The Best One Yet - 🧦 “Learn from the Worst” — The White Sox’s biz lesson. The “Port-pocalypse” strike. DirecTV’s $1 acquisition.

Episode Date: October 1, 2024

The Chicago White Sox had more losses than any team in baseball history… we found a lesson about turnarounds.The US Port Strike will affect half of our imports by sea … but don’t call it a Port-pocalypse.DirecTV just acquired its rival Dish Networks for just $1… we’ll tell ya how that’s possible.Plus, the laundromat industry is making a fun/strategic pivot… into bars, arcades, & cafes.$T $DISH $SPY—-----------------------------------------------------GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts FOR MORE NICK & JACK: Newsletter: https://tboypod.com/newsletter Connect with Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/ Connect with Jack: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/ SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Anything else: https://tboypod.com/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, October 1st. 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, I'm checking the calendar. It's a September to remember sales event happening on Wall Street, baby. Stocks just finished their best September in four years. Jack Markets just had their best Q3 in three years. The S&P 500 is up 22 percent. So far, you know, this year. At the quarter of buddies over Alexis, it's a September to remember. No pressure October. Oh yeah, no pressure. A lot of pressure October. In the meantime, three fantastic stories for today's T-boy, Jack, what do we got on the show? For our first story, it's the port strike. Last night, workers on the East Coast and Gulf of Mexico went on strike. It's a port apocalypse. Actually, don't call it a portpocalypse. You're barely even going to notice this, and we'll explain why. Jack and I crunched the numbers for you. Second story, what do we got, Jack? As the MOB postseason begins tonight, the White Sox are at home after losing the most games in Major League Baseball history.

But there is a business lesson on the worst team in baseball history. How to not turn around a team. And our third and final story, DirecTV just acquired its rival Dish Networks for only $1. One dollar. So Jack and I can tell you how a huge company was just sold for a $1 bill. Actually, it was four quarters. I think they paid four quarters, Jack. They just dropped it off with the lawyers.

It was a symbolic financial Venmo request, actually. It was basically just a Venmo request. 100 pennies, you know what we're getting that. But yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a fantastic mix of stories for T-Boy Tuesday. Love the mix, Jack. Are you looking for a good time? Jack, how about a good clean time?

Because the cool new place to party these days is your local laundromat. We repeat. Laundromat owners are transforming their businesses from laundry into leisure. And it makes sense. Because think about it, you're spending like three hours during the wash and dry cycle. Why not have fun while you're at it? The Wall Street Journal just interviewed some laundromat owners who are adding amusing attractions to their businesses to gain a competitive advantage.

For example, one laundromat in Philadelphia added a cafe to their laundromat. You get some sauce on your pants, boom, you toss it in the laundromat, which is in the cafe. Another laundromat in Brooklyn added a bunch of pinball machines. So you can play pinball like Tommy while you're waiting for that t-shirt to dry. And another laundromat in Manhattan, they classed it up with live jazz. I love this quote from the owner, Jack. You ready for this? Jazz clubs play for tourists, but jazz laundromats play for locals.

This is an epic glow-up for the laundromat industry. Oh, this is definitely an upgrade. I mean, Jack, your local laundromat is looking more like a chucky cheese. This is the biggest change to laundromats since fabric's often. The French laundry, the Michelin-Star restaurant up in Napa. Yeah, they're getting jealous. They're jealous of Bucket of Suds. The wash and fold quarter-operated place around sunset highway.

In fact, laundromats are so hot right now. Even Beyonce is doing laundry at the laundromat. That's right. Levi's jeans just produced a commercial starring Beyonce. And Jack, what is she doing in that commercial? The whole ad features Beyonce cleaning her own jeans at her local laundromat. So yeties, forget going to a restaurant this weekend. Take your next day to the laundromat.

It's good, clean, fun. Literally. Jack, let's in our three stories, baby. I don't have quarters. White or dark? Stop! It's before this song. Two boys from the Northeast met in the dorm.

They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a 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.

First, a quick word for. our sponsor. Our first story. At midnight last night, the ports on the eastern seaboard of America went on strike. This is a portpocalypse. Nick, we're not calling this a portpocalypse. I just called it a port apocalypse, Jack. We're going to jump into the numbers and show you you're probably barely even going to feel this.

Yeah, it's not a portpocalypse. It's a port paradise. Is that what you want to say? No, it's something in between. All right, it's something in between. We'll explain. We'll explain. In the meantime, Jack, how about we kick things off with that wild fact you discovered

about geography and the economy. Get this, Maine has more coastline than California does. We repeat, Maine has more coastline than the biggest state in the Union, California. Because coasts don't form a straight line. And Maine has more nooks and crannies than a buttered English muffin. I mean, have you seen Kinnibunkport? It's like a chiseled little knife edge, Jack. All those islands, Nick, they add up to a lot of coastline up in Maine. As of right now, all of America's East and Gulf Coast have been closed to ships. You can't park here. It's all because of the International Longshoremen's Association, which is a union representing

45,000 dock workers. They went on strike last night at midnight E.T. So, from Houston to Mobile, from Miami to Norfolk, from Baltimore to Boston, the ports are closed, baby. This is going to affect half of what we import by C. Half of the things we import everything from bananas to bacon, coffee to engines, wheels, If it's got a chassis, it's probably held up at sea right now. It's held up at sea because 45,000 shipyard workers are demanding a 77% pay raise over the next six years.

Like we said, it looks like a port apocalypse. I got more to say about that, but let's wait for the takeaway. In the meantime, we know what you're thinking yeties. Why are the workers striking out there, Jack? It actually has a lot to do with the couch you ordered for your house to glam up your apartment during the pandemic. That's right, because during the pandemic, supply chain, issues became a meme on TikTok. You know, like you were waiting 12 weeks for the toilet paper to arrive. Why didn't you do the thing you did? Because of supply chain issues. Supply chain. With ports and

shipping routes completely clogged during the pandemic, ships sat out in the ocean, just waiting for weeks to dock. Oh, and then came the worst parking job ever by a cargo ship. Oh, totally. Never got stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking ships for six full days. Oh, and Jack, it didn't stop there. Because most recently, we had Houthi rebels in the Middle East shooting at ships in the red sea and then the ships couldn't continue on to deliver stuff to America. In each of those shipping crises, the shipping companies use the crisis as a reason to jack up prices. And now, Yetis, if you're not sitting down, you're about to stand up and sit back down again. Jack, can you please share the wild shipping profit numbers? You know Mersk, the giant cargo ship company?

If you're in New York or San Francisco, you see these enormous ships. I can see one right now. I'm waving to them in the harbor, Jack. There you go. By the bag. Profits at Mersk, 10xed. in the two years of the pandemic. We repeat, Mersk's profits grew by 10 times in just two years. Profits were $3 billion in 2020 and $30 billion in 2022. And therein lies the problem, because despite the record profits, worker pay over at Merck did not change.

So the port workers who are unloading and loading these cargo ships, they want a piece of that record profit action. And that's what led to a stalemate last night, which comes at a politically sensitive time, because nobody wants more inflation. Probably going to be a subject of the debate in the debate tonight. Jack, your mango smoothie,

it's going to cost a little bit more next week. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are everyone in the economy? This portpocalypse actually won't be that bad because this isn't the port's first rodeo. Yeties, those major shipping disruptions that we just mentioned, the shipping companies, they remember them too.

And since this strike was expected, they've been preparing for months to handle the disruption. Yeah, no one a strike was likely the importers canceled cargo coming by ship weeks ago. Nobody wants mangoes spoiling in the harbor because there's no ship dock workers to unload them. And they also prepared by finding alternatives, like what kind of stuff, Jack? One company spoke to the Wall Street Journal about already switching their cargo from sea to air. That's right. This one company is flying 150,000 pounds of asparagus from Peru to America by airplane. And it only adds 50 cents per pound to the cost of that produce.

And we should point out 50 cents more per pound, that will have an economic impact. And JP Morgan thinks this strike will cost us $3.8 billion a day. But Nick and I crunched the numbers. Yeah, we did. If the strike lasts for one month, which it probably won't, it will reduce GDP by less than half a percentage point. That's it. So the pain, the way we see it, it won't actually be that bad. This isn't the port's first rodeo.

Instead of panicking, they prepared. For our second story, the Major League Baseball playoffs begin today. But the Chicago White Sox will not be there. Because the White Sox had the worst season in baseball history. The worst. And we found a business lesson in all that losing. Jack, the 2008 Detroit Lions, they lost all 16 of their football games. In the 1972 Philadelphia 76ers, they lost a record 73 basketball games.

We'll add the 2024 White Sox to the list and put them at the top of the list. The top of the list of the bottoms. Because the White Sox of Chicago are the losing his team in Major League Baseball history and from what we can tell, entire sports history. They lost 121 games this season. Jack, can you sprinkle on some context? That's one more than the previous record holder, the New York Mets, who lost 120 games in their inaugural 1962 season.

What Jack and I are saying here is that the White Sox were so bad, they made the Mets look like the Yankees. The White Sox are winning at losing. But, Nick, what's the worst part about this worst team in baseball history? Well, Jack, the worst part about the worst team in baseball history is that their ROI was even worse. The White Sox had $130 million payroll. Yeah, which is decently high. Like, it's higher than five of the teams going to the playoffs. So White Sox spent $130 million and ended up with a record-setting number of losses. Even shoeless Joe Jack. is kind of embarrassed right now. I don't even think Obama can pardon this team. He's a White So Soeys, this is what Jack and I found fascinating about this story. Sports are a business.

So we were curious, how did a team spend so much money and get such a bad return? Even more wild is that the White Sox owner is the same guy who won six NBA championships with the Bulls in the 90s. And Jerry Rinesdorf, the same guy who made the Bulls unstoppable just made the White Sox unwatchable. While the White Sox declined began eight years ago. It did. When the Suffolers, team launched an ambitious turnaround plan. That's what's so crazy. They were trying to turn the team around eight years ago. They traded their top two players eight years ago in return for six top prospects. It was a bet on the future. It was an investment in potential. But it was the wrong bet. Of those six players they got eight years ago, all of whom were potential superstars,

only one is still on the team. And what Jack's saying here is that the White Sox traded their best players for what turned out to be bad players. But Nick, a bad HR decision with regret roster moves, that wasn't the only thing that led to 121 losses. No, it wasn't their only mistake. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all our buddies over at the Chicago White Sox? Don't just learn from the best. Learn from the worst. Yeties, everyone in business wants to learn from the best. The successful, the winners out there. But we believe there's also something to learn from the worst, the unsuccessful, the losers out there. So why did the White Sox turnaround fail? Well, because the White Sox didn't go far enough.

Successful turnarounds often require change in three variables. The people, the management, and the strategy. Like when the Houston Astros went from a losing team to a winning team, they'd change their players, they changed their management, and they had changed their baseball strategy. When Abercrombie and Fitch turned their clothing business around, they changed their executives, they changed their teams, and they changed the product. But the White Sox, Chicago White Sox only changed their players. They only changed that one variable.

They kept the same bad baseball strategy and the same bad baseball front office. So Yeti's added all up, this is for anyone in business out there. The White Sox just had their worst season ever because they half-ass their turnaround. Don't just learn from the best. Learn from the worst. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, DirecTV just acquired its biggest rival Dish for just one single dollar. Dish was just sold for a buck.

A dollar, a buck, a single, single bill. Mick and I are going to tell you how that is financially possible. Because it actually is financially possible. But Jack, first. A moment of silence, please. The pager, the beeper, the Palm Pilot. The floppy disk, the cassette tape, and Zach Morris's cell phone. Yeties, welcome to the tech hardware graveyard.

And we're about to take the satellite dish and lower it into the ground. DISH TV was founded back in 1980 when space was reserved for NASA and asteroids. That's about it. For the last 30, 40 years, you could beam MTV punked down to your home from a satellite up in space. Full disclosure, when Nick and I shared an apartment on East 14th Street in Manhattan, great spot. He literally had a direct TV dish installed on the roof to catch that signal from space. Our buddy Timmy kept going up and finicking with it, and I feel like he always messed it up, Jack. Well, here's the news.

dish, the satellite TV pioneer, is getting acquired by DirecTV. Satellite TV rival. Combined, this company is going to have 20 million satellite TV subscribers, making it the biggest pay TV provider in the whole country. Um, but funny side note, Jack and I should point out, uh, these two companies tried to merge 22 years ago, but it got blocked by the government because they would have become too powerful. Oh, they're not getting blocked this time, because neither has anything resembling power in the streaming era. But yet,ies, this is what? why this story is so shocking. The most important number here is one, as in one dollar. Because that's how much DirecTV is paying to acquire DISH networks. One dollar, a hundred pennies, four quarters, a single

George Washington dollar bill, doesn't matter how you cut the change. The whole company is being sold for a dollar. If we saw that a media company with 8 million subscribers was for sale for one dollar, we'd pay that one dollar and we'd leave a tip too. $10, 50, we'd go up a few more dollars even. We should This is a complex deal. Yeah, private equity firms are involved and AT&T does still own part of DirecTV. But the reason DirecTV is only paying $1 is because DISH comes with $2 billion in debt. $2 billion in debt. Yeti's, DirecTV is inheriting that huge dish debt and that debt is due in November. So Direc TV has to pay dishes $2 billion in debt next month. And that is why DirecTV is only paying $1 for the entire Dish company. It's really $2 billion and $1. They're going to have to drop $2 billion

basically the day before Thanksgiving. Talk about baggage. I'm pretty sure that was in a punked episode as well, Jack. Yeti's Dish is kind of like a broken car that's parked in some guy's driveway, not going anywhere. It's listed for a dollar on Craigslist because it's worthless without a new engine. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Dish? When the going gets tough, the tough get merging. Yeties, the number of combined subscribers for DISH and Direct TV, it's actually down 63% from their all-time high. Because Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney Plus, they all destroyed pay TV's business model. Basically all the media stocks that you own stock and jack. You're going to have to do a little disclosure at the end of the pot.

Court cutting isn't even happening anymore. It's mostly Cord Nevers at this point. You know what people paying $100 bucks a month to Dish and Direct TV for the pleasure of commercials, a satellite dish, and a locks are over 65 and living down at Del Boca Vista. Dish is a sinking ship and it's getting bought by another sinking ship. And that's something we see in other industries. When two ships are sinking, they get together. When the going gets tough, the tough get merging. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for Tea Boy Tuesday?

45,000 ship dock workers are on strike across the East Coast and it affects half of the imports we get by sea. But don't call it a portpocalypse because these ports, it ain't. their first rodeo. For our second story, it's the Chai Sox. They lost 121 games in Chicago this season. 21. They're a lesson in half-ass turnarounds. Everyone wants to learn from the best, but we should also learn from the worst. And our third and final story is DirecTV. They're buying dish for a dollar because it comes with two billion dollars of debt included. Oh, when the going gets tough, the tough get merging. I think they said that on Wayne's World Check. Excellent. Most excellent. But Yeties, this pod's not over. Yeah.

Here's what else you need to know today. First, the biggest bill to regulate artificial intelligence was just vetoed by the governor, Gavin Newsom of California. The bill, which was passed by California's legislature, would have required testing of AI models, it would have held tech companies liable for their AI, and it would have required a kill switch. Yeah, physical kill switch, like a button physically at Google or meta or wherever that would turn off the AI if the AI tried to kill us.

It's like a human physical solution to a very wild digital threat. It actually be kind of cool to have a big red AI button. But we won't be getting one soon. The biggest tech since the internet continues basically unregulated. And second, Governor Tim Walls debate Senator J.D. Vance tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern from Manhattan in the VP debate. CBS says they won't fact check the candidates. Instead, they'll provide a QR code on screen that you can scan to get fact checks. Which no one will scan.

And finally, Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary director, has got a new movie, Megaloplas, but the numbers show it's a total flop. The legendary director of the godfather spent $140 million of his own money to produce this new film. And Jack, how much money did the film bring in this weekend? $4 million, which is really tiny. Jack, I read that he actually bought an entire hotel for the whole crew to stay at extra for filming this thing. Should have bought a whole marketing team. Also, we should point out, Apocalypse Now,

was another big movie by Francis Ford Coppola. That was expected to be a flop, but then it became a hit. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by Dan Spengeman from Oceanport, New Jersey, but this is actually a correction. On yesterday's pod, I mentioned both megabits and megabytes when referring to United Airlines airplane Wi-Fi. We were talking about the Wi-Fi wars in the skies,

and we said megabits and megabytes, but there is a difference to the megabits and megabytes. Internet speeds are typically measured in megabite. bits with a big M and a little B. Rather than megabytes, which have a big M and a big B. So bits are a measurement of speed. Bites are a measurement of storage.

And in this case, we should have been talking about speed. Mega bits. Mega bits. I can't promise I won't make this mistake again. It's like that one vowel is really messing with us, Jack. Yeties, you look fantastic for T-boy Tuesday. And by the way,

Jack and I, we're whipping up a little something special for you tomorrow. We decided to do something a little different for you. Tomorrow we're publishing our live hotline episode. We've recorded in Seattle about money, money, and money. Yeah, we interviewed Tori Dunlap, who's got 5 million financial followers, and she's who you talk to when you want to talk about money. It was a wonderful conversation.

Lovely. It was incredibly insightful. Had a blast. She was also really funny. I mean, we talked about birthday business bonuses. We talked about how to negotiate a bill, any bill. And there's like a funny story between Tori's dad and my son. It's a good one to stay around for.

It's going to drop right here on your feed, and Nick and I will see you Thursday with our regular programming. then celebrate the wins, and Jack and I will see you on the pie. And before we go, an extra special, super fantastic shout out to our buddy Nick Claussen in Grand Junction, Colorado. He got his HR department to turn sick days

into freedom days. Yeah, he teaboid his company. That was a challenge we made on our pod about sick days versus vacation days. Just make all of the days freedom days instead of sick days of vacation days. Well, Nick Closson jumped in T-boy style and got it done.

Not too shabby. And a happy birthday. birthday to Alexa Marino from Chicago, crushed it in New York, and now living it up by the beach in San Francisco. Happy ninth birthday to Oliver Montia in Orlando, Florida, who video game codes, who flies drones, and boozee chefs with his dad. And Ivan Nichols in Brooklyn is turning 38 and spending the day at the spa and BK, baby. Happy ninth birthday to Shy Lynn Ward in Warsaw, Missouri, who's breathing that Ozark Mountain Air. Happy 100th birthday to Jimmy Carter, the first. American president to hit 100 years old.

Happy 30th birthday to Nick Simpson in Ashbury Park, New Jersey. And a happy birthday to Chee Tran in Palo Alto, California, a pediatric audiologist over at Stanford celebrating with a big birthday bash. And a huge shout out to Jin Huang in Toronto, who is launching a new venture after a whole bunch of hard work. It's the grand opening of the Tales Farewell, a pet funeral and memorial services that any parent would care about. And to anyone else,

something today, make it a T-Boy. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, and I've got some disclosures to make. I own stock of Levi's, Ibracromian Fitch, Netflix, Disney, and Nick and I both own ETFs of the S&P 500.