Friday, February 11, 2022
1. The man, the myth, the legend……of mattresses that is. That’s right, Texas’ own Mattress Mack has placed the largest bet to date with $4.53M placed on Big Dick Joe and the rest of the Bengals to win the SuperBowl. He’s doing it as a hedge to offset a promotion his company (Gallery Furniture) is running…..offering a refund on any mattress or reclining living room furniture purchases if the Bengals pull off the victory. If they win, Mack Daddy will use the $7.7M to pay for the costs of the refunds (with potential leftovers for his P&L). If they lose, well he basically spent $4.53M to be mentioned on this widely popular new distribution (# advertising). Just as interesting is how he placed the bet. He crossed the state border into Louisiana to make the single bet transaction on the Caesar’s Sportsbook app from a gas station via his phone. Other apps turned him down, required him to make multiple bets of smaller size or gave him less favorable odds. As the topic of sports betting heats up across the nation, this is great coverage for Caesar’s versus their competition. They should all learn from this and seek out prominent figures/companies to encourage them to make large wagers on their apps in the future….assuming they make it worth it via favorable odds, perks, etc… Then again….maybe Caesar’s was smart enough to think of this on their own.
2. The crazy Canucks are at it again. First it was setting the city of Vancouver on fire after getting beat by the Boston Bruins in game 7 of the Stanley Cup in 2011 (basically like the Boston Tea Party) and now all their truck drivers have been blocking the country’s busiest bridge between little brother and big brother…..all in an effort to protest Covid vaccine mandates. We’re now at day 5 and a quarter of the countries goods are NOT being delivered to Merica via Detroit. Listen, I applaud your effort for standing up for what you believe in. But if we feel one ounce of disruption to our maple syrup supply I will lose my sh*t. If you think Ukraine is worried about what Russia is about to do…..then just wait to see what happens if I have to eat dry pancakes during Saturday and Sunday brunch. Real talk.
3. Ivan Drago and mother Russia seem to be gearing up for another battle. Stocks ended the day on a slide given tensions abroad and the fear that Russia is closer to invading. The US and allies are discussing the significant economic sanctions it will put on Russia if they do such. But is it that easy? Germany for example is absolutely dependent on Russia for their energy needs. Who has the ability to fulfill that gap at the flip of a switch? The US? Maybe if the energy industry wasn’t always on their heels being demonized and playing defense. Another example of how US Energy has a stacked hand that we continue to NOT play. If Rocky Balboa took this approach, he wouldn’t have had the guts to accept fighting Drago to avenge Apollo’s death. In Russia! On Christmas Day! But he accepted the challenge. Put in the time and effort in the middle of Siberia to train. And against all odds, while his hands were raised in victory (and the Russian crowd cheering him on) he was able to say…..”If you can change, and I can change……we can all change.” Time for something to change here.
4. And while we’re on the topic of Ivan Drago and Russia. Another Russian Olympic athlete has been found to be doping. This time 15 year old skater Kamila Valieva is the one to be found guilty. Of course Russia has taken a Trump approach by flat out denying these allegations and going further to say the gold medal she won earlier this week was done son “honestly.” Looks like Russia will have to rebrand yet another team next Olympics. First it was “Russia”. Then they were banned due to doping and changed the name to “Russian Olympic Committee”. Now who knows what they’ll rebrand as. Maybe something along the lines of “F*ck you, we do what we want, how we want….Olympic Team”. Alternatively could also just start a twitter poll asking for additional potential names…?
5. Lastly, Binance, the world’s leading crypto exchange, is taking a $200 million stake in Forbes…..yes that Forbes. The 104-year-old media brand. It will replace half of the $400M in commitments received in August of last year making it one of the top two biggest owners of Forbes. Pretty big investment in a traditional US media property. Very interesting to see this and not too contrarian to think that this is the first of many investments to be made by large Crypto companies in something more “real-world mainstream” beyond sports arenas and celebrities. The real question…..what does our fuzzy headed friend and his strong-armed lawyer have up their sleeve to combat this? This is Chess mother f*ckers, not checkers. Plenty of moves left.