The Best One Yet - 🧢 “Bronx Buyout” — The Yankees’ PE sale. Domino’s pizza messiah. Spotify’s AI ad-skipper. +Harry Potter WiFi

Episode Date: August 12, 2026

The NY Yanks sold part of the team to Apollo PE… because only 1 thing in sports is sacred.Domino’s created its 1st single-serve pizza… because 43% of meals are now solo.Spotify is playing good cop to musicians, bad cop to podcasters… because of slop.Plus, Harry Potter might have caused your internet outage today (actually, that was Dobby).$DPZ $APO $SPOTGrab your Tickets to the IPO Tour: Our In-Person OfferingSan Francisco 9/23: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1C0064AFB5F688BDBoston 10/14: https://tickets.citywinery.com/event/tboy-the-ipo-tour-in-person-offering-8cdhupSeattle 11/4 (21+): https://www.axs.com/events/1446394/the-best-one-yet-ticketsNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today’s top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Wednesday, Wednesday, August 12th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Jack is flying out for a photo shoot tomorrow. This is a big deal. We're becoming models, Yetis. Yeah, it is our final week of daily shows before our annual two-week summer vacation. But we've got a lot going on right now, Jack. Before we start our vacation, we've been asked to become the faces of a very cool brand. It is not an AI company. We promise you that one. We can't share the name right now, but we have a photo shoot this week. We're going to be the spokespeople for a fashion icon. We shaved and we showered. I've been practicing my blue steel all week. We'll tell you more soon. But in the meantime, Jack, we got three fantastic stories from the funnest place in finance.

What do we got on the pod? For our first story, the pizza industry is plummeting right now because 43% of restaurant food is eaten alone. But Domino's has a plan to save it, and this one is personal. our second story. Spotify just made two huge announcements. One of them is for musicians and it's good. And the other one is for podcasters and it's bad. And our third and final story, we're calling it the Bronx bomber buyout. The New York Yankees are selling part of the team to Wall Street, which leaves just one thing left in sports that is not for sale. And we'll tell you what it is. But besties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Oh, hair and makeup, love the mix, Jack,

perfect mix today. If your internet goes out today, then we know who you should blame. Harry Potter. More specifically, Harry Potter superfans. Because get this, a $580 million internet cable in the United Kingdom was just blocked by protesters. And why was that cable blocked, Jack? Because the cable went through the fictional grave of a fictional Harry Potter character. Dobby. That's right. The Dobby. Moment of silence for Dobby. Jack, can you just grab your Nimbus 2000 and sprinkle on some context for us over there? Harry Potter in the Deathly Hallows, aka Book 7. A spoiler, doesn't end well for Dobby, the beloved house elf in that book. In the movie version of this book, that little guy was laid to rest on freshwater beach in Wales.

The end of the seventh movie, guaranteed dear Jerker Yetis. Only time, actually, that's not true. It's one of the times I cried in the Harry Potter series. So, when the National Electric Grid of Ireland announced on the BBC the location of their new cable went right through that beach, then the fans sent owls to the CEO. Oh. Wands began spontaneously erupting in anger across the Wizardverse. Voldemort was outraged and internet cable was going through Dobby's old grave. Harry Potter fans left so many voicemails, the cable company actually changed their plans.

Expelleramus. Nick, it's Expelearmus. Sorry, Jack, I never got my degree over at Hogwarts. But in the meantime, we're talking about a fake character in a fake story and a real beach with a real moved cable. Fans actually visit that beach. There's a makeshift grave for Dobby Nick. So, the construction of a internet cable would have been desecration to that grave. And now the world's newest internet cable is going around Dobby's grave.

You mean fake grave jackets. If Hogwarts had a business school, they would teach this as a case study. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Harry Potter and the deathly detour. Harry Potter and the cable of secrets. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Wi-Fi substation resistance. What is that accent, Nick? You really got to work under Harry Potter.

game. Were you sleeping in Snape's class, Jack? Professor Snake, this guy's been snoozing. All right, ladies, let's cancel the Imperious Carson in our three stories. Gryffindor! Six points on sit him, Jack. That's the starting half, by now. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an norm. Jack Nick, that's it. I don't even think they need to practice. 50% That's a fat tip.

Tea boy city on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, the pizza industry is plummeting right now. But Domino's has one small idea to save it. And actually, it's huge.

Because in this economy, earmuffs to all the toddlers listening. No one is sharing. And we've got the data to prove it. Oh, besties, pour one out for the mariner. No, no, no, don't pour it out. That stuff's expensive. Yet he's the biggest surprise victim of the inflation situation is pizza. Because prices for cheese, flour, tomatoes, olive oil, they've all been popping over the last few years.

And have you seen the delivery fees? The result is a pizza apocalypse. The fee fees, pop a John stock, it's down 80% from its all-time high. Pizza Hut was just sold last month at a discount price of $2.7 billion. Oh, little Caesars? More like tiny Cesar. From 2010 to 2020, Domino's stock was one of the best on the market. It surged by 3,000%.

But Domino's streak of 113 straight quarters of growth is finally over. It's long over. And even local pizza joints are struggling right now. In this economy, you're downgrading to frozen pizza from the grocery aisle. Tombstone, they put a tombstone on your local spot. And Ann Arbor-based Domino's has a small idea to turn it around that could be huge. Behold the single pan pie. rectangular single mini pie, socially acceptable for solo diners.

Cooked in their own Detroit-style can. They're called the domino because they're shaped, you know, like the logo of the company. So this is a minivation, a mini-innovation with big potential. Pizza huts positioning this, like it came up with the pizza messiah. But pause the pod, they haven't found the pizza messiah. Don't we already have what they've just introduced? Like, Jack, did Domino's just claim to invent the slice? I think they did.

Because this six-by-six-inch pizza pie that they just introduced, that's a slice of like your grandma's always made it. Totally. Basically, Domino's just zucked my nana. So yet he's at first, it's easy to make fun of this innovation. But below the surface, below the cheese, there's a deeper economic strategy here. Because Bessie's at a macro level, we're in the middle of a solo dining surge.

43% of restaurant meals were eaten alone in the last year, according to Sarkana, which is up from around 20% just 10 years ago. The demographics explain it. Smaller families, more of us are working from home. We're also isolated with our phones on TikTok, TikTok or Netflix and chilling. Are you watching Ted Lassau for the fifth time or you host in a family reunion dinner, Jack? You're probably watching Ted Lassow for the fifth time. But pizza, pizza, Yetis, that is the ultimate group food. It serves a bunch of people at a low cost,

something we used to love back in the day before phones. So, this personal pizza from Domino's, it's for not sharing. It's for that 43% who are dined in solo right now. But it's still a profit puppy, because while a regular pizza for two people's 13 bucks, this personal pie is $27, so it's the same profit margin. Add it all up, it's the same profit margin. But this isn't just for the 43% who dine alone. Right. It's also for the 57% who dined together, but don't want to argue. Yeah, to quote that nana jack, chef's guess. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Domino's? Your direct competition isn't necessarily the correct competition. Yetie's quick question for you. Who is Domino's biggest competitor?

Is it Pizza Hut or is it John's Pizza down in the West Village of Manhattan? Neither of those, Nick. No. The biggest pizza competition is a sandwich, a burrito, or a smash burger. Exactly, because pizza's direct competition is groups of people who don't want to share. When ordering from a burger spot, everyone can order their own thing. But pizza spots uniquely require that everyone compromise. Sorry, one second, I'm taking orders here.

I want the meaty supreme. My wife wants the pesto artichoke. And, oh, Jack, the kids want cheese. They just want cheese. Someone's not going to be happy based on those preferences, Nick. So Domino's individual pizza, it's really an option for people who don't want to share. They want to control their own ordering destiny. It's for selfish people.

You see, Domino's personal pizza, it is not meant to compete with pizza. Those slice shops, they already exist if you want to get one of those. It's to compete with Chipotle, McDonald's, sweet cream, places where everyone orders their own thing. Because, Bestie, sometimes your direct competition ain't necessarily the correct competition. For our second stories, Spotify just announced good guy and bad guy news in the same week on AI, on music, and on podcasts. Because we're chronicling the war on slop. Oh, the slop wars. Besties on Monday, the podcast world had a, like a very minor heart attack, we should tell you. That was news that Spotify was testing a skip ahead button. Skip ahead of what, Jack?

Ads. Oh, ads. That's how the podcast industry is monetized. With Adam, ain't got no business model. Now, we should clarify, Spotify says that this skip ahead button, they're only testing the feature, and there's no guarantee it gets rolled out broadly. And only Spotify premium users have this opportunity to skip ads with one single tap. And to be fair, users probably love the idea of this button. I mean, who wants to listen to ads? Oh yeah, by the way, use code T-boy at the end for checkout and tell them the jack-in-the-ex-seller.

Well, the answer, podcasters want you to listen to ads because it's their revenue source. Which is why this next detail about the Spotify news kind of feels unfair. Spotify's skip button? it's only for ads that Spotify doesn't sell itself. That's right. Spotify sold ads are unskippable, baby. So Spotify is preserving its own ability to make money on podcasts, but hurting non-Spotify show's ability to make money. Yeah, like Jack, let's say you're deep in Esther Perel's Therapy podcast brought to you by Spotify.

You can't skip those ads right now. But you could with the best one yet because we're not a Spotify podcast. But either way, besties, this new feature follows a trend, started by the web browser and continued with YouTube. Ad blockers badly hurt web publishers, the skip ad button in YouTube hurt TV. So, yadies, we'll see what happens with this whole skip ad button drama. But what we find more fascinating is the news of Spotify outing AI. Because Spotify is becoming an AI bouncer.

If you're a robot, Spotify wants to see some ID. They announced it Tuesday, a new label for AI artists. Get ready for it. Here's what Spotify said. Listeners have told us they don't like seeing an artist's profile that seems human, only to find out that persona is actually AI. Nothing more awkward when you're humming a soul. song for the 50th time and realize a computer came up with the entire thing. So first, Spotify will

let AI accounts self-identify, giving them an AI persona badge everyone on Spotify can see. And if that AI account does not self-identified, then Spotify will slap a likely AI badge on him and give them a chance to appeal. And to be clear, when we say if the AI account doesn't self-identify, we're talking about the human in charge of the AI account. For now. So I'm out of up, Jack, and now we're getting three new labels on Spotify. The AI label, the likely AI label, and the pre-existing verified checkmark, there's always been. It's like the cop and McLeodin' Spotify, they want to see some ID. But even bigger news from Spotify is that they won't recommend music from AI artists in their

playlist or their algorithmic recommendations. And that's a big deal. Unless you opt in because you do want to hear a Robo Duolipa AI dupe. It surprised us that Spotify won't recommend AI music because they have a financial incentive to do so. Remember, Bestie, Spotify has to send 70% of music revenue to human musicians. They don't have to send anything to the AI music. I want.

So it's a lot more profitable for Spotify to fill your playlists with Robo duolipa than real-life dual-lepa. But Spotify's decision to suppress AI music in the Algo is another sign of the anti-AI hate wave, which just might be the next song of Duolipa. Or Robo-Dulepa. Are you? How old are you again, Jack? Old enough to party.

Exactly. So Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at Spotify, the AI Bouncer? It's the big content question of the day. clean up slop or ban it altogether. Yeties, the past three weeks, a whole bunch of platforms have taken action in response to the flood of AI slop. Get this. Substack added an AI detector to help you spot newsletters written by nobody. YouTube CEO, arguably the most powerful person in content, said the top 2026 priority is managing AI slop.

While Reddit is battling a bunch of inauthentic AstroTurf campaigns where people push products to trick AI models into recommending them. See, it's AstroTurf. And we told you this week about... LinkedIn giving users a sounds like AI slop button to snitch on your AI buddies. But Nick, until recently, LinkedIn had a rewrite with AI button to encourage you to use AI. So Jack, I guess this conundrum kind of reveals the fine balance going on in the content wars right now. The platforms believe AI generated content is an opportunity because more content, there's more for them to monetize. But if things get too sloppy, then you start to feel sick consuming it and users leave the platform.

So the content question every platform is dealing with right now, clean up slop or base What do you think besties drop an answer in the comments and then we'll hit a commercial break, which you may or may not be able to skip. Well, you can either skip it with one button or with two buttons. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, the Steinbrenner family just sold a piece of the New York Yankees to a private equity firm. It shows that nothing is sacred in sports except the World Cup.

Yeties, let's start with Apollo Global Management. They're what Charles Dickens would call a private equity firm. Because it has great expectations for the New York Yankees, whose 17 years without a title have fallen on hard times. Apollo, headquartered in the famous skyscraper overlooking Seltra Park, is actually listed right downtown. Oh, Jack, one more, the New York Yankees can't Oliver twist out of this one. And Apollo's NYS-E-listed stock rose 6% Tuesday on news they might get a World Series ring this October.

That's right, because Apollo now owns the New York Yankees. Well, part of the Yankees. Because to sprinkle on some context, Yetis, George Steinbrenner bought the Yankees in 1973 for guess what price, Nick? I'm going to go with, I would think, billions, but it's not billions. Not even hundreds of millions. $10 million is how much the Yankees sold for in 1973. Boomer's had it so easy. But now the Yankees are worth $8.2 billion bucks.

Jack, could you run the math on the whiteboard for us, please? That is an ROI for the Steinbrenner family of 82,000 percent. ROI, that's return on infielder's. Looking at you, Louis Soho. Well, the Yankees have won seven World Series in the Steinbrenner era, and George passed away, so his son, Hal, is now in charge. But believe it or not, Hal Steinbrenner is actually poor on cash these days. He owns the most valuable team in baseball and the number 10 most valuable team in all of sports.

And yet, that $8.2 billion, it's tied up in the pinstripes. And he might not even have any cash flow. Given the Yankees' huge payroll, they might not be profitable. And if the Yankees ain't profitable, that would be incredible. Oh, yeah. I mean, one Yankee fan posted on a blog that he counted ads from 150 different companies at Yankee Stadium this season. As New Yorker, we can tell you there's no limit to the commercialization of the New York Yankees sponsored by Jase. They have Audi, Ford, and Toyota as sponsors inside the stadium.

Jack, the Yankees have 15 different alcohol companies as sponsors inside the stadium. Yeah, you can't say the official alcohol of the Yankees, because there's 15 of the those. And yet the New York Yankees still probably ain't profitable. Yeah, this time burners don't share their financials, but they do share their payroll, which is enormous. And Jay-Z made a Yankee hat more famous than a Yankee can, but he did pay the Yankees $35 for that hatjack. So due to the Yankees lack of profitability and lack of cash, they've been looking for a man in finance. Six-five, Blue Eyes, Trust Fund. Well, perfect diamond, Jack, because that happens to literally be every employee at the Apollo private equity firm. And here's the news. House time runner, this

splitting off a percent of the company and selling it to Apollo. That's right, Apollo is giving the Yankees $2.6 billion. Part of that is a loan. The other part is the purchase of New York Yankees' equity. Now, we don't know how much of it is equity, but Major League Baseball limits minority owners to 15% of the business. Now, this Yankee fan badly wishes that the Yankees would take that finance money, build a time machine with it,

and not demolish the old Yankee Stadium, something I've never forgiven them for. Nothing like when your butt sticks to the seat because the peanuts the other person was spitting on them. You know that. I love that. But instead, you know the Yankees are going to use this money to expand their Yankees Empire. For example, the Yankees own the New York City Football Club. They're trying to build a new stadium for that soccer team instead of using Yankee Stadium for their games.

The Yankees are also co-owners of A.C. Milan randomly. And we'll probably buy another soccer club with these new billions of dollars. Oh, and Jack, there's Yes Network, which needs better streaming technology, and some of this $2.6 billion will go to the engineers to build that. And they'll probably add an official AI of the Bronx bombers and try to get some of that Sam Alman money. Yeah, the New York Yankees, they just went full Jorge Posada on private equity. But this is interesting, Nick. A finance titan buys a stake in an iconic sports institution.

Because, Jack, this week, that did happen. Last week, the same deal fell apart. Aha. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies going Bernie Williams on the bank and over at the New York Yankees? Only one thing in sports is not for sale. Yeties, after FIFA obliterated revenue records with America's super Super-sized World Cup this summer, FIFA wanted more.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino organized a secret deal with JPMorgan Chase and Thrive Capital. And here was the deal. Sell 20% of FIFA's soccer organization to American finance to privatize and for-profitize this beautiful game. But last week, the soccer federations of the Americas, Europe, and Asia all revolted and killed the deal. The deal died. Besties, any modern sports fan knows that in the fight between tradition and profits, tradition loses. Non-profit American institutions, they've sold out. Yeah, like the big university football programs.

And for-profit sporting institutions, they've sold out too. Like our New York Yankees. So have timeless traditions, like no ads on baseball uniforms, or the Yankees having a no-facial here rule. Yeah, the Jack, that one's shockingly not sponsored by Gillette. Can't believe that. Huge missed opportunity, Hal Steinbrenner. But bestie, still, this FIFA finance deal that got killed last week,

it now looks like the outlier. Apparently, the one thing sacred in sports is the international governing body of the world's biggest sport. FIFA. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Saviche Wednesday? Domino's individual-sized pizza is for solo diners and diners who just don't want to share.

Selfish people, because the direct competition is not necessarily the correct competition. For our second story, Spotify acted like the bad guy in podcasting by making ads incredibly easy to skip and the good guy in music by labeling AI. The big content question, clean up the slop or ban it. third and final story is the New York Yankees. They're now minority owned by Apollo, a publicly traded PE firm. It's proof that the only thing in sports not for sale is, shockingly, FIFA. But Yetis,

this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need to know today. First, Nvidia has assembled the Avengers of American Finance for a giant $500 billion deal. Invita doesn't want to build all its own data centers with its own money, so it's tapping Wall Street. Apollo, Black Rock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, KKR, they're all pit, pitiful. in for this thing. Every big money Wall Street firm wants in on the one thing growing this economy right now, data centers. And second, Bumble is going to pull a 180 and start letting men make the first move these days. For context, Whitney Wolf heard announced that this would happen two years ago. It was big news then. We covered it on the pot. Covered it on the pot. But now it's finally happening,

so it's big news again that is real. But the reason is interesting. Women say that men who don't make the first move give low effort responses, which, come on, guys, we're better than that. 60% from the last year because sometimes true love requires change. And finally, the New York Post is launching a chatbot named Hamilton. Based on the New York Post reporting and it's named after the founder of that paper, Ali Hamilton. That's right. There is a lyric in the musical stating that Hamilton is the founder of the New York Post. Or Jack, as this new chatbot would have said back then.

Aaron Bird, VP blasts Hamilton in New Jersey Duel. All caps. All caps. Now time for the best fact. Yeah, this one sent in by Lloyd Broughtman Legendary Yeti from Philadelphia. There is a wonderful list of inventions that haven't needed to change since the invention happens. Yeah, the kind of stuff that we got right the first time, Jack. Like the paperclip, the spoon, the bicycle.

They've all barely changed since being invented. Including the windshield wiper. But did you know that the windshield wiper was invented by a woman who got rejected by everyone? In 1903, an Alabama entrepreneur named Mary Anderson was riding in a New York City street car that was blinded by a blizzard. Now, back then, the driver had to stick their head out the window if there was any kind of precipitation happening. So she designed a rubber blade and a mechanical wiping handle to wipe the window. Voila, the first windshield wiper patent was granted to marry. She didn't make money off it, though, because every car company rejected the idea. But eventually, after her patent expired, unfortunately,

Cadillac was the first to make the windshield wiper standard. Mary Anderson, she probably saved a million lives by making cars safer. Yetis, you look fantastic for Cevice Wednesday. Jack, you are glowing out there. And if anyone has a major piece of infrastructure, they would like to move because of a Harry Potter scene. Please speak now and let us know in the comments. It's pronounced diagonali.

All right, Jack, get on that airplane. Can't wait to see it at the photo shoot. This is going to be fun. Yeties, Nick and I. We'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. And before we go, a happy birthday to Tam Lee. Legendary Yeti down in Austin, celebrate him with her puppy, Dohoo.

And happy birthday to Diego and Camilla Lester. Twins, both turn in 8 years old in Washington. And Andy and Ken Hay, a father-son with the same birthday, are celebrating in Sin City, Cincinnati. Happy birthday to Emily Brinkman in Boston. And Mia Spraer from lovely Los Angeles has turned 26 on the big birthday. Happy 31st birthday to Mara Chabin in El Segundo. And Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge funder,

spent his 77th birthday at a club in Abiza. Hope you had a fun time. Congratulations to Justin Cram, who got on a panel at South by Southwest. And Laura Cui and Nate Winters had their third wedding anniversary from Calhalla, San Francisco. Congratulations, guys. A big shout out to Howard Milhouser, who got his second pink T-boy hat because the first one he wore so much it got worn out. Florida Sunman, it really is helping our inventory turnover. Love it.

And Don Don Donahue, we know you see us. Well, now we see you. If you know. Now you know. This is Jack. I on stock of Bumble and Reddit, and Nick and I both on stock of Chippotland. Spotify.