The Best One Yet - ⚽ “Going full Ted Lasso” — Apple’s $2.5B soccer deal. Miso’s robot army. The Fed’s huge punishment.

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Major League Soccer just became the first pro sports league to jump 100% from cable to streaming — and it’s doing it with Apple. Miso Robotics’ greatest invention isn’t a $500M burger-flipping robot… it’s an army of newsletter-reading Fan-vestors. And the Fed just made its biggest interest rate move in 28 years because it has 1 request for us: “Stop Buying Things.”$AAPL $CMGFollow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Tiktok: @tboypodAnd now watch us on YoutubeWant a Shoutout on the pod? Fill out this formGot the Best Fact Yet? We got a form for that tooLearn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All right, dude, you're ready? Here we go. High energy, but not chaotic. This is, yeah. Was that too much? Was that too much? Should I turn down the volume? One second.

All right, here we go. Three, two. This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, June 16th, and today's spot is the best one yet. TVOI. TVOI. Pascuale Jones in Olita, Klamm Pizza.

That was the first. Delicious. Mary Lane cocktails in the West Village. Even better. Jack and I try. to get into Van Lue and ice cream, but the line was 60 interns deep. Busy days working for T-Boy. Yeah.

Busy celebrations each night this business trip. We ran it to some fantastic eddies on the subway. In the meantime, Jack, first story today. Apple just went full Ted Lassow in the streaming wars, snagging the MLS TV deal. Check your soccer horoscope. We're on the eve of a soccer solstice. For our second story, to fight inflation, our central bank just made its biggest move in 28 years. Here's their message for us. Stop spending money. For our third and final story,

miso robotics. It's a $500 million company whose robots can flip a burger. Okay, so Jack and I are wondering, why is a robot cook company advertising in newsletters and asking you for money? That's a cliffhanger. That is a cliffhanger. But before we hit that wonderful mix. Just a perfect mix. It's Thursday, also known as the New Friday. Yeah, and when it's the New Friday, you're celebrating The Wins. Celebrating the Wins has been a weekly tradition for Nick and me for years. And since Jack and I together this week, we've been celebrating the wins every day. Yeah, we have. Every day. And some Yetis have asked us, where does Celebrating the Wins come from? Yeah, well, best is, it comes from right down the street 11 years ago.

It comes from Old Town Bar on 18th Street on the east side of Manhattan. Okay, Jack and I jumped in Timoist-style. Old Town Bar on 18th Street in Manhattan has been serving lukewarm drinks since 1892. It's literally. old. I think New York was a town when this started, not a city. Is that mahogany? No, it's petrified wood. It boasts the oldest bathroom urinals on the entire East Coast. Okay, so

this is the best fact yet. The porcelain in the Old Town Bar is unchanged for over a century. They also fill the urinals, which are like the size of bathtubs with ice. It's very satisfying. Very satisfying. In fact, President William Howard Taft probably peed in the same places.

But 11 years ago, Nick and I met up after work at the Old Town Bar. That's where Jack and I decided to start this company. We started a startup. It was called Market Snacks. And we started to get some small wins. The first retweet. That was nice.

The first advertising. That was great. The first 1,000 newsletter subscribers. The first 10,000 newsletter subscribers subscribed. Jack, the first time we got trolled. True. You know you've made it when you're getting trolled. It's a good feeling.

It's a weird feeling. And we didn't let those wins pass by and just mark them on a whiteboard. We celebrated them. With a cheeseburger and a 4.4. lukewarm pale ale at a place that only accepts cash. Apple pay? No. I don't know what that is. It didn't matter how we celebrated.

It just mattered that we did. So right after this recording, Jack and I are going around the corner and we're going to go celebrate an awesome week together, The Wins. That's why we tell you at the end of every week, celebrate the Wins. Let's hit our three stories. 16 years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. It's the best.

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. For our first story, on the Eve of America's soccer solstice, Apple just went full Ted lasso. Soccer.

Soccer. Soccer is the first sport to completely cut the cord. Cable TV and live sports sitting in a tree, Jack. V-I-E-W-I-N-G. Nice. worked. Cable TV and live sports is a monogamous, decades-long marriage that is still thriving. There was a high chance I didn't use a seven-letter word there and that would have been an issue. I thought you were going to misspell it. Honestly, I was getting nervous too.

Well, Apple just played homewrecker on this marriage. Get this, Yeties. Apple TV Plus just snagged the exclusive TV rights for all of Major League Soccer for a decade. Every one of the 29 MLS clubs will only have their games on Apple TV. And it comes. It costs $250 million for Apple to get those rights. That's like $250 million for six or seven goals. The reason this is such a big deal. This is the first time ever that cable TV gets no access to a single American sports league. So, Jack, you want to watch George O' Kealini do a header?

You can't watch it on DirecTV. You can't watch it on Xfinity. You can't watch it on like Cox Cable Network or whatever. You must go to Apple TV. You want to watch Landon Dunneman do a flop? Apple TV is the only way. Streaming online. Your stubborn uncle who still subscribes the TV guide,

he's going to be kind of angry. He's going to be furious that his cable remote, that he's trusted for years, can't get in the game. Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, there is one asterisk we should mention. Yeah, this soccer is not going to be included in Apple TV Plus

for the five bucks a month you've been paying. Right, it's going to be like an add-on, the price of TV day. It's going to be like Showtime's add-on to Hulu. You know what I mean? But like Mom always said, Life always comes down to timing. And the timing could not be better for Apple to get this deal.

Okay, first, Jack, the World Cup is coming in November. The World Cup's a huge freaking deal. And it's the first time the U.S. men's national soccer team is playing in the World Cup in like eight years. Yeah, because we missed the last one. And we just came off that historic equal pay deal between men and women. Right. So men and women fans are going to enjoy unique cheering on harmony this World Cup. Oh, I'm sorry, Jack.

I'm checking the calendar. What else is dropping around November 2022? Ted Lassau season three. And where is Ted Lassau season three dropping? Apple TV. Boom. Apple's 10-year deal here for soccer. It's also going to include the next World Cup, which is hosted by the United States, Canada, and Mexico in 2026. Jack, let me just check the zodiac carry the mercury. It turns out we're on the eve of a soccer solstice. Never before has America been so hyped about soccer. And Apple is. eating it up. Sockers in retrograde. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Apple? The holy grail of streaming is the one thing that cable still dominates, live sports. Live sports. Yet he's live sports. That is the only thing Americans will pay to watch live.

And live sports is dominated by cable. Streaming hardly gets any games. Watching live, it means you're going to watch commercials. You got no choice. But you crave that buzzer beater so badly. You will pay a company you hate. 100 bucks a month and watch a ton of commercials after paying 100 bucks a month. So so far, every major sports league has sold their meteorites to cable TV, not to streaming platforms. Until now with this Apple TV major league soccer deal. So here's Jackson, my final question. Is this a one-off because soccer is still catching on?

Or will this trigger a domino effect with more sports going to streaming? As cord cutters who really like watching sports, we really hope this triggers a domino. no effect. Yeah. For our second story, the Fed, the guardian of the economy, just made its biggest move on interest rates yet. Here's the message from the Fed. Stop buying things. Stop. You were thinking about it. I know what you're thinking. You just got me this, this sparkling water? I bought things. Stop buying these things. Besties, the Fed, the Fed, the Federal Reserve, America's Central Bank. Really, they've got two jobs if you check out their LinkedIn. The first job for the Fed, it's actually doing really well.

Yeah, keep unemployment low. That's job number one. We have a record low unemployment of 3.6%. Fantastic. Give the Fed a promotion. Oh, wait. The Fed has a second job too. And how's that going, Jay? It's failing miserable.

Yeah, the second job of the Federal Reserve is to control inflation. Ideally, keep it around 2%, which it's nowhere near. No, it's nowhere near. Because here's the problem with this economy. This economy is partying too hard. The economy has just been on a spending bender.

We are all spending so much on stuff. Stuff. There just isn't enough stuff to go around. Yeah, we all want chicken wings. We all want swimming pools. We all want a window seat on a flight to somewhere. But there's not enough of those things. So Applebee's, the pool company, Delta, they're jacking up prices on those things because they

can. Voila, that is the inflation you're seeing every day. That's how inflation happens. Now, Yeties, here's the deal with the Fed. The Fed has already politely asked consumers to stop buying so many things. Yeah, the Fed has said, hey, the party's over. Like, come on. We're going to raise interest rates a little bit.

This party's done. Ten minute warning, bar closes shortly. But, wow. Yesterday, the Fed didn't do a polite little request. No, no, they didn't. The Fed pulled the fire alarm on this purchasing party we all got going on and said, it's over. Yeah, the Fed just announced their biggest interest rate increase in.

28 years. There is one rate to rule them all that the Fed controls. It's the benchmark interest rate, and they jacked it up by 0.75%. Boom, yesterday. The sprinklers went off. The lights were turned off. This is not a phone party, everybody. This is not a drill. The party's over. Go home, please. Immediately. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies? Who are all of us in the American economy? Here is the request from the Fed to us. Stop. buying things. Yeah. I mean, at first, economists at the Federal Reserve thought that price is rising. They thought that was a supply problem. Right. They thought inflation wasn't happening because we were buying too much. It was happening because the pandemic messed up our supply. Well, it turns out that was

wrong. Yeah. The supply chain, it's largely fixed. And yet prices keep on rising. Okay. So, Jack, by the process of elimination here, if the problem is in supply, looks like it's demand. We're buying too much stuff. Yeah, yeties. Americans, we've saved and earned more money since the pandemic began. If you got cash, the Fed can't stop you from spending. But if you've got a credit card,

the Fed can make that pricier for you to spend money on the plastic. With higher interest. So Jack, what is the Fed's new request of all of us listening to the pod? Stop buying things. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood.

Nick, you got introduced to the Robin Hood. App the old-fashioned way, right? Yeah, I did. My girlfriend now wife's older brother, who was that guy who worked in tech and like knew about the next iPhone before Apple did. He told you about the Robin Hood app. You told me about the Robin Hood app. All right. So you signed up because you wanted to buy a stock. Because like it was hard to figure out how to buy a stock when you're 25 and it's 2014.

Yeah, back then you had to find a broker. Call a broker on the phone. Call them pay a commission to that broker. Instead of calling suddenly there's his app, you just swipe and you could buy the stock. Robin Hood's interface felt as easy as ordering an Uber or snag in a sense. sandwich on Seamus. And it still is. So if you're not a Robin Hood user yet and you want to get started, you can go to robin hood.com slash T-Boy and you can choose get this a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply and all investments involve risk.

Robin Hood Financial LLC member SIPC. Robin Hood, by the way, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, speaking of Little Neck clam pizza, that was delicious. Miso Robotics. Yeah. Miso robotics. They make robot chefs that fry your french fries, but that's not their most strategic move. This robot company's most strategic move is an email newsletter. Yeah. Okay. Jack, can you whip up for the Yeti's R? It was our number two prediction on our prediction pod that we launched back in January. We thought one major chain would launch a fully robot-run restaurant with no human workers. Picture Optimus Prime at Panda Express.

And we made that prediction because of this observation. The observation. Food costs are up and the number of available food workers is down. And that led to this thesis. Robots could solve both those problems for fast food restaurants. And that is starting to happen. Yeah. Jack and I have noticed that White Castle, Chipotle, Panera, Jack in the Box, they all just hired robot kitchen staff.

And they all hired the same robot. Flippy. They all just hired a robot named Flippy. Adorable. Yeah, Flippy. he like flips fries for like R2D2, but in the kitchen. Flippy can dip fries into a friday. Yeah, he's like Guy Fieri, but with a computer chip.

And the company that makes Flippy is Miso Robotics, a startup worth a half a billion dollars. They do also make another robot called Sippy, Jack, which pours drinks drinks. Right. And they're due for Dippy, which dips fries into the friar layer. Now, before Jack and I go into more rhyming verse, what Jack and I found fascinating about the story is what we found strange about the story. Meeseos investors, they're not the big league VCs you hear about. They're amateur you and me's. Okay, Yetis, this company is worth $500 million.

It's big. And they're raising more money right now before they eventually go public. Right. They're trying to raise $40 million in cash from investors to fund more research and development and more growth. Here's the strange thing. They're not asking venture capitalists for that money. They're asking you and me and your friends and they're doing it in newslet. Newsletters.

Newsletters. You know, Casper puts an ad in a newsletter to try to sell mattresses. Right. They want you to buy their mattress. Miso has their own newsletter and buys ads in other newsletters to try to get you to buy their private stock. Okay, we repeat, MISO isn't selling you a robo chef. It is marketing and investment in Miso to you. It's not like use promo code R2D2 to buy this fry flipper. It's invest in our company.

So this is the first time ever. Jack and I have seen an ad. in a newsletter soliciting a fundraise from us mere mortals. This is crowdsourcing what they're doing. And it's not that new. No, no, no, no. Like your aunt raised $10,000 in Kickstarter to launch her burrito funnel. Yeah, go fund, made a fund, whatever. But this, this is new.

A $500 million startup using crowdsourcing to get 15,000 individuals who've invested at least $1,000 in the stock of this company. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our Fry flipping buddies over at Miso? Miso is about to face controversy. So they're building an army of fan investors. Instead of a few institutional investors, like most startups, Miso has many retail investors. We call them fanbusters. We do.

Because they have the opportunity to invest in a company before the IPO. That's exciting and they must love this. But here's the key. Miso needs fan investors right now because Jack and I think they're going to face some backlash. Replacing human cooks with robot cooks, that could face some sense. serious resistance. But Miso, they now have 15,000 grassroots supporters with financial incentive to defend the company. Miso has 15,000 hardcore, passionate fanvesters in their corner. So Miso, they're about to face some backlash. That's why it's built an army of fanvesters. Jack, can you whip up

the takeaways for us for the new Friday? Just as we enter the soccer solstice, Apple snagged the MLS TV deal. The holy grail of streaming is the one thing. cable dominates live sports. For our second story, the Fed needs us to stop buying so much. So they jacked up interest rates by three quarters of a percentage point. Biggest move in 28 years because they want us to stop buying stuff. Our third and final story is Mesa Robotics. They make the finest fajita flipper in all of the land.

And they've strategically built an army of fan investors. Now time for the best fact yet from a legendary Rhode Island Yetty, Rebecca Weber, over in Providence. Last week, we did a best. fact yet on the Japanese car company, Subaru, and their American success. Right, Jack. It was about how they entered the U.S. by focusing on remote parts of the country. Where you need all wheel drive all the time. But it turns out there is more to the Subaru story, as Rebecca told us. It turns out Subaru was the first car company to market directly to lesbians

according to the magazine, The Atlantic. In Subaru's early consumer research, they discovered that a lot of their early buyers in those remote areas were gay women. Subaru executive realized lesbian women living in remote areas, they wanted a dependable all-wheel drive vehicle. Yeah. Makes sense. Well, that led to a brand new Subaru ad campaign in the 90s. And the first car ads targeted at lesbian buyer. Boom, your turn, F-150.

Yeties, you look fantastic today. Jack, should we go celebrate the ones? Let's go celebrate the old town bar. Let's check out the ice. They're going to overcook the burger. It's satisfied. They may overcook the burger. Apple pay?

Apple what? Nick and I, we'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. Before we go, happy wedding anniversary to my wife Molly. We're going to be celebrating on Nantucket. Four years ago, we recorded the podcast the day before Nick's wedding on Nantucket Island just a month after launching the park. It was aggressive, but we got it in before the vows.

Right before the rehearsal dinner. Happy anniversary. It was incredible, so was the wedding. I'll see you on Nantucketucket. And congratulations to Jenny Graham and Bo Yon Vee. who are getting hitched in San Diego. And Olivia Rose, happy birthday down in Arlington, Virginia. Happy 26th to Matt Stogner in Dallas, Texas.

And Neva, happy birthday, also in Dallas. And happy birthday to Uncle Brandon Shang, too, in Sugarland, Texas. And C.J. Patella, enjoy the birthday in Scotch Plains, New Jersey. Happy birthday, Ms. Katie Jack in Seattle, Washington. And no pressure on her boyfriend, but it has been eight years. TikTok, TikTok. And to anyone else who should be... celebrating something today, make it a teal.

No matter the size, celebrate the wins. This is Jack. Nick and I both own stock of Apple, Chipotle, and Robin Hood. And now a word from our sponsor, Robin Hood. The first time I tried to buy a stock, I got burned badly. Is this when you wanted to buy a share of Ford? Because you liked the chassis over in Detroit? Yes, I had $200, so I bought $200 of Ford stock.

I didn't get $200 of Ford stock, though. I got $192. Oh, the commission fees. By the time the stock climbed back to $200, I sold it, but again, I didn't get $200. I got $192 again. Another commission fee. The stock grows 8%, but I was down on my investment. Because commission fees made small money investing impossible.

So Robin Hood came in and killed commission fees. And commissions are still dead in stock and crypto trading thanks to our sponsor. If you're not investing on Robin Hood yet, to get started, go to robin hood.com slash t-boy and choose a free stock. That's robin hood.com slash T-B-O-Y. certain limitations apply for a list of other fees. View their fee schedule at RBNHD.co slash fees. All investments involve risk. Robin to Financial LLC, member SIPC. Oh, and by the way, Robin Hood is no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. And the stocks, Jack just said, are for illustrative purposes only and are not recommendations.