Bob Iger, Josh Kushner Buys LA Lakers for $12.5B & The FAA is Run by Gamers

0:01Are you sucking wind from trying to keep up with AI and its impact? Take a breather and tune in to the Intelligence Shift, Morning Brew's new podcast with PwC. It bridges the gap between big picture AI concepts and what it actually means in practice. Host Dan Priest is joined by expert guests to discuss AI's role in sports, music, HR, and more. Listen to the Intelligence Shift wherever you get your podcasts. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Kyle Heggie. Today, the Lakers sale that shocked the world. And why Roku is bringing AI slop to your living room. It's Thursday, August 13th.

0:37Let's ride.

0:47Good morning. Kyle Haggy is stepping up to the plate today since Toby is out getting married. Wow, what a loser that guy is. Kyle, you get a host on a special day, Left Handers Day, and our warmest wishes go out to the 10 % of humans and most kangaroos listening to this. From scissors to those desks in lecture halls, this world was not designed for you, but you persevered to produce the likes of Oprah, Sir Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga, Dontrell Willis, maybe Ben Simmons, and Bart Simpson. Don't forget to elbow someone at the dinner table tonight to remind them whose day it is. I didn't know kangaroos had motion like that.

1:25Most of them are left-handed. I love lefties. You meet someone who's left-handed, automatically cooler. And in a few sports, there's definitely an advantage to being left-handed. So I wish I was left-handed personally. And now a word from our sponsor, Rubric. Kyle, have you ever engineered something by accident? Yes, I once engineered a sandwich that tasted like a foot. Well, Rubric doesn't engineer things by accident. Their platform helps you keep going by securing your data, controlling your AI, and protecting your identity built as one architecture not stitched together after the fact. The old cybersecurity model was built on protection, safety nets, recovery plans, systems designed to withstand the last era and maintain the status quo.

2:04The AI era demands confidence that you can secure and accelerate your business operations so nothing stops your momentum. Rubrik can give you that confidence. To learn more about how Rubrik rewrote the industry rulebook, Head to rubrik.com slash MB. That's R-U-B-R-I-K dot com slash MB. Bob Iger has quickly gone from show business to show time. That is the show time Lakers after it was announced that he, alongside Josh Kushner, will purchase the controlling interest in the L.A. Lakers, valuing the historic franchise at$12.5 billion. The sale, which still needs to be approved by the NBA's Board of Governors, would be the most expensive purchase valuation of any professional sports franchise, besting the 2025 deal for, you guessed it, the Los Angeles Lakers, which valued this franchise at$10 billion just 14 months ago.

3:00And this is where the story gets even more interesting. The owner selling to Iger and Kushner, Mark Walter, had purchased the Lakers just over a year ago. So selling a franchise this quickly is exceedingly rare, with this asset class being viewed as one of the most prestigious and scarce out there. A potential factor, Walter is currently under investigation from the FBI, DOJ, and SEC for potential fraud across his business empire, with Bloomberg reporting that Walter has been in talks with investors to raise money to pay down the loans he's being investigated for. Now, Iger, the longtime CEO of Disney, is pretty familiar to the public.

3:37Josh Kushner, brother of Jared Kushner, is a little less so. Kushner runs Thrive Capital, a VC fund, and is the co-founder of Oscar Health. He currently owns a minority stake in the Miami Heat, which he'd have to sell if the Lakers purchase goes through. The Lakers offseason has been an interesting one with LeBron James leaving the team and now an out-of-the-blue sale of the franchise. The Athletic reporting one agent who represents a Lakers starter responded to the news with a simple message. What the F is going on? So, Neil, what the F is going on here? It's a good question. One does not flip an NBA team like it's a house.

4:14And that's why this is being called the most shocking franchise sale in NBA history. And there was no indication that flipping the Lakers was Walter's intention from the beginning. He also owns the Dodgers. And he was kind of merging the two teams, sharing staff and resources to seemingly create one super team in L.A., the Lakers and the Dodgers together. And more reporting shows that this was not necessarily a fire sale, but it came together very quickly. Looks like just in the past few days, Kushner and Iger called up Walter, maybe even Sunday. Today's what, Thursday? So this came together just in the early parts of this week.

4:54Walter was not exactly shopping this around. So it suggests that something else was at play here besides, okay, my time is up because, of course, there wasn't that much time that he was the owner of the Lakers to begin with. Meanwhile, Iger and Kushner had their sights set on another NBA franchise, one that is coming to Vegas. They were the leading players to take over, become owners of the new Vegas franchise. So none of this went according to plan, which is why you had the entire ownership class and the rest of the NBA world saying, yes, what the F is going on? Seems like there are a lot of things going on beneath the surface.

5:26Yeah, there will definitely be more to come from this story, because as you said, this is just so out of the blue, so absurd. No one buys a team and then sells it this fast. Yeah, you mentioned the deal came together in reportedly about 72 hours. It takes me longer than 72 hours to buy a screen protector for my phone. The fact that someone flipped a franchise this fast is insane. And I got to say, venture capitalists, VCs are becoming the new big players in the sports world. Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures purchased the Seattle Seahawks. Now Josh Kushner is purchasing the Lakers. It's a good time to be a VC guy.

6:00And Bob Iger dominates the entertainment industry. I'm really excited for the Los Angeles Lakers halftime shows now. Like, are we going to see a little Mickey Mouse action? Like, this is a massive play in entertainment. And it's entertainment that might be AI-proof because people are craving these in-person experiences. Sports are still appointment TV that you have to see live. So it makes a lot of sense for Bob Iger to be involved. Yeah, very interesting you mention that because Josh Kushner, who is the brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump, has this new fund called Thrive Eternal that's focused on assets that can't be replicated by technology, sports, and big entertainment moments.

6:40He already bought a stake in the San Francisco Giants of MLB earlier this year. He was also in the running to buy a stake in FIFA's for-profit venture that eventually collapsed. And now he, well, that's gone. But then he goes and turns his sights on the Lakers and becomes the owner of one of the most iconic franchises in sports. So it's really interesting to see where capital is going. This is a really rich guy who's looking at the future of investing and saying, I don't know about all these other things that AI might replace. I'm going into sports and entertainment because people crave live experiences being there in person.

7:16So I thought that was a fascinating thing. And then there's Bob Iger, the former CEO of Disney. He knows everyone. He knows Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, because they've been longtime broadcast partners with ABC. Who knows what Bob Iger is going to do to this franchise? Already iconic, already known globally. You can go to any country in the world. Somebody will be wearing a Lakers jersey. He could do things like call up Steven Spielberg or other big Hollywood names and add even more of a pizzazz to this franchise that everyone already knows. So very interesting move by Bob Iger at the end of his career.

7:50and I think for the current CEO of Disney, Josh, tomorrow, it's probably a good sign because the former CEO of Disney, Bob Chabek, who replaced Bob Iger, actually got booted by Bob Iger when Iger wanted to come back. So this maybe solidifies Iger as saying, okay, finally, I'm not going to come back to Disney. You guys do your thing. I've moved on. I own the Lakers now. One little cherry on top of this story that has a little drama. Bob Iger was on J.J. Reddick's podcast before J.J. Reddick was the L.A. Lakers head coach, and they asked him who he cheers for in LA. And he said, I grew up a Knicks fan, so I couldn't bring myself to cheer for the Lakers.

8:25So I'm a Clippers fan now. He's going to have to get over those comments some way because now he owns the Lakers. All right, moving on. The inflation report was a lot like House of the Dragon. If you set the right expectations, it's pretty good. Yesterday, the Consumer Price Index report showed inflation cooled on an annual basis in July, up 3.4 % compared to June's 3.5%. On a month-over-month basis, prices ticked up 0.1%. That 3.4 % is still much higher than the Fed's 2 % inflation goal. But overall, the numbers lined up exactly with projections and revealed a somewhat moderating inflation picture in the United States.

9:01Falling energy prices were the star of the show, sliding for a second consecutive month after spiking during the most intense fighting of the war in Iran. As the attacks have slowed down, energy prices dropped 1.5 % in July after falling 5.7 % in June. Still, they're up 14.7 % over the past year, and gas prices remain over$4 a gallon, almost a dollar more than a year ago. Other positive signs, slowing home price growth and grocery costs falling for the first time since March. Sure, that probably was helped along by lettuce prices plunging 16 % from the cyclospora outbreak, but sometimes you just need a little explosive diarrhea to tame inflation.

9:39That, or Fed rate hikes, the Federal Reserve has been under pressure to raise interest rates to wrangle inflation back to 2%, but this mild report may give it a little wiggle room to hold off at its next meeting in September. Kyle, it's not hard to jump over the bar when the bar is low. And Neil, I think you might have just solved inflation with this diarrhea. Like we tell people that gas causes diarrhea, prices will go down. We might be onto something here. I think it's still important to zoom out to get a little broader perspective. Grocery prices year over year still up. Prices for beef have risen 9.4 % over the past year.

10:15Tomatoes and lettuce have risen 12.8 % and 7.5%, respectively. Coffee up 10.3 % higher in July than one year ago. And so we're still seeing food higher up in terms of cost compared to a year ago, although we're seeing some signs of relief, which is good. I think the big news here is all about the rate hike that you mentioned and the odds of that rate hike going down now. The market as of late Wednesday morning was pricing in just a 38 % chance of a move, which is down 10 percentage points from Tuesday and well below the 70 % or so probability from a month ago. So we were very sure we were going to get a rate hike and now it looks like we're not going to.

10:55Right, the inflation report, which was cool, and then also paired with the jobs report that came in weaker than expected on Friday gives Kevin Warsh and at the Fed a little more wiggle room, a little more flexibility to say, hey, in September, we maybe don't need to raise interest rates because inflation is moderating and the job market is weaker than we expected. There is going to be another inflation report, another jobs report before the Fed makes that decision. So more data will be incoming. My big takeaway is that inflation has been above this 2 % target. I don't even know why it's a target anymore.

11:30It's been above 2 % for more than five years now. And that is eating away at Americans' incomes. Inflation is wiping out all wage gains now for the past four months. We just got wage growth statistics that came in at 3.2 percent. And the inflation report yesterday showed that inflation is growing at 3.4 percent. You don't have to be an economist to do the math there and say that, OK, actually, my real income, my income adjusted for inflation is actually negative. So inflation report, yeah, B, maybe. If I had to give it a grade, it looks like there are some hopeful signs, but things need to come down to give Americans some relief.

12:07That's right. And I think with all of the geopolitical uncertainty as well, particularly geopolitical uncertainty that ties so heavily into the energy sector, it's hard to forecast where that is going to go and therefore where energy prices are going to go. So we'll have to stay tuned for these new reports to have a sense of what September might bring us. I have good news for you if you're one of the tens of people who have looked around and thought, you know what? I need more AI content in my life. Roku has launched Fairground AI Creator TV, a 24-7 channel that only plays AI-generated content on a loop.

12:41That's right, while Netflix has Stranger Things and Hulu has Handmaid's Tale, Roku now has plot lines like chimpanzee smokes in zoo and gets arrested, or what if Sherlock was a woman? The key component here, users are not paying for this content. It's part of Roku's fast or free ad-supported TV roster. This channel, along with many other non-AI generated channels, are available for free to all Roku users, and sometimes you do get what you pay for. However, Roku's overall strategy of focusing on free content in a landscape dominated by streaming subscriptions has paid off handsomely for the company.

13:18Their user base now exceeds 100 million global households, and Fox reached an agreement to buy the company in a deal worth$22 billion in June. Neil, it appears that it might just be the big screen that is the last screen standing when it comes to not having AI slop. The reviews of this channel and this content were so funny. The Verge compared it to eating from a trough. Futurism wrote, Roku is giving the masses what they never asked for, an unending conveyor belt of AI slop. But I think the Guardian takes the cake in terms of the king of bad reviews. They wrote, it was categorically, catastrophically awful.

13:54The channel doesn't so much offer shows as a drifting dreamscape of bad ideas rendered as horribly as possible. Then they write, at one point, the channel cut away to a commercial for Roku's Dr. Phil channel. And the sight of an actual flesh and blood human acting in an identifiably human way almost moved me to tears. Now, I had to do some investigative reporting here. I actually had to watch the Fairground Roku channel. And I turned it on. It was a late night true crime documentary about, you mentioned this, a chimpanzee in an enclosure in a zoo that was seen smoking a cigarette. And it set off some nationwide panic for some reason.

14:33And you know what? It was really bad. It was really bad. It was almost so bad it was good. But it's very interesting to see what Roku is trying here by feeding us AI slop. And I think it's important to mention, look, Roku cut its name by being your screensaver on your TV. Like Roku City. People just love having Roku City or Roku screensavers up on their TV. In many ways, this kind of resembles that because I don't think they actually want you to pay attention to this. They just want you to have it on in the background and see whether this kind of content plays. Because the most important thing here is it doesn't cost anything to make an AI programming or 24-7.

15:11Imagine if you actually had to pay humans to make all of this content. Instead, you're going with AI, which costs nothing. And Roku is saying, okay, maybe if we can get viewership for this, then we can maybe extrapolate from there, put more AI, and then we can pay people less. Yeah, I think you're spot on with the background assumption. This is just meant to be on hopefully mute in the background. You look over. There's a chimpanzee smoking a cigarette. You're like, that's funny. You get back to doing what you're going to do in your living room. I do feel like they've created a solution to a problem no one had.

15:40I don't think anyone was necessarily asking for this. However, I do view this as like almost like a random like art form, low art form. We're like, it's so absurd. It's so bad. It might actually be good. And all of us, when we read the story, we're like, I have to go see what they're cooking up here. I also think this could be big at college. Can you imagine the AI slop channel drinking games would be absolutely incredible. So I was thinking another kind of substance that people like to do at college. Maybe, maybe. Won't comment on that. But I think there's some potential here for universities to really embrace the Roku AI channel.

16:16I will say it's easy to write off AI slop and people won't watch it. But my mind goes back to AI fruit videos. Did you see these on social media? All over TikTok. People were watching these like crazy people. Sometimes people do like watching AI content. I mean, AI fruit Love Island got more viewers than the actual Love Island. People were obsessed. I don't know any of these people, but people were obsessed. so I wouldn't write this off. It's easy to laugh. It's easy to say, oh my God, Dr. Phil, when I saw his face, I nearly cried because it was a human. People seem to like this content, at least some people.

16:49So we'll see where this goes. It's very easy to laugh it off, but we'll see where this goes. And the argument from Roku and Fairground has been every new art form in any TV streaming, YouTube is originally kind of laughed at. It feels so foreign and not what we're used to and maybe not even what we're asking for. As the technology gets better and people get more used to it, maybe there could be a hit upcoming and we'll definitely report on that if it happens. Okay, don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with Neil's Numbers right after this. Every day, shareholders meet to discuss important matters about the companies you invest in.

17:22Now you can easily make your voice heard too. Vanguard Investor Choice makes it easy to set your proxy voting preference for your eligible Vanguard index funds. In just a few clicks, you can have a say on important shareholder topics like executive pay and director elections. Visit vanguard.com slash investor choice to learn more. It's your shares. It's your voice. It's easy. Vanguard investors own shares of their index funds, and those funds own shares of the companies they invest in. Vanguard Marketing Corporation Distributor. Toby, shoot. You want me to leave? No, I want you to talk about shoes from Ultra Running.

17:56They're designed to give you room for your toes for comfort, balance, and strength. Ultra has more room for your toes so they can spread out and your feet can stay in a natural position. Ultra does actually make shoes shaped like feet. What a concept. Use promo code MORNINGBREW10 for 10 % off your first pair of Ultra running shoes at ultrarunning.com slash morningbrew. That's A-L-T-R-A running.com slash morningbrew. Do you ever get stuck when you're writing or researching for the show? All the time. That's why I started using Ultra Pouches. They're clean, plant-powered pouches that really helped me get in the zone thanks to clinically proven nootropics and adaptogens.

18:37Ultra is the ultimate guilt-free pouch delivering instant focus and mental clarity without nicotine or caffeine. New customers can use code MBD to get 15 % off at TakeUltra.com. That's TakeUltra.com for 15 % off with code MBD. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Now it's time for Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats in the week's news that will help you pretend you know things. For my first number, has someone told private equity about Facebook Marketplace? Because it's hoarding a ton of assets it can't get rid of.

19:14Private equity firms held 33 ,575 unsold companies in their portfolios, up 1 ,000 in the last eight months and more than double a decade ago, the New York Times reports. This unsold inventory strikes at private equities business model, which promises to return money to investors after selling a company or taking it public. But now those deals are drying up. Since 2022, just 70 P.E.-backed companies have gone public in the U.S., compared to 424 from 2017 to 2021, according to The Times. Meanwhile, P.E. firms have not found many buyers for these companies either because often they're selling to other P.E.

19:51firms that are going through the same struggles. Those struggles come from multiple sources, most notably, one, rising interest rates, and two, problems in the software industry. When it comes to interest rates, PE shops often rely on large amounts of debt to finance takeovers, so when borrowing costs rise like they have been, the whole proposition gets more expensive. Second, many private equity firms loaded up on software companies back in the heyday of 2021, but since ChatGPT was released a year later, investors have soured on software over concerns AI will eat into the market. It all amounts to a private equity industry that has been lapped by broader stocks from July 1st, 2022 to March 31st, 2026.

20:30PE firms generated annualized returns of just 6.4%. The S &P 500 gained more than 15 % over the same time span. Kyle, I see you taking out the world's smallest violin over there. You gotta feel real bad for the PE guys. I mean, it goes back to our Lakers story. You have VCs buying sports teams. You have people stuck holding an old CRM platform that's been rendered obsolete by AI. So my advice is to pick your field wisely. For my next number, Americans love to travel. You know that. You've probably been to Paris three times already this year. But some stats from The Wall Street Journal reveal just how astonishing the rise of the American tourist has been.

21:07Go back to 1990, and fewer than 5 % of Americans had a passport. Today, the share of Americans with a passport stands at 50%. Last fiscal year, the U.S. issued 27 million passports, a new record, and they're using it mainly to go to Europe. Visits to Portugal are up almost five times compared to a decade earlier. Greece saw four times as many American visitors as 10 years ago, and it's not their first time across the Atlantic either. Just 6 % of U.S. travelers to Europe said it was their first time flying abroad. One catalyst for all the traveling is flights are cheaper than they used to be. In 1984, a round-trip weekend flight between New York and London cost the equivalent of$2 ,150.

21:49These days, you can regularly snag a flight for less than one grand. Driving the travel boom are wealthy boomers and Gen Z, for whom travel is no longer a nice-to-have luxury, but a need-to-have essential. Kyle, it's hard to articulate just how profound a shift this has been. Americans used to think a trip to Bar Harbor, Maine was an exotic vacation. Now, if you don't visit Estonia's sixth largest city to try some TikTok viral pastry, you aren't living. I mean, shout out to Estonia for sure. It's interesting. There used to be this maybe stereotype that Americans didn't have passports. Now, more than half of Americans have one.

22:22And the U.S. issued a record 27 million passports in 2025. I just have to say one thing about the 24 million travels to Europe. I swear 22 million of them have been to Portugal. Every single person I know is going to Portugal, gone to Portugal, talking about Portugal, getting married in Portugal. It's like me and three other people who haven't been to Portugal. So their tourism department is absolutely crushing it. It was me last year. I mean, you've got to try the fauna. That stuff is crack. The one thing that's interesting to me about this, and we're not going to belabor the point, but I'll just throw it out there, is how much has Instagram played into this?

22:54How much has the rise of Instagram, TikTok, social media created such a FOMO atmosphere, highlighting various things that people can see that they feel are more authentic to these countries and how much that has driven all of this tourism by Americans going to faraway places, most specifically Europe. Just throw it out there. I think it's a big role that it played. For my final number, you know how there's been an air traffic controller shortage that periodically cancels your flight? The FAA thinks it might have solved it by hiring video gamers. On Monday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the FAA has hired over 2 ,000 people to control the skies, the most in a single year, after launching a campaign to recruit gamers.

23:34The agency says it's now 94 % to its hiring goal, the fastest time ever to reach that target. But wait, if you're good at Halo, does that mean you're good at landing Southwest Flight 113 at BWI? Could be. When announcing the gaming recruitment drive in April, the FAA said, quote, with only about 25 % of controllers holding a traditional college degree, this effort is focused on reaching talented young people pursuing alternative career paths, many of whom are active in gaming. Feedback from controller exit interviews reinforces this, with several controllers pointing to gaming as an influence on their ability to think quickly, stay focused, and manage complexity.