that. And, you know, very living Cubs fans don't know that euphoria. So it's a very on-the-field kind of storyline, but I think it's one that draws in people who aren't day-to-day baseball fans because the Cubs have a very good team. You could argue they have the best organization in baseball right now. And if they're around in October, those national TV ratings we were talking about that kind of flag annually, man, a lot of people will be tuning in because, you know, Chicago would be kind of a different city if the Cubs ended up winning a World Series.

One of the things you wrote on Twitter recently was, I just made playoff predictions that did not include the St. Louis Cardinals. I may not sleep well for six months. I'm curious about what your predictions are, but first, why do you think baseball success is so hard to predict? Sports Illustrated came out with their annual issue where they're previewing the season, and part of them picking the winner included an admission on the part of Sports Illustrated,

a venerable publication that in the last 20 years, they've been correct precisely once. Well, I think a couple of reasons. One, when you're predicting success, and I don't think it's as hard to predict success over the course of 162 game season, there are variables, of course, variables in performance and almost more importantly, variables in health. But, you know, the truth comes out over 162 games, and it's hard to hide from the truth. It's hard to play above your level by such a significant factor that, turning an 80 game winner into a hundred game winner just simply doesn't happen in the way that

an NFL team who's, you know, probably a seven and nine team ends up winning three extra games and, you know, in whatever circumstances and all of a sudden could win 10 games and be a division champion. So I think it's a little bit easier, and I failed at this many times, but I think it's a little bit easier to predict success over the regular season. But now that the playoffs are expanded, and they're not just expanded to three division champions and a wildcard team, but they now have two wildcard teams and playing that single game, elimination game in it to start October. That tournament is really, really difficult to pick. The San Francisco Giants have won three World Series since 2010, and going into each of those post seasons, no scout or executive

would have said, you've got to watch the Giants. They're the clear favorite here. So, you know, talked to the 116 wins Seattle Mariners of several, several years ago, who lost in the first round. You know, the Cardinals have had the Cardinals won 100 games last year and had the best record in baseball and the Cubs beat them in four games in the Division Series. Once you get to October, it's best to not make predictions, but to sit back and enjoy it because you really have no idea what's going to happen. Who'd you pick? I pick the Astros. I picked the Astros because I really feel like they're on the rise. They have the reigning American League's I Young Award winner in Dallas

Keikl, who had a breakout year last year. But I also think they have a much deeper rotation than they had last year. And you talk about something that could draw in fans who might not be traditional fans. They have one of the best young players in the game in their shortstop, Carlos Correa, who for the first time will play a full season this year. And he certainly looks like the kind of player that not only can you build a front. franchise around and build a lineup around and build a team around. But really, you can build a fan base around because he's charismatic and funny and fun and he plays with Flair. And they have a

really good organization. They have a very good major league team. I went with the Astros. Our producer, Matt Greer, is a proud native of Houston and you've made him very, very happy. Coming up, more with Barry's Verluga, including a round of buy-seller hold. Stay right here. This is Motley Full Money. Nothing like the view from the cheats. Welcome back to Motley Full Money. I'm Chris Hill talking with Washington Post writer Barry's Verluga. Before we wrap up, looking ahead of the summer, you mentioned the Olympics.

You're heading to Rio? Indeed. You've covered the Olympics before. You're in Athens in 2004, Beijing, London. So you're an old pro at this. What do you like to cover? If your editor comes to you and says, you get your pick, what is the summer Olympic? sport that is the most fun for you to be at. Well, I'm a little biased in this because, as you said,

my first Olympics was in 2004, and that was Michael Phelps' first Olympics. And we actually had a reporter assigned for the full year just to cover Phelps. And I was kind of younger person, the low person on the totem pole, and I got swimming, but everything but Phelps. So I kind of picked at the other storylines there. And Americans are always strong in swimming. And swimmers are, for the most part, pretty bright analytical thinkers. They're fun to interview. They're pretty thoughtful.

So I've kind of gotten sucked in by swimming. I then did cover Phelps and his eight golds at Beijing. And I just like the characters. I'm going to be, so I'll be at the trials in Omaha in June and into July. And then so, but that's kind of a, it might sound nichey. kind of a personal preference. I kind of like and know the storylines there, and I think it's fun. I also think one great thing about covering the Olympics is whenever you're done with kind of whatever your beat assignment is for those two and a half weeks, if the swim may will last

eight days, you're going to stumble into some story. You have no idea about, and you don't have any idea what these athletes have been through and who they are and how they got there and what comes out in their performance and telling those stories, whether they're about, you know, judo or rolling or whatever. It doesn't really matter the sport. The fun part about being at the Olympics is packing up at the end of it and being like, wow, I never saw that coming and that was super, super fun. All right. We will wrap up with a round of buy-seller hold. This is baseball's most valuable team with an estimated value of nearly three and a half billion dollars. Buy seller hold the New York Yankees? I mean, there's no, there's almost no better brand in sports.

And just being at their spring complex and watching fans walk around this kind of, you know, place at the side of a highway in Tampa and just soak in history, that can't be replicated. So I buy there. This spectator event first appeared on national television. in October of 1981, so it's a bit long in the tooth. Buy sell or hold the wave. Oh, sell hard. Sell now and sell yesterday. I mean, it's that you talk about, if you want to list like five things that are the definition of tired, there's a challenge you to come up with a list that doesn't include the wave. He's a superstar whose career has been tainted by his use of illegal performance enhancing drugs. Buy sell or hold Alex Rodriguez being elected to the

baseball Hall of Fame? I sell it, not necessarily because I believe that he shouldn't be there. I think we are into the grayest of gray areas on how these guys should be treated, and I think it's naive to think that there isn't somebody who's already been elected or who will be elected, who, you know, relied pretty heavily on performance-enhancing drugs and just weren't either stupid enough to get caught or were just incredibly lucky not to get caught. But I think the record shows the recent record, you know, whether it be with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens and Mark McGuire or whoever, that guys who are known users of PEDs have very little chance to get into the Hall of Fame. So I'll sell on Arod.

And finally, it's been associated with the game since 1908 when it was immortalized in song. Buy seller hold? Cracker Jack. I hold it, definitely. I mean, I... Really? Or buy it. I mean, I... You got to buy Cracker Jack. Yeah. I mean, yeah, what am I going to do? Sit in the stands and just watch other people eat it. Yeah, I'll buy it. I mean, unless you're a dentist, who doesn't like Cracker Jack?

What else happened in 1908? I mean, that was the Cubs World Series here, right? So something's got to turn around for one of those. Yeah, I like Cracker Jack, and I even like the little prizes. So I'm fine with buying that. The Grind Inside Baseball's Endless Season is out in paperback now. It is available everywhere. It's the perfect book for any baseball fans. so pick up a copy. Berries Verlugo. Thanks so much for being here. Chris, I really appreciate it. Before we wrap up this week, Steve Broido,

I've got to bring you in here, man. You are a proud son of Chicago. A lot of people, including our guest this week, predicting a pretty nice year for your Chicago clubs. You've got to be excited about this. Of course. Everyone loves the Cubbies. Everyone? Everybody. Now, as I understand Chicago, there are people who are Cubs fans. There are people who are White Sox fans and never the Twain shall meet.

Correct. Did you grow up a Cubs fan? I really didn't like baseball very much, but if I had to pick one, it would have been the Cubs. Fair enough. Fair enough. By the way, something crossed my desk this week. You know about Comic-Con? Yes. The big event out in California?

I do. Can I interest you in brunch con? because apparently in August, in Los Angeles, there's going to be a brunch convention. I think that sounds very interesting to me, indeed. The brunch convention. So is it like tasting, or is it just a... There's going to be all kinds of tastings. There's going to be something called the hangover lounge.

I'm excited about this. I think it sounds good. We should pack up the foolmobile and take a trip. All right. That's going to do it for this week's edition of Motley Fool Money. Our engineer is Steve Broido. Our producer is Matt Greer. I'm Chris Hill.

Thanks for listening. we'll see you next week.