🍋 Stadiums Spending Spree

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"Nobody is thinking you're an imposter. They are busy thinking about themselves." – Ryan Holiday

Good morning! Hope y'all had a great weekend and managed to stay warm in the 2 billion Canada Goose jackets I spotted over the weekend in Manhattan. John Legend has sold his music catalog to private equity giant, KKR and BMG. Cryptocurrencies continue to decline and Bitcoin hit its lowest point since the high of $69k in September. The US is planning to hand out $10 billion to help struggling small businesses in disadvantaged communities to stimulate economic recovery. Djokovic, after being stuck in Melbourne's Park Hotel (used to house asylum seekers and refugees), won a legal battle early this morning after an Australian judge reinstated his visa. The drama is probably still not over as Australia's immigration minister can still step in and cancel his visa regardless on new grounds. 

We are running a Wall Street Comp Survey to give y'all some transparency. Please take 2 minutes and fill this out. We'll distribute the results as soon as the intern can figure out how to make charts in excel.

800 Degrees Pizza and Piestro have teamed up to create 800Âș GO: a fully automated robotic pizzeria that crafts fresh artisanal pizza within 3 minutes. Here's your chance to invest in them.

1. Story of the Day: Stadiums Spending Spree

Sports stadiums around the country are getting upgrades. An estimated $15 billion ($20 billion including renovation) is expected to be spent on pro sports venues over the next 15 years.

SoFi stadium, home of Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, opened in 2020 and is the most expensive sports arena in history costing $5 billion. Other NFL teams are getting in on the action too. Buffalo Bills are looking to build a $1.3 billion stadium; Chicago Bears purchased land worth $197 million, which could become their new home. Washington Football Team is lobbying for a new stadium as well.

MLB teams such as Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics want new stadiums. In the NBA, LA Clippers have started to build their $1.2 billion stadium, and others like 76ers and Dallas Mavericks are eyeing new arenas too.

Building a new stadium, while expensive, can attract lucrative naming rights and sponsorship deals. They can also serve as real estate projects e.g., Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Bucks using their new stadiums as anchors for huge real estate projects.

Who pays for the stadium? Typically, it’s a mixture of public and private funds. Recently there is a larger supply of private capital with fintech and crypto companies looking to spend. Islanders who opened their UBS Arena in Nov '21 financed it completely with private funds.

Since stadiums add to the appeal of a city, they have leverage to solicit public funds. Bills are expected to split the cost of their new stadium with NY state. To help with a $250 million renovation of Lambeau Field, Packers raised $90 million of public stock.

Short Squeez Takeaway: Sports teams realize that to attract fans and top players they need to have world-class facilities. There is also a shift towards advanced technology, (e.g., grab & go food) and better experiences at the arenas (e.g., on-field suites). New York Islanders owner, Jon Ledecky gets it: "We’re competing against the 80-inch television in your living room."

Source: CNBC

2. Markets Rundown

US stocks fell as tech sold off again and bond yields spiked Friday, after the release of the December jobs report.

Movers & Shakers

  • (+) Discovery ($DISCA) +17% after Bank of America upgraded Discovery to buy.

  • (+) GameStop ($GME) +7% on news that the company is planning to create a marketplace for NFTs.

  • (–) Chewy ($CHWY) -8% after Piper Sandler downgraded it to neutral from overweight.

3. Top Reads

  • Rivian was never going to be Amazon's only electric van maker (BB)

  • Early data ranks 2021 as Earth's fifth warmest year (Axios)

  • The world just set a record for sending the most rockets into orbit (AT)

  • Cruise ship companies are defying the CDC’s warning and doing business as usual (Fortune)

  • Djokovic argues he had Australia green light because of recent Covid infection (CNBC)

  • After two weeks of flight cancellations, airlines assess what went wrong (WSJ)

  • Drone carrying a defibrillator saves its first heart attack patient in Sweden (Verge)

  • Stress may be your heart’s worst enemy (NYT)

  • This Tesla owner says he mines up to $800 a month in cryptocurrency with his car (CNBC)

A Message from 800Âș GO: Own a Slice of Pizza Market

The US pizza market is expected to grow to $54B by 2023 and you can own a slice.

800 Degrees Pizza and Piestro have teamed up to create 800Âș GO: a fully automated robotic pizzeria that crafts fresh artisanal pizza within 3 minutes. 

Combining sophisticated culinary offerings with cutting-edge technology, 800Âș GO is redefining the restaurant industry with lower costs, a highly scalable concept, and the exact same ingredients, recipes, and cooking techniques you'd see in a professional kitchen.

Slashing labor and real estate costs without sacrificing quality, 800Âș GO boasts profit margins 2x that of traditional pizzerias. 

4. Book of the Day: Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind

We are living through one of the most anxious periods any of us can remember. Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone. 

We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). 

Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us the map to our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.

Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.

“Watch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become actions. Watch your actions. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character.”

5. Short Squeez Picks

6. Daily Visual: Top Podcast Publishers

As of November 2021

Source: Axios

7. Daily Acumen:  Building a Habit

The process of building a habit can be divided into four simple steps: cue, craving, response, and reward. 

This four-step pattern is the backbone of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time.

We can split these four steps into two phases: the problem phase and the solution phase. The problem phase includes the cue and the craving, and it is when you realize that something needs to change. 

The solution phase includes the response and the reward, and it is when you take action and achieve the change you desire. 

Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop -mcue, craving, response, reward - that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits.

Source: James Clear

8. Crypto Corner

9. Memes of the Day

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