The Best One Yet - ⛹️‍♂️ “Gucci, Prada, Lebron” — The NBA’s luxury love. Elon’s anti-remote rant. Delta’s summer upgrade.

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

As the NBA finals begin tonight, we highlight the league’s new strategy: Luxury, luxury, luxury. If you work for Tesla and want to work from home… you’re fired. And Delta just confirmed that after 2.5 years, air travel is finally 100% back (but your JFK => ACK trip will now cost double).$LVMUY $TSLA $DALFollow 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.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Thursday, the new Friday, June 2nd, and today's pod is the best one yet. T-B-O-I. By the way, we're doing a... We're doing something tomorrow, right? Are we going to do this? We're going to do this?

We're going to look sharp. We got this going. T-Boy Live. Yeah, T-Boy Live. Every Friday on Instagram, Jack, what time? 3 o'clock Eastern, 12 Pacific. You can chat with us live at T-boy Pot. So far, never goes terribly wrong.

Jack, what's our first story? The NBA finals begin tonight. But we know. notice the NBA has a new strategy. New strategy. Four thousand dollar Louis Vuitton NBA ballbacks. For our second story, if you work at Tesla and you want to work from home, you're fired. Ah, working for Elon. It used to mean mission. Now it means position. Our third and final story is Delta Airlines. They just gave their most important update in two years. Travel is officially 100% back. But before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, I love this mix of stories, Jenny, Jay.

out of pint of ale and pass the crumpets with the tea kettle. Volicks, only if you honky dory a couple quid, you cheeky bloke. The Queen of England isn't celebrating her birthday today. She's celebrating Throne Day. Today is Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. Queen Elizabeth II has been ruling the British Commonwealth for 70 years. Jack, I'm looking at the record books here. We're talking the longest serving monarch in all of English history.

She's had the same job since she. She was 25. She's the third longest serving monarch in human history. There we go. One second. I'm updating the record books. Queen Elizabeth the second, the queen of England. Perhaps you may know her from her other role as the star of Netflix's The Crown.

Lillibet, as they call her, has been clinking glass and night name since 1952. Jack, you don't measure her reign in years. You measure years in Elizabeth. That's right. Now she and her nine corgis and two thoroughbred horses. they're celebrating with a humble bowl of lemon pudding, her favorite. And four days of parties across the entire nation. She gets four days of party.

But Jack and I jumped in T-boy style. And what you may not know about Queen Elizabeth's real passion is that it's driving without a license. She was the first female British royal member to join the British military. Yeah, during World War II, she was a mechanic truck driver rolling around in a pickup. First order of the F-150.

Oh, and get this. Queen Elizabeth never has had a driver's license. In fact, she has a constitutional exception. She's the only UK citizen allowed to drive without a license. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in England? It's good to be the queen. God save our three stories, but let's hit him. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn.

They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is an autistic. 50%. That's a fat tip. 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, the NBA finals begin tonight down the street in San Francisco. But we noticed the NBA. Unlike the other professional leagues. Yeah. The NBA is leaning into luxury. Jack, Golden State Warriors, Boston Celtics. Who you got?

Here we go. If Boston wins, how long before Barstool has a new city of champions' t-shirt? But if the Warriors win, how long? long before a VC tweets a threat about the Golden State offense. They're disrupting the basketball model. Same strategy as the yield curve. The NBA Finals are the showcase moment for the NBA. Nearly 20 million people watch each game.

Okay, Jack, we got the Super Bowl, Stanley Cup playoffs, World Series. What kind of commercials are we going to see in all those? Commercials about SUVs, Budweiser, Seattleis, and more SUVs in Seattleis. Now, you're going to see all those ads in the NBA games, too. But you're also going to see Louis Vuitton and Tiffany's jewelry. That's right. You're going to watch Jason Tatum play defense and then see if French luxury has playoffence in between. Boom.

That's what Jack and I find fascinating about these playoffs. It appears that the NBA has a new strategy. The NBA is reaching for rich brands. They're leaning into luxury and they're trying to outclass the other leagues. Okay, the first thing Jack and I noticed, the NBA just hired, you know, Tiffany. the jewelry company. To redesign the six postseason trophies, including the NBA championship trophy.

That is an aggressive move. You can't imagine the Vince Lombardi Super Bowl trophy getting redesigned by a jewelry, you know, Tiffany's kind of company. Is this a championship trophy or is this on a wedding registry? My dad would have a connipion if Tiffany's life was in charge.

Big Ted, trigger warning. And then we saw a broader partnership between the NBA and LVMH. LVMH, the $350 billion publicly traded luxury group based in France. It's the biggest company in France. Yep, LVMH's Louis Vuitton has a new luxury collection with the NBA. We're not kidding. We jumped in T-Boy style.

And from that collection, you can buy yourself a $7,000 crystal basketball hoop. There's a bunch of clothing and a bunch of shoes. And then there's a $4,000 basketball backpack. It's literally Gucci because it's Gucci. I'm not sure Shaq could afford this stuff. The entire Milwaukee Bucks can't afford this stuff. It's rare tusking cow leather by an Italian craftsman with a basketball logo slam dunking a massage. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the fancy NBA?

Do you go attainable or aspiration? All right, besties, yeties. Every sports league has a focus on making fans feel comfortable, feel relatable, feel attainable. That's why the NFL's nicknamed the No Fun League. There's nothing allowed in the NFL that's going to push the limits on my dad's comfort level. But the NBA is different. The NBA is taking the lead from NBA players. You've all seen like LeBron and Russell Westbrook strut into the arena,

decked out in some like incredible ensemble on their bodies. We're about to play a game, but I'm going to stroll in a Gucci $8,000 first suit. And then during the press conference, these guys look fantastic and whatever they're wearing. Well, the NBA's luxury deals are defined by the. players taste, not the commissioner's taste. Fans are unlikely to be able to afford what Russell Westbrook is wearing, but they're captivated by those $8,000 Gucci Loafer. It's so shiny, it's so different, it's so expensive, it symbolizes a life goal.

The other professional leagues want to associate themselves with attainable brands. The NBA is aiming for aspirational. For our second story, Elon Musk just told his employees to return to the office. office or quit. Tesla was about sustainability. Now Tesla is about Elon. Okay, besties, yeties. Every morning, Jack and I wake up, we're scanning the news headlines before the market opens. Wednesday morning leaked email from Elon. Is he ditching Twitter? The Twitter deals? Is he done with it? You're going to buy Pinterest instead? Why not? Merge to two? Make it a new thing. Here's the subject line of the email that got leaked. Here it is.

Remote work is no longer acceptable. You got to give them credit for being direct. It said in the email that all Tesla employees must be in the office physically at least 40 hours a week starting right now. And if you don't show up, they're just going to assume you resigned. That standing desk treadmill thing you erected in your home jam home garage office situation? Get rid of it. Kind of disregards, Elon. Then in this email to Tesla employees, Elon casually tossed shade at the companies that continue to allow work from home. Which ironically includes Twitter, which is soon to be Elon's other. their side hustle company. And we got to assume he's going to institute the same must come to the office

policy at Twitter once he's in control. Okay, so back it up, back it up. Here's how we're seeing this. Elon Musk is the richest person in the world, but he's also becoming the most opinionated person in the world. Across so many controversial issues, not just remote work and work from anywhere, Elon is defining where Tesla stands. Jack, take us back to March 2020. COVID hits what's happening with Elon. March 6, 2020, he tweeted that the COVID panic was dumb and predicted COVID would be over in a month. And then he punished the state of California for its COVID lockdowns by moving the whole Tesla headquarters over to Texas. All right, here's what else we got. Elon is a vocal opponent of unions, which has effectively got Tesla ghosted by the White House. And now he's a champion

of free speech, which is winning him the praise of conservative pundits. And last month, he revealed he's always voted Democrat, but now he's going to start voting Republican. Name the issue. Name the Taxation, COVID, remote work, the first doge coin trillion. Name the issue. Elon has a huge opinion on it. In the last two years, Elon has tweet stormed an aggressive public position on all of it. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies hanging out over at Tesla? Tesla used to be defined by Elon's vision. Now it's defined by Elon's position.

Besties, Neaties, we first understood the brilliance of Elon when we read his master plan published back in 2006. Before all of Tesla and Elon's success, this master plan showed exactly how Tesla would accelerate the world's path to sustainable energy. Tesla was on a global mission for the planet. But now, no company is more defined by one person's worldview than Tesla is by Elon's. Today, Elon's worldview is focused on public, pretty controversial stances on just about everything. Tesla used to be on a global mission. now Tesla is on Elon's mission. Tesla's not about Elon's vision anymore.

It's about Elon's positions. 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 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 snagging a sandwich on seamless. 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 robinode.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply and all investments involve risk. member SIPC. Robin Hood, by the way, no longer affiliated with us or the podcast. For our third and final story, Delta just passed the most important milestone in airline history. Delta has 100% climbed out of the COVID flying hole.

And Bastion, they are back, baby. Okay, Bessies and Yetis. Did either of these two things happened to you last weekend, by the way? Did you pay too much for a flight? That's one. Was your flight delayed? The answer is likely to be yes and yes. Yeah, travel disaster this summer.

Delta also just announced that ticket prices are up 30%. And yet we're all still paying. We're all still revenge traveling. It was a tough weekend for travel. But the real news, the real shocker here that Jack and I saw, it has to do with Delta's numbers. Delta is back to pre-pandemic passenger levels. We repeat. It's been two years of everyone talking about how no one's even close to being back to traveling.

Do you remember early in the pandemic, like we recognized how bad the economy was by the number of travelers not passing through the TSA checkpoints? Right. In April 2020, it dropped to just 4% of normal travelers going through TSA checkpoints. If on a normal day, 20 passengers were going through the checkpoint, taking off their shoes and removing their laptops from their bags, in April 2020, it was one person doing that. I still have to take this out? Yeah, I'm the only one on the plane. Do I really have to take my shoes off? People 2020, 4% of the number of people who should be on that plane were on that plane. Air travel was so low in 2020.

So low. That more people took the New York City subway than flew on an airplane in all of the country. Yeah, the pandemic was the worst shock to the airline industry in history, or at least since 9-11. But for Delta, they just announced yesterday at their investor day, there are 100% back to 2019 pre-pandemic normal levels of business. Delta is rebounding like a young Dennis Rodman. After two and a half years, the worst crisis for airlines in decades, Delta is back to first class.

Now, Jack and I should point out that there are fewer business travelers who are up there enjoying the, is it a massage chair? It looks like a massage chair. But I guess there's more vacationers to offset that, paying higher price to fly to Orlando with their family. Orlando, it's going to cost you. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Delta? If you build it, we will spend.

Okay, besties and yetis. That was shocking. But the real surprise that Jack and I saw on Investor Day was one number, $12 billion. Delta is spending $12 billion over the next decade on their airport hubs. That's like two lifts. Oh, LaGuardia Airport, for example, in New York City, consistently ranked the worst airport in the United States for forever years in a row. Well, LaGuardia got a multi-billion dollar makeover.

It reopened yesterday, and Delta was right there front and center at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. There's actually food at LaGuardia now, and Delta was there to serve it. Not anti-ans, but we'll take it. It's the worst sales drop Delta's experience and the highest cost jump because of oil prices. And look what Delta is doing. And yet, despite all that, Delta is spending $12 billion, so you can, have spa water in a lounge by gate 28B before you check onto the plane. The revenge travel that's jammed up the airports, but which Delta's loving right now,

it may not last. But Delta believes if they build it, we will spend. If you build seats with more legroom, we'll spend there too, just putting it out there. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us for the new Friday? As the NBA finals tip off, the NBA's luxury makeover is revealed. Attainable or aspirational, the NBA chooses aspirational. For our second story, Tesla employees were just told by their CEO that remote work is completely unacceptable. Tesla used to be defined by Elon's visions.

Now it's defined by Elon's positions. Our third and final story is Delta. Their revenues are back to pre-pandemic flying level. Delta believes if they build it, we will spend. Will we? Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Rochiel Mehta, who's from Mumbai, India, but is now working in New York City. Hyundai. It's pronounced Hyundai.

It's a Sunday. Well done. It's an audio product. It's the South Korea car company. They make a fine product, actually. They make a fine product. And if you're looking at or in a Hyundai right now, you'll notice that the logo, it looks like an H. It looks like an H. But it actually signifies something more meaningful than just a letter.

It's actually not even an H at all. It signifies two individuals opposite each other, reaching in, shaking hands. The sides of the H are two people. And then the connection in the H is actually the handshake. And the handshake is one individual buying a car and the car salesperson selling the car. And if you get really close to that logo and you get really close, you can almost hear them saying, what do I got to do to get you into this Sunday? Besties and yet is you look fantastic today.

And if you haven't yet, turn to a buddy and say, hey, H-Y-H-T-B-O-Y. What do I got to do to get you to listen? of this pod. This is how we grow the pod with you, the besties and yetis. Jack and I'll see you more. And before we go, congrats to Cheryl from Menlo Park for leaving MEDA after 15 years. And happy 20th to Kyle Scher in Madison, Wisconsin. And Bobby the Frenchie Bulldog.

Who's turning seven over in San Francisco? Who's a good boy? He's a good boy. And Jersey Frederick, happy birthday down in Sarasota, Florida. Happy 25th, the Bryce Bedura, who can now rent a car in San Francisco. And Hasagawa, happy 54th over in Tokyo, Japan. Happy birthday to Romeo, New York City. And Neil, happy 30th up in Toronto.

Happy birthday to Natalia Hamilton, who happens to be moving to Austin. Hasn't quite set everything up. Sleeping on a blowout mattress, good luck. Mattress, mattress, mattress. Evan Lord, congrats on graduating from Morris Catholic High School. Good luck and happy moving to Amanda and Michael and their dog, Franklin, moving to Colorado. And Pyle, congrats on the new dream job at a high school. hospital in Illinois. And Dan Adaiteron has reached parity between the U.S. dollar and

euro because he's got a new job in FX sales at a New York City bank. Couldn't have converted it better. And big congrats to Mary Siri, who just started a new job as a sales rep at Paycom on Long Island, New York. Strong Island. This is Jack, Nick and I both on Stock of 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 like like 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 rose 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 robinood.com slash t-boy and choose a free stock. That's Robinhood.com slash T-B-O-Y. Certain limitations apply for a list of other fees.

View their fee schedule at RBNh-D.co slash fees. All investments involve risk. Robin Hood 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. and are not recommendations. This is Nick. This is Jack.

It's Thursday, the Real Friday, June 2nd, and today's... Sorry, I missed it. Yeah, you did mess that. Good thing I got it. Would you have continued if you hadn't seen my, like, glare? You know, you're like a little pixelated and I could sense there was something wrong in the universe.