Good morning,

It was yet another incredible week: Matt Belloni dissected David Ellison’s latest CBS machinations; Dylan Byers analyzed the conquering mogul’s deal heat; Julia Alexander cured David Zaslav’s HBO fever dreams; Eriq Gardner revealed an Ari Emanuel legal headache; John Ourand exhumed Dave Portnoy’s TV revival; Lauren Sherman scrutinized Bernard Arnault’s warplans for the luxury recession; Rachel Strugatz’s detailed a post-founder morality tale; Marion Maneker chatted up the king of collectibles; Julie Brener Davich captured the spirit of the American West auction market; Bill Cohan investigated Jim Chanos’s big short; Ian Krietzberg debunked an A.I. conspiracy theory; and special guest star Michael Grynbaum offered a retrospective on the Graydon-Anna-Tina glory days.

Meanwhile, Leigh Ann Caldwell parsed the Trump-Epstein miasma of hysteria; Julia Ioffe got the readout from inside a grieving Foggy Bottom; and Abby Livingston hypothesized Elon’s impact on the midterms.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

Lauren Sherman assesses Bernard Arnault’s LVMH turnaround plans and Ssense’s post-wunderkind blues.
and…
Rachel Strugatz solves a Puig beauty crisis.
meanwhile…
Sarah Shapiro surveys the mall scene in Miami.
Bonus!
Michael Grynbaum remembers when glossy magazines ruled the world.

Marion Maneker charts Ken Goldin’s ascent in the collectibles market.
and…
Julie Brener Davich checks in on the rollicking Western art market.

Matt Belloni breaks the news of David Rhodes’ possible return to CBS News in the Ellison era.
and…
Eriq Gardner identifies a $500 million legal hurdle in the Endeavor take-private.
meanwhile…
Julia Alexander outlines Zaz and Casey Bloys’ new HBO Max strategy.

Ian Krietzberg examines artificial intelligence’s impact on the medical industry and ponders some A.I. coding myths.

Dylan Byers explains David Ellison’s Bari Weiss infatuation and the math behind Substack’s mega funding round.
and…
John Ourand tracks how Dave Portnoy ended up back on TV.
meanwhile…
Julia Alexander unpacks YouTube’s golf revolution.

Bill Cohan has the latest on the Saks debt crisis and Jim Chanos’s major short play.

Leigh Ann Caldwell articulates how Epstein has become Trump’s kryptonite.
and…
Julia Ioffe follows up on the State Department firing spree.
meanwhile…
Abby Livingston envisions the Elon-ified midterms.

Dylan and Julia Alexander chew over Substack’s unicorn status on The Grill Room.
and…
John Ourand welcomes NASCAR commish Steve Phelps to The Varsity.
and…
Lauren revisits Condé Nast’s glory days with author Michael Grynbaum on Fashion People.
and…
John Heilemann and New York’s Will Leitch imagine what Trump might gain or lose from next summer’s World Cup on Impolitic.
and…
Matt and Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw juxtapose the fates of Marvel and DC on The Town.
and…
Julia Alexander and Bill Cohan marvel at Bill Ackman’s fragile ego on The Powers That Be.

As a reminder, you can update your profile at any time to get more stories like these directly in your inbox. Click here to customize your email settings.

Last weekend, my partner John Ourand selflessly decamped to the wilds of California’s wine country to co-host a dinner with NASCAR commissioner Steve Phelps, pegged to the circuit’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 event at Sonoma Raceway. The timing was both fitting and fraught. Back in New York, the media world was aflutter with breaking news of F1’s potential $150 million U.S. rights deal with Apple TV+, the latest unpredictable turn in a topsy-turvy tête-à-tête. While John was greeting various industry jefes at Enclos, the media soothsayers were already predicting what the deal might portend for the future of the media business.

You don’t need to be a voracious sports fan, or even an eagle-eyed media connoisseur, to fathom that the sports business is cleaving along new fault lines. The NFL, which represents the last vestige of American monoculture, is perhaps the most important media entity in the U.S. Later this decade, the league will almost certainly opt out of its $110 billion media rights package, and cut a series of deals with streaming platforms and a few trusty legacy partners that will make that number look like couch cushion money. The NBA’s recent $76 billion, 11-year media rights deal, the closest facsimile, already seems like both an extraordinary windfall and an unattainable achievement for lower caste leagues. Indeed, all the other leagues and tours have found themselves with more competitors and fewer bidders in an era of consolidation. And yet every entity, from the mighty Shield to the Savannah Bananas, finds itself operating under the same protocol—trying to maximize revenue while retaining relevance as the streaming revolution rolls into its next innings.

Indeed, it’s fascinating to behold industries amid the torrent of transformation—that precise moment when it becomes clear that few executives can predict the future with any accuracy, and fewer have the guts to even try. And yet, everyone in the sports media industry is trying to optimize their revenue-to-relevance ratio. That’s why the NBA is broadcasting its games on NBC, ESPN, ABC, Peacock, and Amazon. And why the NFL has added packages for Netflix and YouTube. Few have been as brazen, however, as Phelps’s NASCAR. The league now operates in partnership with Fox Sports, NBC, Amazon, TNT, and The CW. Meanwhile, quite publicly, it’s trying to rewrite the definition of success—is it overall ratings, or the average age of viewers?—in real time. F1, of course, is trying to figure out its own path forward in this world: Does it take those Applebucks and suffer its streaming service’s relatively low subscribership, or forfeit tens of millions for a renewal on ESPN?

If you only have time to read one thing this weekend, I behoove you to dip into John’s excellent piece about his chat with Phelps, Commissioners in Cars Getting Coffee, or listen to his companion pod, entitled Dude, Where’s My NASCAR?. It offers a privileged glimpse into the ongoing industrial transformation, and perhaps suggests that running a league is now a media C.E.O. gig—the latest sign of how our industries are converging as never before. And that, of course, is the story of our time, and precisely what you should expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,

Jon

Need help? Review our FAQ page or contact us for assistance. For brand partnerships, email ads@puck.news.

You received this email because you signed up to receive emails from Puck, or as part of your Puck account associated with {{customer.email}}. To stop receiving this newsletter and/or manage all your email preferences, click here.

Puck is published by Heat Media LLC. 107 Greenwich St, New York, NY 10006