NFL Drama, Disney Economics & After Navalny

Good morning,

Thanks for reading The Backstory, your weekly review of the best new work from Puck.

It was an incredible week here at Puck: Julia Ioffe offered the readout on the Navalny tragedy from Munich; Dylan Byers previewed the Ackman-Döpfner détente; Julia Alexander ran the numbers on the hypothetical Peacock-Paramount+ combination; Matt Belloni revealed Hollywood’s new talent economics; Bill Cohan provided a forensic accounting of Trump’s collateral; Tara Palmeri captured the anxiety inside Mar-a-Lago; Eriq Gardner scrutinized Ron Perelman’s latest lawsuit; Teddy Schleifer profiled Marc Andreessen’s political reawakening; Lauren Sherman reported on the Milano rumor mill; and Rachel Strugatz surfaced some collateral damage from the Farfetch disaster.

FASHION:
Lauren Sherman offers her Milan show notes and captures the murmurs from the legacy media salt mines.
and…
Rachel Strugatz breaks some news on Farfetch’s estate sale.

WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan re-evaluates Trump’s real estate portfolio, while Eriq Gardner exposes the potential landmines in his legal fights.

SILICON VALLEY:
Teddy Schleifer chronicles Marc Andreessen’s new adventures in Washington.

MEDIA:
Dylan Byers explains how Bill Ackman folded.
and…
John Ourand digs into an NFL kerfuffle.

HOLLYWOOD:
Matt Belloni has all the details on Disney’s new backend math.
and…
Julia Alexander decodes Peacock’s renaissance.
and…
Scott Mendelson lays out what Sony needs to learn from its misadventures with Spider-Man.

WASHINGTON:
Julia Ioffe reveals what comes after the Navalny tragedy and what the D.C. political establishment said behind closed doors in Munich.
and…
Tara Palmeri unveils how Republican donors are making peace with Trump’s half a billion in legal judgments.
and…
Peter Hamby unearths some more chilling Biden polling data.

PODCASTS:
Matt and Lucas Shaw weigh in on the Peacock-Paramount+ rumors on The Town.
and…
Tara and strategist Terry Sullivan contemplate Nikki Haley’s endgame on Somebody’s Gotta Win.
and…
Peter and Eriq debate Trump’s liquidity on The Powers That Be.

Meanwhile, I also encourage you to take advantage of our article gifting feature. You can share our work with your colleagues, friends, and family. Subscribers are entitled to 5 article gifts per month.

The View From the Top

On Tuesday evening, after putting the finishing touches on Julia Alexander’s excellent piece about NBCU’s streaming renaissance, The Real Housewives of Peacock, I hightailed it up to the Central Park Club, which floats like a cloud over 57th Street, the highest private club in the world. The venue was a fitting platform for my partner Bill Cohan’s conversation with David Solomon, the C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs, which marked the latest installment of Puck’s tentpole series, The Powers That Be: Live.

Diligent and faithful subscribers may recall that the series kicked off last year with Peter Hamby’s acerbic interview with former Biden chief of staff Ron Klain at the top of the Hay-Adams, overlooking the White House. Then there was Matt Belloni’s candid discussion with Netflix content chief Bela Bajaria on the Mandarin rooftop overlooking Beverly Hills. Bill’s evening was just as intimate and compelling. The conversation was off the record, per usual, but it was filled with unbelievable moments of insight about what it’s like to manage one of the economy’s most important institutions. Don Lemon and Andrew Ross Sorkin asked excellent questions during the Q&A. Tim Zagat, the co-founder of the eponymous burgundy restaurant review bible, went out of his way to compliment the hors d’oeuvres. It was a swell night all around. Thanks to our pals at Mayer Brown for their support.

Media has been in various stages of heavy disruption for a quarter of a century at this point—a Big Bang, according to my unscientific math, that was heralded by the loose constellation of the Google I.P.O., the AOL-Time Warner catastrophe, and Napster. Regardless, the overarching trend, at least in my mind, is toward authenticity. Consumers crave genuine and privileged information, and they’re increasingly too sophisticated to tolerate cheap imitations. Bill’s conversation with David brought our audience further than ever into the mind of a Wall Street C.E.O., and it was a privilege to behold.

Similarly, my generationally talented partners brought our subscribers closer to the action in myriad ways this week. In As Goodell as It Gets, John Ourand explained the rancor inside the league office after the College Football Playoff, which has now expanded to 12 teams, stepped on its scheduling turf—a major no-no in the business. Meanwhile, in Italian Jobs, Lauren Sherman captured all the intrigue from the Milan shows, disproving some of the rumors, validating others, and seeing around corners. In Marc Andreessen Eats Washington, Teddy Schleifer brilliantly reported how, and why, Silicon Valley’s most famous V.C. has returned to D.C. on the heels of a political reawakening.

But if you’re tight on time this weekend, I’d urge you to sit down with Julia Ioffe’s masterful duo, The Tragedy of Navalny and Blue Munich, which traced her experiences at the annual security conference, surrounded by international dignitaries and U.S. senators and Navalny’s now widow. The former piece, in particular, begins with a personal anecdote about Julia’s conversation with Yulia Navalnaya some 12 hours before her husband’s death was announced—and the latter ends with a private moment between my partner and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg about America’s role in our evolving geopolitics. These are the stories of our time, and the proximity that you should always expect from Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon

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