NBA Hands Historic Punishment to LA Clippers & AI Food Slop is Disgusting Everyone

0:01Marketers, tell us if this sounds familiar. You invest in something that seems incredible, like millions of views, but then don't see any revenue. Instead, invest in what looks good to your CFO. LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Spend$250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a$250 credit. Just go to linkedin.com slash mbd. That's linkedin.com slash mbd terms and conditions apply good morning brew daily show i'm neil freiman and i'm toby howell today 5 000 american sailors hit thailand after 286 days at sea what could go wrong then

0:39Neal Freyman:how a podcaster brought down the richest owner in sports it's thursday september 3rd let's ride

0:53How's this for a little inspirational start to your morning? On Monday, Dale Sanders summited Mount Katahdin in the northern wilderness of Maine to become the oldest person ever to through hike the Appalachian Trail. He is 91 years old, reclaiming a record he first broke in 2017 when he was a sprightly 82. How'd he do it? with a carefully thought out plan that involved a rotating team of volunteers to help him on his journey. But most of all, it was a mindset. His biggest takeaway from the trail is when it hurts, keep going. It'll probably go away.

1:25Neal Freyman:And it certainly did hurt by his count. Sanders said he fell 71 times while hiking, including one just 200 yards from the finish line. In one fall in Vermont, he was banged up, but he said he didn't rub the blood off. I just kept hiking. Pretty epic. Here's a fun fact too. Sanders was born in Kentucky in 1935. That is two years before the Appalachian Trail was even completed. Guy's legend holds a bunch of other age-related records, including the oldest person to paddle the entire length of the Mississippi River. It's got me thinking what I want to do on my 91st birthday. And now a word from our sponsor, American Express.

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2:45That's go.amex slash morningbrew. Offers and benefit terms apply.

2:51Neal Freyman:The NBA has been sitting on a bomb for months now, and it's finally detonated. Steve Ballmer, the billionaire owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, has been suspended for one year as part of a rash of penalties levied against his team for circumventing salary cap rules to pay superstar Kawhi Leonard in an investigation dating back to 2019. The league's investigation found that Ballmer and other Clipper execs knowingly helped Kawhi secure some extra cash through endorsement deals, which don't count against a team's salary cap and violates league rules. As a penalty, the NBA took away five first-round draft picks from the Clippers and suspended the organization's president of business and basketball operations in addition to fining Ballmer$30 million.

3:34Neal Freyman:dollars leonard was also fined seven hundred thousand dollars by the league and released a statement saying he entered into his contract with quote no knowledge of any intent on anyone's part to circumvent the salary cap he also said i accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle the clippers released their own statement saying they vehemently reject the league's decision for the past year we cooperated fully and in good faith and will now fight just as hard to demonstrate our innocence. Strong words that don't have as much bite as they might hope, given there is no formal appeal or arbitration process in this case.

4:10Neal Freyman:In fact, according to NBA reporter Shams Sharanya, LA's only outlet to fight the punishment is in court. Neil, Balmer's tenure as CEO of Microsoft was famously shaky. His Clippers tenure is shaping up to be even worse. Do you remember how this whole thing started? I do. It is as crazy a story as the actual Kawhi Leonard story. The only reason we know about all of this is a podcaster, Pablo Torre, a sports journalist formerly with ESPN, almost exactly one year ago, published several episodes on his own podcast about this strange relationship that he found between Leonard and this eco bank aspiration that showed them paying him tens of millions of dollars,$28 million.

4:52but Leonard doing essentially no work for them and the Clippers and Ballmer allegedly orchestrated it at all. These were wild allegations sent shockwaves across the NBA. What was a solo podcaster doing taking on Steve Ballmer, one of the richest guys on the planet? Along the way, Torrey faced a lot of pushback from more mainstream outlets who were like, this guy is in over his head, he doesn't know what he's doing. But clearly the NBA took him seriously, launched an investigation just a few days after he went public with his findings. Ultimately, Torre won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting and yesterday received the ultimate vindication with this penalty.

5:28It reminds me of the sports version of Serial, that true crime podcast from 2014 when the host investigation caused a real life reevaluation of a murder case in Baltimore. It's certainly a sign that this podcaster, creator, journalist hybrid is now a major force in media.

5:43Neal Freyman:Mark Cuban quote tweeted the breaking news from Sham Sharanya saying, congrats, Pablo. That was the general sentiment is that even though the report was a bombshell and the penalties were huge, everyone was like, dang, this really validates everything Pablo Torre was doing. One thing that complicates even this penalty is the fact that Kawhi got traded recently. He's no longer technically on the Clippers roster. They sent him back to Toronto and that trade was kind of put in limbo as this investigation was cleared. Kawhi is not suspended. His only penalty is basically a slap on the wrist of$700 ,000.

6:21Neal Freyman:So the status of that deal remains unclear as of Wednesday. It is just a wild story, something that's happened in the past, not to such a large degree. But the big person that you have to know within this case as well is Kawhi Leonard's uncle slash business associate. His name is Dennis Robertson. He was kind of floating a similar sort of arrangement to multiple teams back when Kawhi was a free agent. He went to the Los Angeles Lakers. He went to the Toronto Raptors. He was looking for ownership stakes in the team. That's how big of a free agent Kawhi Leonard was. Eventually, they landed in Los Angeles with these kind of sweetheart deals on the side.

7:03Neal Freyman:But it looks like he was searching for this far and wide within the league itself. And if you're a Clippers fan, I mean, don't be. because this basically cripples them for the next better or so decade to not have five first round draft picks. The Clippers next first round draft pick is in 2034, which means you're probably going to be drafting someone born in 2015 and is currently 10 or 11 years old. So if like the Clippers, because of this, I mean, there was the big penalty, But the fact that they're being very much hamstrung from a business and basketball operations perspective, like I can't even imagine being a season ticket salesman right now and try to have to call up and get people into that into it dome.

7:46Neal Freyman:So the people started to add up the total tally that the Clippers actually paid for Kawhi Leonard. They initially sent five first round draft picks just to get them in the first place, including two pick swaps. If you add in the five that they now have been penalized, it is 10 first round draft picks, two pick swaps, and Shea Gilgis-Alexander, who is a MVP in the league. So shaping up to be the worst trade, not in NBA history, but the worst trade in sports history. Moving on, after 286 days without a port stop, the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln stepped on dry land yesterday.

8:21And it's not just any land. The nearly 5 ,000 American service members have docked in Pattaya, Thailand, a beach resort known for its nightlife and sex tourism. It's a much-needed break. Nine months ago, the aircraft carrier left San Diego in what was expected to be a six-month assignment in the Pacific. But when the war in Iran broke out, it was diverted to the Gulf where it came under frequent missile and drone attacks. Reports emerged recently that the crew was suffering mental stress, food was running low, and toilets were broken. So you can imagine their relief upon getting off that ship.

8:52And they couldn't be disembarking in a more notorious spot. The American military has been coming to Pattaya for a half century, with hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops arriving there during the Vietnam War for some R &R, sparking a booming local economy of go-go bars, red light districts, and sex workers. While that seediness has since been somewhat replaced by a more family-friendly vibe, that hasn't stopped social media users from cracking plenty of jokes about what sailors might get up to after nine months at sea with unspent wages. U.S. officials are urging them to be on their best behavior, banning them from parasailing, jet skiing, and consuming marijuana, while reminding them that prostitution is technically illegal in Thailand.

9:30And Toby, you can smirk all you want, but it's a fascinating story about how one port stop can change the fortunes of a place.

9:37Neal Freyman:Yeah. Local businesses are pumped. They see it as this rare chance to generate a lot of revenue in one fell swoop. One gem salesman who owns a gen shop, you're kind of like the main walking street, described the visit as potentially the city's best hope. He actually installed a sign welcoming the American sailors and offering them a special discount. So that's kind of the vibe around the more legitimate business owners in the city. It's like, come one, come all. You have money to spend. We're welcoming you here, especially given the history of the U.S. military at this one particular port. Yeah, but Ty has tried to shed that reputation by getting more family tourists.

10:15And there's a lot of Russians that go there starting in the 90s. They have a Cartoon Network theme park. They have a lot of families coming from the Middle East as well. So they've tried to do this rebrand, but still estimates say that there are about anywhere from 25 ,000 to 50 ,000 sex workers still in the city. These American service members, they will be spending. Estimates say that they're going to spend$3 million in the local economy in this particular journey. It's the largest number of U.S. military personnel coming straight from a war zone to Pattaya since the fall of Saigon in 1975.

10:49Neal Freyman:It just must feel so good to get off that ship, though. We were looking at pictures this morning. The ship itself looks like it's been out at sea for, you know, 250 plus days. It's kind of rusty in places. Imagine just the relief of being on dry land. And we did watch videos of them getting off the bus, the local transportation, all smiles. Everyone is pumped to be on two feet on dry land. Moving on, AI slop oozes out of all aspects of our life these days. A work email with a few too many M dashes here, an Instagram influencer with an extra thumb there. The slop is unavoidable and often offensive to the senses, but no vintage of slop is quite as offensive or quite as horrifying as food slop, the latest form of AI-generated imagery showing up in bodegas and restaurants around the country.

11:37Neal Freyman:To save some dough on graphic design, owners have started to turn to AI to advertise their food on flyers and menus. It's led to some Lovecraftian culinary abominations like a shrimp scampi where the shrimp look more like mini life preservers than edible crustaceans. Or perhaps I could interest you in the barbecue joint whose AI menu showed its protein options covered in what appears to be bugs. Despite being cheaper than a graphic designer, the results can be revolting. The New Yorker notes that most of the establishments that rely on this sort of triggering imagery tend to be delis, bodegas, or food carts, where the quality of the product is secondary to the speed and price at which you can get it at.

12:18Neal Freyman:But that hasn't stopped customers from voting with their wallets in sometimes spray paint cans. One San Francisco coffee shop was vandalized by graffiti in reaction to using AI images on their menu. Squeezed in the middle are graphic designers who have seen their wages dry up as businesses choose the good enough outputs of AI over a more pricey human touch. Neil, I think food slop is one of the more revolting and triggering forms of AI slop out there today. It certainly is. Like when you see these images at the bodega, and I've seen them everywhere or delis, and you just get this pit in your stomach.

12:52And many have waxed poetic about why that is. Why is food slop so different than the other AI slop that we encounter? Here are some interpretations. The New Yorker says, A nauseating, nightmarish quality defines AI's insectified interpretation of human cuisine as if food were just another surrealist goo to stochastically iterate upon. These images violate science. They mock life itself. National Geographic also took this more biological approach. We see it as avoiding a potential threat. The imperfections in a human replica as a sign these foods might be physically ill or a potential source of contagious illness, and that triggers our disgust response.

13:33And then finally, a lot of people have just said it's kind of basically trypophobia, which is this aversion or physical revulsion to the site of clustered small holes, bumps, or repetitive patterns, which a lot of these AI food images depict.

13:48Neal Freyman:Oh, I feel nauseous already. One other reason why is that humans are uniquely attuned to things that look almost normal but slightly wrong. This is a very well-known phenomenon called uncanny value when it comes to human-looking things. We can tell when something kind of looks like a human but isn't quite there. Same thing applies to a hamburger. If it's a cartoon, we understand that's a cartoon. If it's just close enough, that's when our brains send off warning signals. Have you seen the Polar Express? Yeah, exactly. very uncanny value right there because you're right it does maybe signal something like an illness a disease and the problem with ai generated imagery is that technically they almost go into too much detail like they know that a ciabatta bread should have holes in it and yet they make the holes too perfect they make too many of them and that is what makes your brain just go ill gross disgusting that's why this feels so different when compared to all other forms of slop but you can understand why it's happening.

14:44These are restaurant businesses that are operating on very thin margins. Why do this whole photo shoot spend a lot of money when you can just have AI take the picture for you. It's not like the stock images for bodegas and delis were great beforehand. Like they all they all look disgusting, but now they look amazing. I'm like, please just give me that back because I know it's not real. It looks super fake, but that's better to whatever this alternative is.

15:09Neal Freyman:And all these articles did point out that food photography wasn't real to begin with. Like every time you see mashed potatoes, it's probably ice cream. Every time you see syrup on pancakes, it's probably motor oil, but at least they were trying to make it look good. Now it's just looks bad, is fake and didn't require a human at all, which is why you're seeing this visceral reaction to it. All right. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's Numbers right after this. Neil, do you know where AI actually creates an advantage when it comes to deals? Finding coupons? Wrong kind of deals.

15:46Neal Freyman:Data site FD Longitude recently heard from 1 ,000 dealmakers to understand how AI changes the way dealmakers do deals. More than half of respondents say human-only decision-making is no longer enough for complex deals. The real competitive edge is knowing where AI can have the biggest impact and where human judgment still makes the difference. Go to datasite.com slash brew for a full breakdown of the results. That's datasite.com slash brew.

16:33choice 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.

16:46Neal Freyman:Every year during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, e-commerce stores welcome a wave of first-time buyers. But how do you keep those first-timers coming back all year long? WooCommerce brought together marketing leaders from Klaviyo, Sephora, and Fanatics to answer that question. In a recent webinar, they discuss how to build loyal customer relationships during the upcoming holiday season. They also share why trust matters more than discounts, how first-party data powers meaningful interactions, and more. You can watch the on-demand webinar and download the free modern customer marketing playbook at woocommerce.com slash loyalty.

17:21Neal Freyman:That's woocommerce.com slash loyalty. It's time for Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats in the week's news that will make your knees weak, arms sweaty. For my first number, would you consider yourself working class? Odds are yes. In a new survey from Pew Research, about 60 % of American adults identify themselves as working class. That's a big uptick from the 54 % who described themselves as working class just two years ago. The self-labeled working class cuts across the socio-political spectrum from lower earning workers to high income families. About half of college grads consider themselves working class, as do half of families who earn at least$155 ,000 per year.

18:04Both the majority of Republicans and Democrats say they're working class, but more Republicans or Republican leaners, 67 % do when compared to 55 % of Democrats. The results may reflect the murkiness of the term itself, working class, which doesn't really have a clear definition. Pew says the term generally describes people without college degrees who earn below a certain income and who work in service or blue collar positions. Clearly, many Americans take a more expansive view. When asked about how he defines the term, self-described working class champion New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani said, those who are working to try and afford the basic dignities of life and aren't able to do so, I think that is also working class.

18:47Neal Freyman:Part of the issue is that inflation has been eating into wage growth recently. In the last few months, that number has kind of switched. Even though over the last two years, wages have been beating inflation from Q1 2024 through Q1 2026, median weekly earnings grew 8.4%, while prices only rose 5.5%. So technically, people should be feeling better off. That is not the case at all. Clearly, across every swath of income, people are feeling strained. And it goes to show that working class has become more about your identity and the fact that you have to work at all rather than the financial hardship of your everyday life.

19:27Neal Freyman:But those numbers were staggering, especially the fact that more people in the upper income, 155 ,000 plus identify or a very similar amount identify as working class as the lower income under$51 ,000. It might be time just to retire the term. Clearly people don't know what everything and nothing. Yes. Yeah. For my next number, Spaniards aren't doing that late night dinner like they used to a culture known Known for regularly hitting restaurants after 10 p.m., the Spanish appear to be changing their habits to eat at a more normal time. As the New York Times reports, half of the dinner bookings on a popular Spanish reservation platform are for before 9 p.m.

20:05compared to just 27 percent a decade ago. On another platform, the Fork, 10 p.m. reservations have been cut in half and 8 p.m. bookings have nearly tripled since 2019. Overall, the typical dinner out in Spain today begins an hour earlier than before the pandemic. And that might be a key factor behind the shift. In October 2020, Spain imposed a nationwide 11 p.m. curfew, forcing the population to shift up their dinners. At the same time, the custom of tardeo, or hanging out and eating in the late afternoon, saw a revival. And those behaviors appear to have stuck around six years later. Other reasons cited for the decline of the late night dinner, an increase in foreign tourism and foreigners in general coming to Spain, as well as the rise of wellness trends that promote better sleeping.

20:50In 2013, a government commission found that Spaniards got about an hour less sleep than the European average.

20:56Neal Freyman:Still, the 9 p.m. dinner, the 10 p.m. dinner aren't going anywhere. And a lot of it is just due to the social pressure around eating too early. some people told the New York Times, like, I want to suggest an earlier dinner. Like, it makes me feel better. I can get more rest. I can feel better in the morning. And yet they feel so much anxiety around even suggesting that to their group of friends. And yes, Isabel Cano, a 23 year old who talked to the Times said, it's just not the Spanish spirit. She described an early dinner as unthinkable and said, if someone invited her to dinner at 630, she would tell the person to wait, like just have a muffin, she said.

21:35Neal Freyman:So it is very much social pressure as well. And it's fascinating because I thought this was around for hundreds of years. This developed through the culture for a long time, but no, it's actually very recent. This particular tradition, it dates back to world war two when Francisco Franco, the dictator then pushed clocks on the Spanish mainland an hour ahead to align with Nazi Germany. So now it's official time runs much later than its geographic position. Like right now, Madrid is west of London, but it's an hour later than London, so the sun sets later, and that might push people to eat dinner later.

22:11So very interesting that it's just a pretty new phenomenon as of World War II. Looks like maybe it's breaking. The pandemic broke it a little bit, but they're still gonna eat their late dinners because apparently it's taboo to do so. All right, for my final number, during their epic NFL dynasty from 2001 to 2019, the New England Patriots made 9.4 % more of their field goals than their opponents, while no other team even hit 4%. How is that possible? A new discovery reveals head coach Bill Belichick was even more diabolical than we thought, giving the Patriots a major home field advantage when it came to kicking field goals.