Barstool’s bargain
El Presidente wins again
Good morning, unrepentant degenerate gamblers. This is your Stock Market Rundown for August 9th, 2023. Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your day to hang out with me. Let’s get started:
TODAY’S TOP STORY: BARSTOOL’S BIG BREAK 🪑
Imagine selling your business for $500 million and then having it handed back to you a few years later… for free. That’s what Dave Portnoy appears to have done with Barstool Sports, the content-business-turned-podcasting-empire he founded in 2003. So the headlines are saying, anyway—but let’s dig into the facts.
Penn National Gaming, a public company that operates racetracks and casinos, acquired Barstool to bring together El Presidente’s army of sports-loving meatheads with Penn’s online gambling platform. But the marriage was rocky from the get-go.
Self-described “degenerate gambler” Portnoy is beloved by fans for his crass sense of humor, but his sordid jests repelled big-brand advertisers. And press coverage of Portnoy’s controversies surely led to Penn execs cringing ‘round the boardroom table.
So what prompted the breakup now? Well, Penn’s got a whale on their hook. Penn is becoming the exclusive sportsbook of ESPN, which is owned by Disney. Penn will get access to millions of hardcore sports addicts… while beloved family-friendly brand Disney will get to dive deep into the dirty, lucrative business of gaming. Picture Winnie the Pooh placing parlay bets on UFC fights.
To consummate the ESPN tie-up, Penn had to get an amicable divorce from Portnoy, so they handed him back full ownership of his brand (with a few conditions) for zero dollars.
In an Emergency Press Conference yesterday discussing the deal, Portnoy was gleeful at the prospect of no longer enduring gambling regulators breathing down his neck. “It’s back to the pirate ship,” he crowed. Seems like even though Dave walked the plank, he ended up with the pirate’s booty.
SO WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON?
42% of companies who enforced “return-to-office mandates” faced more turnover than anticipated. The boss has gotta understand, I can’t come into the office every day; I need easy access to my SharkNinja blender to make chia-seed smoothies.
Amazon’s quarterly profits surged thanks in part to corporate belt-tightening. Their layoffs of 27,000 employees this year sounds like a lot, until you realize Amazon has a workforce of 1.6 million—a veritable army of coders and box-slingers.
Thank you, professor—this is exactly the energy we need right now: a longtime stock-market prognosticator thinks stocks are headed for new all-time highs.
Elon needs juice: the Tesla CEO is warning the US energy industry that they have to speed up infrastructure-building to prep for the “fully electric economy”. Electricity demand could double by 2050 thanks to everything from building HVAC systems to your suburban neighbour’s leaf-blower going fully electric.
More positive vibes: B of A’s top economist predicts the US will not fall into a recession this year. Instead, expect a “soft landing” akin to a fluffy kitten jumping into a pile of pillows.
That’s it for today, y’all; catch you on the flip side. Yours in capitalism, The Axe