Business News: Economic March Madness - NCAA Revenue - NASA astronauts & SpaceX Capsule - Cryptocurrency Trends

0:00This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. It's our weekly business news here on Friday, March 21st, 2025. What's up Chris Hansen? What's up, Brian Alford? Oh, you know, holding it down here in G Vegas, the lovely social house, our co-work space in downtown Greenville. Also the home of our studio.

0:45Come see us anytime. Socialhouse.club is the website. And it is where everything's happening. Hey, it's spring to sprung. You got the trail and the river right here, Chris. So excited to be in Greenville. We can't all be in Miami. Hey, I'll give you credit. You guys got a good thing going up there. I'd like to see some spring flowers myself, but everything is gravy down here. It's beautiful. It's 75 and sunny. Yes, there we go. We appreciate you for listening wherever you are, whenever you're listening. Hey, it's March Madness, baby. We got to get mad today. I was like, first I was like, okay, what are we going to talk about today?

1:22And sometimes, you know, I think macro and micro, then I'm like, okay, wait a second. It's freaking March Madness week. It's about to get crazy. We got to bring the energy. We're going to talk about the economic impact of March Madness, some stats that you won't believe, maybe a little lack of productivity that goes on with the game watching. We're going to talk some craziness that's happening with Elon Musk and Tesla cars and specific crazy world we live in. And I'm sure if we avoid tariff talk at all, it'll be a miracle. But hey, we are talking business, so we're going to bring it to you. Chris are you are you gonna fill out a bracket are you going to fill out a bracket well if you're telling me that I can use maybe some AI to help me then yeah then I may fill out a bracket but yes I don't I don't think I've ever filled out a bracket ever oh gosh Chris man cue the I like to gamble if I know I'm going to win.

2:24It ain't my game, bro. Yeah, that shows you're an entrepreneur. You haven't been in corporate America where everybody does the bracket fill outs. Yes, that's 99 % of my friends. They know the sports players' stats and they know the teams and I'm just in the corner. Where's the chips and dip back, boys? Yes. Elon Hint Musk There's an article that says He says Grok AI could beat Warren Buffett's March Madness Bracket Challenge No one has ever In the history of the tournament Picked a perfect bracket Never happened All the games It's crazy I would think that that would have just Accidentally happened just by chance But it just shows you how Owen publicly has had that happen I'm sure some dude in Auburn got it right one year.

3:16Some guy in one of the frat houses. Yeah, he has that story. There's a frat house somewhere in the southeast part of this country that has got a bracket right. Yeah, exactly. But here's what he said. This is kind of a fun one where Warren Buffett has a billion-dollar bet that if you exactly match the entire winning tree of March Madness, you can win a billion dollars. Warren Buffett awards that. So Musk said in a reference to the NCAA basketball tournament bracket. So AI to figure out your pool. This did give me, I think I might reference AI in filling mine out this year. So I need to, you know, we record this earlier than Friday.

3:59So by the time you're listening to this, your bracket might already be busted because we'll already have been through all the games on Thursday and it's probably getting into, you know, hopefully you're listening on the treadmill at 5 a.m. right when this release. We know we've got our loyal listeners to do that. But if you're not, then hopefully your bracket's not already busted when you're hearing all this news. It could happen quick. I don't want to live in a world where AI can predict that, you know? You kind of want the randomness, right? Which hopefully we'll always have because we've got the human variability.

4:32But now that you mentioned, hey, maybe I can make a little money here, but just tell Grok, give me a winning bracket. Yeah. Yeah, chatbot Grok 3, which is powered by artificial intelligence on Monday night. It got released. And during the event, that's when we can also do something more fun. How about make a prediction for March Madness? So we're using AI for everything now. I will say this. We did this exact article. I started, you know, we're doing the research looking at what we're going to talk about today. This exact article, I feel like it's almost verbatim, Chris. We're going to go back and the team, you know, hopefully compare what it was.

5:15But the U.S. economy loses up to$20 billion to lost productivity over those four days from Thursday to Sunday. It's a lot of cash. 20 B's. Millions of Americans gear up to watch college basketball this week for the 2025 edition of one of the biggest sporting events of the year. so i don't know like i think we joked about this last year but like do you just shut it down like if you've got one of those companies where let's just say skews yeah federal holidays thursday like especially if like you have a a workforce that skews i mean i'm not being sexist but it probably probably skews male and yeah and i know everyone does brackets now but if you have a workforce that you just know they're going to be they're heading this just say all right we're shutting down or you can take a vacation day i bet you a lot how many vacation days get taken tomorrow i was just wondering that that you know some dudes like live for this oh absolutely it is fun i mean it it at no other point do i care who when iona and alabama state are playing you know whoever it's like the drama of the one and done, the losing, you go home.

6:40I think that's what, it's excitement because you're like, oh, you can feel for the kids the energy and the passion to stick around. They want to get that extra trip in to the next weekend. I'm down with it. The 10 interesting stats here that I don't think anyone wants to miss. Top 10 March Madness stats and facts. These are mainly business things. Go to wallethub.com. You can look at this. Number 10. We'll start from the 10 and go backwards, Chris. There are 12 plus college basketball games are involved in a corruption case involving payments to players. Okay. We start at number 10. I guess that was related to a tournament in the past.

7:29Number nine, 64 ,000. Alamo Dome, that's the Alamo Dome stadium's capacity for the final four this year. It can be extended to 72 ,000. So I don't know if you've been how many basketball games you've been to. That's a get your binoculars out to try to see the court. I mean, basketball is like, I mean, a third of the size or half at best of a football field. And so you're trying to see the whole court from, and you're in a 64 ,000 person stadium. I don't know about that. No, I think I'd rather watch it on the TV, Chris. I'm just thinking of walking in and out of that stadium before and after. That's a lot of rubbing shoulders.

8:12I don't want to do. Yeah. A lot of this for like 30 minutes. Yes. A lot of it. Number eight, zero, the amount of money the NCAA pays the players participating in the tournament. I think that's a little misleading on the books, zero on the books for the tournament, but they're getting deals with their schools. It is a little interesting of how much money the NCAA does make on the tournament that none does go to the players. I mean, we know the players are getting paid now with name, image, likeness and the deals with the colleges. So I don't have the sympathy that I would have five years ago, but still interesting.

8:48I mean, how many billions of dollars are made on this tournament? But$15 million, number seven, NCAA Women's Basketball Funds 2025 Distribution to D1 Schools. First in NCAA histories. So$15 mil. So that's what they got paid. Then what they're distributing to the women players is$15 million this year. So the schools are getting paid by the NCAA. And then the schools themselves are distributing, you know, what they determine, the salaries of the players. Number six,$251.6 million. The estimated value of the University of Ohio basketball program. Highest among all schools. Generating revenue of$24 million.

9:37Is that Ohio State? It's got to be, right? That's really what I was just thinking was like, who the hell is University of Ohio? There's an Ohio University. This has got to mean they needed to get their vernacular right on this. Because immediately. That's Ohio State. We're going to go out on a limb and just say that's got to be Ohio State. Got to be the Buckeyes. Yeah. It's interesting, though. That's a lot of money. And they're not even like the Buckeyes aren't even normally like a top 10 team in basketball. Hey, but they bring the cash flow in, apparently. Yeah, they do. Hey, they got the alumni.

10:10The big alumni base. All right. Number five, 400 million projected economic impact on San Antonio from March Madness 2025. just the city hosting the final four dude I mean that's an impact 400 million that fill this room with cash buddy got a big studio here that we can fill this entire thing with cash for what that impact 17 but but but but billion is the corporate losses due to unproductive workers okay this one has the same so the other one was estimating 20 billion ah what's 3 billion We're somewhere in that$17 to$20 billion range of unproductive workers lost. Just shut it down, people. Number three, 52X, the difference between the average NBA's rookie salary and a D1 men's athlete's basketball scholarship for a year.

11:09Again, these stats made a lot of sense before the players got paid, but now that they're getting paid, we need to layer that in. Number two,$9.6 million, the salary for college basketball's highest paid coach. Kansas' Bill Self. Hmm. $9.6 million. That's not a bad little salary there. That's a lot of money. I'd take$9.6 million a year, you know? Let's get these sponsors in, man. Come on. We got to feed some kids and keep my boat with some gas in it. Let's go. So, number one,$1.3 billion is the annual estimated revenue for the NCAA last year. So, that's how much money they made. Hmm. It's big business, man.

12:01That's the bottom line here. You know, we're a business show. We talk business. Sports and college sports is big business. Lots of money being transacted. A lot of money and nostalgia. Yeah, a lot of money in this stuff. Look, we talked about sports cards. We're going to open pack in a little while. I said earlier it should have been basketball. It's football. But still, those are your top 10 March Madness stats and facts as it relates to business. And look, the bottom line is we've nailed that the unproductivity impact is high. So hopefully, you know, businesses know it's happening. They plan accordingly.

12:43and hopefully your back your bracket's not already busted we'll see how that goes um you know this this article is not to turn to sort of a immediate you know kind of a fun thing to a negative thing chris but have you seen all these people like bashing like throwing molotov cocktails at freaking tesla cars yeah people like firebombing tesla dealerships and lighting charging stations on fire this is ridiculous it's crazy and i'm gonna let you speak to what you said because it i don't think it's as conspiracy theory as it is it kind of sort of sounds it it feels like instigation yeah yeah i mean if you really look at a lot of these movements, there's someone financing them.

13:34And I, you know, I made reference to the BLM movement and I think it's pretty well known to the public. Now there was a lot of money moved through these types of movements, but there's a lot of paid agitators on both sides. Right. So like we said before, how many people in their free time are just out like, you know, building pipe bombs and going to go risk it all because they want to piss off at Elon. you know so i think some of it's agitation or did you just piss off your base so much you know but i like to think a lot of this is is theater and paid agitation to create headlines and drama and controversy it does feel like it's just another way like instigation from the other you know side like they don't like what elon's doing with the doge and trying to save money and Like what?

14:28I mean, and they're trying to scare people. Yeah. But what has happened so bad yet that makes someone want to take this kind of action? like that's not just pure speculation uh or i don't know waving the fan you know of trying to spark fires you know like trying to get oxygen to a fire that may or may not even exist right with things he might be enacting and trying to save the government i mean the guy's trying to help save the government money i don't even know that he's getting paid like he's being smeared in the same way that the media kind of tried to smear trump you know for all those years 2016 kind of it's kind of the same playbook it feels like on elon where all right yeah they're auditing the government but outside of that i it says drama in twitter talk right because he is kind of an instigator on twitter elon does like to trash talk a little bit but said most of this is due you know leftists hitting out it must for his efforts to slash government spending it seems like trying to blow up a Tesla dealership seems like kind of a not an equal reaction to that yeah the website literally let you know put out names addresses phone numbers and emails of all Tesla owners they had pulled right and I look at that that's a way to scare people from purchasing more Teslas trying to drive his stock price down like that's the tactic I see behind It even lists FBI director Kash Patel's home and uses a symbol of a Molotov cocktail as its cursor.

16:14I mean, isn't this domestic terrorism? Right. So we have a militia now of pipe bombing, Tesla hunting vigilantes that. Yeah, this is ridiculous. And I hate to say this, but most Tesla owners are more left-leaning people. The people pissed off at Elon are left-leaning people. So you're attacking the people that probably are kind of more in your camp than not, which seems rather foolish. Yeah, 100 % foolish. If you were bombing Ford F-150s, it would make sense to me, but it's no logic. yeah i don't think it's just like we said last year somebody needs to be unhappy at somebody and they need a reason to protest and and then you always have this sort of extremist group and i'll admit maybe on both sides like waiting in the background to be activated right all right what do we need all right we need some we gotta attack all these teslas all right get them going Get the guys going.

17:20Get the money in. Start circling the wagons. To be fair, there was a group called Patriot Front. Yeah. A red group. And basically people started following and found out there were a bunch of FBI agents getting hauled around in U-Hauls dressing up to look like civilian protesters. I mean, people need to understand that. You know, there's a form of control that goes along with the people in power. And like they say, the world is a stage. Yeah. Yeah. And they use news and this stuff to sort of move sentiment overall.

17:57I will say this, Chris, you know, the good thing that I mean, I like to transition, you know, sort of a negative news, like positive news, which is, hey, I am getting to get every word today recorded in real time. and transcoded. I'm getting the notes automatic because of my good friends. If I aim rec dot, look, I got the headphone piece in Chris, literally real time happening here on my phone. That's our notes. That's our word spoken. It's getting the show notes right as we speak, transcoding it summarizing it right there on my phone it's immediate it's it's incredibly accurate i've been testing it this week so literally go into meetings you can have both headphones on i can be and i'll tell people hey we're recording i'm recording this so to get shown to get my notes for later to take bullet points it summarizes everything you can run it through um a gpt or anything taking those notes to get what you need from it but it's that real-time action that's happening while you're sitting there.

19:10And so if you go to check out Viame Rec. on their website, you can record calls, any audios and meetings. It's got, I'll say this, Chris, I couldn't believe I was working out this morning. So I wanted to try it to, you know, get the full experience here. Listening to the music. I mean, I gotta be honest. There was a couple of songs that sounded better than my AirPods. So, uh, I was expecting, okay, it's got this voice recording and all that, all the good stuff for business. You know, the sound quality is probably just going to be so-so. No. Great sound quality, seamless video and audio transcription.

19:48We can record on site or otherwise. Go check them out. Just do a search. We'll have it in the show notes. If I aim rec. It will change the game for business. It's already doing it for me. Yes, Chris. So in better and good news, NASA finally got these guys out of space. nine months. It's supposed to be like a two day or one week thing. Imagine that, Chris, you go up into space, you think it's going to be two days or a week and you get stuck for nine months. Freak out, man. Lost in space. That sounds like an absolute nightmare to me. And I'm sure they'll make a movie about it. I'm looking forward to it.

20:27So we're going to, we're going to bomb Tesla cars and SpaceX founded and owned or CEO of Elon Musk. He's rescuing astronauts from NASA because NASA can no longer, you know, put their own rockets together. They can hold it, I guess. And so now doing this commercial space exploration, but goes up there and saves them, splash landing, gets them back. But yeah, we're going to go bomb their cars. That makes sense. it's like but still nasa astronauts barry butch wilmore and sunny williams returned to earth after spending over nine months stranded in space this is gonna be a movie right gotta be their planned one week mission in june of 2024 on boeing's starliner capsule turned into a prolonged stay due to spacecraft issues.

21:24SpaceX Dragon capsule carrying the relief crew enabled their return. Landing in the Gulf of America off Tallahassee. It says Gulf of America. Have we officially changed the name? I mean, I had to do a double take when I saw that for a second, too. Also, like, Tallahassee is not coastal at all. Not the Gulf of Mexico anymore. I know I saw that happening. I didn't know if we ever officially moved to there. The article. All right. No longer the Gulf of Mexico. It's the Gulf of America. I mean, obviously, according to Fox Business, it's Gulf of America. Yeah, exactly. I love it. I love it. Yes. Oh, I mean.

22:07This is the stuff that with Trump that just, you know, God love. the uh spacex mission control in california welcome them back on behalf of spacex welcome home hey what a ride the astronaut said grinning ear to ear spacex has now completed 10 operational human space flight missions under nasa's commercial crew program the dragon capsule went through orbit lowering maneuvers jettisoning its trunk and reentering Earth's atmosphere for a smooth splashdown. I've always wanted to use that combination of words. That was very well written. Like, they made it sound super suave. Yeah. Orbit lowering. If you'd have told me at any time in my life I would use orbit lowering and jettisoning, it's strong splashdown.

23:00All in this one sentence. I would not believe you. Hey, we thought it was physically impossible 20 years ago, But here we are with reusable rockets. Yes, exactly. But again, they're home safe and it's good news. Heck yeah. We appreciate SpaceX for getting them back after that one week. I mean, nine months. I mean, yeah, space exhibition. I mean, think about what's the first thing they want to eat. Like, because don't tell me. They've got the space food up there. They've had all the dry eggs. You know, they must have been at least getting them food, obviously. So, I mean, one week and nine months, they were either rationing really good or, you know, I think they were sending them supplies.

23:50It's like, can we please get that steak sandwich? Like, how long does it take to get there? Like, you know, I need a grilled steak or hamburger or something. Not that dried, you know, what is it, eggs in a box? Yeah, dehydrated. Dehydrated. It's so funny. My dad, Steve Alford, I love him, but he's got like these prep kits. And my dad's not. He's kind of that guy, but not really that guy. He's got these prep kits just in case things go wrong. And I helped him move a couple weekends ago. And we're moving. and in his pod, moving the pod, I'm into this pod, he's got like 50 of these containers. They're probably like 25 pounds each and like a foot, you know, two feet tall, one feet wide.

24:42I got some of those. And I'm moving them. And one of them is significantly lighter than the others. His buddy, Bob, who's, my dad's 73, is over there. They're both kind of like sort of pretending to move. I'm actually doing all the moving. Look, I'm a young buck. I can do it. But they go, he goes, oh, yeah, that was probably pretty light. He's like, Bob and I got into that. We decided to cook dinner to see what we would be in for if we ever needed to use it. We want to know. He said, it's pretty good. You got to take one home. Eggs. It was, oh, no, I'm losing my YouTube button. And the, uh, it was everything, uh, that you would imagine dried up like in packets.

25:32I have some of those. It has like roast beef even. It said roast beef, but. I got those during hurricane season. So I got them in my closet here. So I've never tried them. You and my dad. Yeah, brother. Hey, I'm 30 floors up. If the power goes out during a hurricane, I'm just going to be up here with my little heating pot and some dehydrated eggs and oatmeal. but I just got a kick out, you know, thinking about those poor astronauts, what they're eating up there and dried stuff. Maybe I'm sure it's come a long way. They're probably getting better things than we're even eating, but I just thought of my dad, like in his buddy deciding they were going to have dried food one night.

26:09You know, they do drink tequila on Tuesday night. They must have been a tequila Tuesday. That's a total guy thing to do. You know, Hey, you want to go try that survival food? Yeah. Yeah. Ferrari car buyers are getting younger. CEO says 40 % of new clients are now under 40. You've been a Ferrari buyer yourself there, Chris. You were under 40. I definitely was. Still are. Yes. 40 % of Ferrari's new clients are under 40, up from 30 % just 18 months ago. Their CEO credited the shift to the company's team efforts. The brand maintains exclusivity with nearly 75 % of sales going to existing customers.

26:53I mean, which sort of makes sense. You know, a lot of rich people that own them, buy another one, get in line. They're very strict on it. You can't buy a brand new one unless you've owned one previously. Yep. Ferrari maintains strict production. Ensuring demand always exceeds supply. Enzo Ferrari's philosophy, we always deliver one less car than the market demands. Smart. I mean, it's smart. And I mean, I don't, I don't, it doesn't have their financials. but I assume they're making money, but it is, I get it. Hey, that's the brand. It's luxury, but it's, you're always sort of capped some level, but you know what?

27:34I mean, that's not a bad thing. It's like, you know, you're, if you're always profitable and you'd rather make steady income than chasing because you're, yeah, quality goes down. You sacrifice quality. Like Lamborghini's quality is crap now. Yeah. If you disassemble a Lamborghini, it's Audi parts. Like if you open the center console of like a Lamborghini truck, the URUS, it's got the Audi logos in it. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. It's all the same, man. That's why they're one of the few that still kind of isn't, you know, mass produced. Yeah. do you think um ferrari's looked at as a better car yeah for sure like in the car world ferrari is definitely above like lamborghini i mean and price-wise i mean you can get a lamborghini much less expensive for sure and it's not as strict on the i mean ferrari literally if i wanted to put a wrap on the car yeah corporate could literally have sent me a letter saying like Like, hey, you need to remove that.

28:44Or they'll blacklist you, which happened to celebrities like Justin Bieber. They put like a pink color on it. And Ferrari will literally blacklist them. Wow. So you have to have, you know, a string buyer going and get it. Guys like that obviously have people doing that for them. But, yeah, they're very big on maintaining the brand integrity and the image. Yep. They don't want to look. I think, like, look at all the YouTube guys. It's all Lamborghinis and purple cars and stuff. And I think they're really not trying to get into that. Jason, are you a Ferrari or Lamborghini guy? You like Ferraris?

29:19We have a special guest in the studio today. And Jason, we're not recording live. So you can, are you, do you like Ferraris? Yeah.

29:32I think you take one, right? If Chris wanted to buy you one.

29:39the uh yeah i liked your ferrari so yeah good ride time to like i'll let you keep getting them i'll get to live vicariously through you it's better to have friends with them than own one like a boat right well you can come stay on my house boat i'll You let me drive your Ferrari. That's fair trade.

30:03And, you know, I knew we'd get to tariffs at some point. Yeah, I can't avoid it because it's still there. The elephant in the room. Splurge or save. American struggle as tariffs hit economy. I think it's maybe the first part of that I would agree with. I don't know if the tariffs have definitively hit the economy. I think the perception, the sentiment has hit. rising uncertainty. Households are saving more and spending less amid concerns over tariffs and a possible economic shutdown. Retail sales declined last month and companies like Walmart and Delta are reporting weakened demand. The Fed is set to hold interest rates steady, but the path forward is uncertain as tariffs could raise prices and slow growth.

30:46I mean, we talked about this last week and it holds true for me. I think the administration needs to paint the picture of where we're headed with the tariff stuff. The tariff orders are not good for us. And I do. I don't look. We share articles and opinion on articles here. You know, we can't go fact check every single thing I go. We go kind of by our own opinion and sentiment of what we feel in our circles. and i think that this feels accurate to what i see and sense as far as the overall sentiment that's why i think the interest rates got to go down it's like lower the rates we got to get you know people refinance and get some more money get the sentiment higher and this is where i think the administration really needs to paint the picture of okay what next you know we need a roadmap because we need cash moving.