March 27, 2026 • 39 mins
America’s favorite pastime is back, and so is...2008? This week, Max and Stacey cover the bases on the simultaneous cultural renaissance of baseball and the rise of the trillion-dollar private credit industry. Plus, the debut of a brand new segment! Hint: It's about an industry uniting both sides of the political aisle.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Stacy Max, I've got something that I need to show you.
It's very important to me on a personal level, and
I believe important on a societal level as well.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Andy, coming into Bac de ROSARIOI Lida Hey, Debba Lok
Baseball Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That was a clip of the World Baseball Classic team
Italy beating Puerto Rico in a huge upset in the semifinals.
I bring this up right now because baseball season is
having a moment, the MLB season, the Major League Baseball
season starting as we record, and Stacey, we're gonna talk
with Bloomberg's Randall Williams about how this epic sports comeback
(00:57):
happened and why baseball in particular is sort of recession proof.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I am very curious to hear about that and how
it is recession proof, and speaking Max of recessions, I
think two thousand and eight has been on everyone's mind
a little bit lately because of one phrase that has
been all over Financial News.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Private credit, private credit, private prides.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Private credit, private credit.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
You're bringing me down, Stacy, Yes, private.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Credit brings everyone down, although it can be a little confusing.
What exactly it is yeah, what exactly the problem is
and how.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Big it is?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And we're going to have Oddlot's co host Tracy Alloway
here to kind of talk us through this potential financial crisis.
Or maybe it's just an exciting new asset class that
will be with us for a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We'll find out are we doomed? In short, this is
everybody's business. I'm Max Chafkin and I'm Stacy mannock Smith.
Grab your cracker jacks and your favorite distressed assets. We
are going out to the ballpark.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
I'm in. I don't care if I never come back.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
How do you all feel like the economy is going
right now?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
I feel like it's not going well. Everyone's talking about inflation.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
I don't drive a car in New York, but I
am noticing gas prices.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I guess it's struggling as much as our economy in London.
It's not great a disaster.
Speaker 8 (02:25):
Nobody knows what's going on. Nobody has a plan, the
sense of what's going to happen. We're all living month
by month.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
We just went out to breakfast.
Speaker 8 (02:35):
We had pancakes and an omelet, and with the tip
it came to seventy seven dollars.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
I think it's more than double the Yeah, as a eggs.
Speaker 8 (02:45):
There is no sense of security anywhere, a lot of lies.
I think everybody is struggling in different ways. Where do
we find support among o ourselves but not from the government.
Speaker 6 (02:58):
And there's probably a future for people our age to
buy a house or.
Speaker 9 (03:02):
Anything like that.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
As she said, do any of you know what private
credit is?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I do not.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
No, No, I don't know. No, I'm not aware.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
That was our producer Jasmine J. T. Green talking to
people in Manhattan and Max.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
As you can tell, a lot of people are not
feeling great about the economy. Also, maybe not a thousand
percent sure what private credit is.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
Not me say, I know you do, and as do I.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
We know everything about private credit, but some of our
listeners might not.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
We should be kind, if.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
I'm being honest, there may be a few little bits
that I'm hazy on.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
We're very like can have someone who does understand private
credit here in the studio with us. Tracy Alloway, host
of the Odd Lots podcast, fellow Bloombergian. Welcome, Tracy, thank
you so much, thanks for having me. First of all,
what do you think of what people were saying? About
the economy.
Speaker 10 (04:00):
What was your reaction to that? Yeah, I mean that
tends to be what you hear nowadays. In fact, it
tends to be what you've been hearing for a couple
of years, which I think is why people are kind
of uncertain about what it means, what sentiment means right now.
Because you'll remember in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three,
if you looked at all the consumer sentiment surveys, everyone
was basically saying things are terrible, yes, and yet if
(04:21):
you look at the headline numbers of the economy, it
was kind of chugging along for a while. So there
was a lot of introspection about whether the surveys weren't
just not working anymore. Fast forward to today, and it
seems thing people feel worse about things than ever really,
But the big question mark is still are you going
to see that actually show up in the economic numbers?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right? Tracy Stacy and I are professional business journalists.
We've been both doing this for a very long time.
We follow news closely, so of course we know what
private credit is and why people I believe worried about
But just in case, hypothetically, so if we weren't one
hundred percent sure what this conversation is because there have
(05:04):
been a lot of headlines. There have been headlines about redemptions,
blue wowl, like, there's a lot of stuff. A lot
of people are anxious. Can you just lay out what
this asset class is and why it has gotten so
big over the last few years.
Speaker 10 (05:17):
Sure, So let me reframe this with a question to
you guys. But if I said, what's shadow banking? Do
you think you'd have a better handle on what shadow
banking is versus private credit?
Speaker 6 (05:28):
I feel like it sounds much more ominous.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
Okay, regulated lending?
Speaker 10 (05:33):
Yeah, all right, we're getting at something here.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Okay.
Speaker 10 (05:36):
So when I first started covering this space, we called
it shadow banking. And when I first started covering it
was in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight
financial crisis. You had all these new bank regulations coming
in which basically made it either harder or impossible or
more expensive for banks to make certain loans and investments,
(05:57):
and so all that activity started migrating away from the
regulated banks to non bank players. And if you think
back to two thousand and eight, that makes a lot
of sense. Right, We just experienced this terrible financial crisis
where all the big banks basically had to be bailed
out by the government. Regulators, policymakers, government officials were saying,
(06:17):
we never want to do that ever again, and so
we want all that risky activity to be pushed away
from the banks to entities that aren't important enough to
be bailed out if things get wrong. But the idea
was that you're going to move stuff out of the
regulated banking system so that you're not going to end
up with a systemic crisis the way you saw with mortgages. Right,
(06:40):
banks made a bunch of bad mortgages, those went south.
You had all this leverage that was built onto the mortgages,
and when people stopped paying their mortgages, suddenly all of
that was in doubt in the entire banking system basically collapsed.
So we never want to see that again. And this
is when you started to see new credit entities, the
new fund managers. They all had different names back then.
(07:04):
Broadly we referred to them as the shadow banking system.
So I used to be at the Financial Times and
I remember twenty twelve, twenty thirteen writing about the rise
of the shadow banking system, and.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
They just rebrand to private credits.
Speaker 10 (07:17):
This is what I'm getting at. I had this realization.
I can't believe it didn't like it took me a
while to get it. I was like, oh, private credit,
we're actually just talking about shadow banking.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I eat.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Junk bonds sometimes get called high yield because if you're
selling them, you don't want to say, by my junk bonds.
Speaker 10 (07:32):
That's exactly right, and we should talk about the impact
on the junk bond market as well from private credit.
But this is exactly what happened. You had these companies
called business development companies who were in a very similar
business to the banks. They were extending credit to companies,
usually smaller or riskier companies that banks no longer could
or wanted to lend to, and they really started to
(07:54):
take off. In the aftermath of the financial crisis. You
got the rebrand around private credit. It was pitched as
this like juicy yield generating investment. It's not as safe
as investing in what we call an investment grade or
blue chip bond, like something issued by a really safe company,
but it was still supposed to be secured lending. So
(08:18):
if the company went belly up, there were some assets
that you could supposedly get in a default scenario and
you would have some recovery of your original investment. But
in the meantime you were earning yields of nine percent,
which was great. That's private credit now. It's the loans
that have been pushed out of the regulated banking system
and have now been funneled into business development companies BDCs,
(08:42):
into certain securitizations, and then also into massive funds whose
whole raise on debt is to extend private credit to
other investors.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Okay, trouble started here like last year that we started
to see I feel like I started to see more
and more headlines what started to go wrong.
Speaker 10 (09:01):
So I think the real troubles started late last year.
You started to see some investors in private credit vehicles,
but they started to want to get their money out.
So the thinking was, like growth is maybe slowing, Maybe
some of these private credit investments are looking a little
bit bubbly. Again, I think it's really important to emphasize
how much money went into the space. So we're talking
(09:23):
about a private credit market that's now estimated to be
one point eight trillion dollars, which is not that big
actually in the grand scheme of investments. But just to
put it into context, it's bigger than the junk bond
market now, and that's happened in just a couple of years.
The junk bond market started in like the nineteen seventies
with Mike Milkin, and now the private credit market has
(09:47):
managed to eclipse it in basically five years or so.
That's enormous amounts of growth, and so it's understandable that
people are starting to say, wait a second, like that
money has grown so fast, there's been so much money
pouring into the space, do we actually know if those
loans are high quality, if we're investing to good companies.
The other thing about private credit is the clue is
(10:09):
in the name.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Right.
Speaker 10 (10:10):
It's very private, it's very opaque. If you're an investor
who wants to invest in a company, you have a
bunch of different choices for doing that. You can buy
the stock right, or you can buy a bond issued
by the company in the public market. This is what
we call public credit, basically syndicated bonds and loans. When
(10:30):
a company sells a bond in the public market, there's
a lot of documentation and red tape that gets attached
to that. They usually have financials that get released very regularly.
You can see how the company is doing, what the
company's assets look like. If you have a company that
is investing or selling a private loan or private bond,
(10:53):
you don't really get that. It's not rated by the
rating agencies for the most part, so you're sort of
relying on the deal makers around that particular structure to
get it right. And so it's not that surprising that
when things start to look a little wobbly on the
economic front that people are going, wait a second, what
actually is all this private credit?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It seems to me that there are two concerns going on.
One is about this asset class. Are these companies that
have been making these loans? Are they going to be okay?
A lot of investors are worried. I think so far,
what the private credit executives have said is our loans
are still fine, We're still okay. There is like a
second question, which is could this somehow spill over into
(11:36):
the larger economy. Could this line you talked about at
the top, Tracy, that we tried to draw a line
between the banking we were okay with and banking we
weren't okay with Yeah, and I'm curious what you think
of both of those questions, like first the asset class,
but then the risk of some broader contagion.
Speaker 10 (11:53):
Yeah, okay, two very big topics and excellent questions. So
on the first one on the marks, one of the
finding features a private credit and one of the reasons
that people were interested in it in addition to the yield,
is that it doesn't actually get marked to market that frequently.
Speaker 8 (12:09):
Does that mean?
Speaker 10 (12:10):
So that means it doesn't get reassessed as frequently as
stuff in the public market. So if you have a
syndicated loan, a loan that was publicly issued and is trading,
that thing gets reevaluated. It gets repriced on a pretty
regular basis. It varies depending on what type of loan
it is. But if you have a private credit loan
(12:32):
that gets reassessed, I think it's on a quarterly basis
for most BDCs, and so you don't really know what
your ultimate selling price is going to be if there's
a fire sale basically in the market. And so one
of the concerns we're seeing now is when people start
to pull their money out of private credit vehicles if
the funds actually have to rush to sell their portfolio
(12:55):
to meet those redemption requests. How much money are they
actually going to be able to get for those loans,
especially if everyone is having to sell at the same time.
And that's why you've seen a bunch of private credit
funds start to reinforce gates that are actually in the documentation.
So we've had just in the past week, Apollo and
Ares say that we've had a bunch of investors asking
(13:16):
for their money back. But the difference is, because we
wanted this to be different from the regulated banking system,
we put up gates on those funds so we can say,
or the fund managers can say, we're only going to
let you take out five percent of the money at
any given time.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
You said in the beginning that when you were starting
out as a reporter, you were covering the after effects
of the financial crisis, the housing crisis. Is this shaping
up to be that, Yeah, okay, well this goes.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Back to our question, aka are we doing and how doom?
Speaker 10 (13:49):
Yeah, this one's tough for me because when I look
at some of the stuff that's happening, a lot of
the behavioral stuff seems very two thousand and eight Esque.
So you have Jeffreys, which has been one of the
more aggressive private credit players, is their stock has fallen
by forty or fifty percent. They're now pitching themselves to
a Japanese bank as a takeover target, which feels very
like two thousand and seven two thousand and eight to me.
(14:11):
You have these all hands on deck calls that you
know Ares and Apollo are doing with their employees. You
have some banks that are starting to publish their own
exposure to private credit, which again think back to two
thousand and seven two thousand and eight, you had all
the banks going, this is our subprime exposure. Stuff like
that makes me nervous. However, it's difficult to see that
(14:34):
there is that much leverage attached to private credit. But
at the same time, this is where I also start
to get worried because we know, for instance, that one
of the major investors in private credit has been the
insurance companies. We know that banks have also partnered with
private credit firms in some of this lending, which, to
(14:54):
get back to the original start of this conversation, seems
kind of insane if you're thinking that all of the
was supposed to get that riskier activity away from the
banking system. Some of it supposedly has been used in
what's known as the repo market as collateral, which again
has two thousand and eight connotations. So there are little
(15:15):
linkages in the system that worry me. And because the
space tends to be so opaque and because it's still
relatively new, it's really hard to track some of those linkages.
So I would say, you know, broadly, one point eight
trillion sounds like a lot. It's probably not in the
grand scheme of things, But just as in the financial crisis,
(15:35):
you don't tend to find out about these added layers
of leverage until the losses start materializing.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
So it doesn't sound like you are completely buying into
the panic. You are concerned, but you're not like, yeah,
I think red Okay.
Speaker 10 (15:51):
I think that's a fair way to be at the moment.
But again, there are a lot of unknowns here, and
one thing I would emphasize is, again, this is a
new asset class that grew rich really really quickly. It's
never been through a downcycle, and so we're about to
find out what that downcycle actually looks like, and potentially
we're about to find out in a down cycle that
(16:12):
is unlike many other downcycles in history. So we have
worries over AI and the threat to a lot of companies.
I should have mentioned earlier, but a lot of private
credit has been extended to software companies who now basically
face an existential question mark over their business. And then
we have the whole Iran situation where we're talking about
(16:33):
the closure of the strait of our moves, which is
a scenario that oil analysts have worried about for years
and years and years, with ripple effects into everything that
we buy. You think about energy, transportation, plastic packaging on
your food that has the potential to push up inflation,
which presumably would lead to higher interest rates. So you
(16:53):
could get this big economic slowing right when the Fed
starts raising interest rates and raising the cost capital for companies.
That's a pretty bad mix for private credit. I would argue, all.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
Right, Tracy Alloway, odd lots, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Thank you so much for having me, Stacy. We have
reached the seventh inning stretch of this podcast. All right,
so we're going to move on to a topic that
is close to my heart, and I would argue, close
to everyone's heart.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Baseball, Major League baseball is okay.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The season starts today, and I would argue that this
is a really interesting business story because you go back
about a decade and there were all of these kind
of like obituaries written about baseball and it's decline or
a parent decline. You know, Ratings were falling, the fans
were getting old, long games, the games were really long.
(17:53):
You also had the NBA was having a moment, the
National Basketball Association and the NFL had far and away
surpassed everyone.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
We've talked about the moment, but baseball is having a
little bit of a cultural moment. The ratings have been
going up for two years in a row. Attendance is up,
the average age of the fan has fallen dramatically over
the last six years. So yeah, it was it's like
from what to what? From fifty I'm skeptical.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
I feel like we need to bring in an expert,
and we've got one.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Randall Williams, Bloomberg Sports reporter. He is here with us now, Randall,
how are you.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I'm doing all right. It's interesting to hear the way
you all talk about baseball.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
All right, Randall, hater. I don't know why the hater.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
I'm just wondering.
Speaker 9 (18:36):
I think America's biggest past time has definitely gotten younger. Okay,
I think even going to the games, watching the games,
it's pulled me to the screen. When I was younger
and I used to play MLB the Show, which is
a baseball's video game, one of the issues that I
have was that it wasn't fast paced enough for.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
My ten or eleven year old mind.
Speaker 9 (18:55):
And now even I'm tuning in for the World Baseball
Classic on TV, which is a bigger time amitment than
any video game could ever be.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Randall brought up the World Baseball Classic, that is this
international tournament. We heard a clip at the top of
the show, Tam Italy. Randall, I'm sure you were a
Team Italy guy. Absolutely, Team Italy overperformed. The ratings for
this thing were really good. The World Baseball Classic final
averaged eleven million viewers in the US. That's like a
basketball finals game. Like maybe not a big game, but
(19:23):
that's a good rating. The World Series ratings were really high,
incredibly high. So there's a lot going on and I
wanted to just take this kind of step by step,
rand So you brought up the rule changes that I
think have been a big part of driving this turnaround.
Can you just explain why that happened and how it's happened.
Speaker 9 (19:41):
The games were going on too long, there was too
much space between when a pitcher was throwing the ball
and when a batter was swinging, and just a time period.
I mean, that's why it was a pastime, is because
you could go to a baseball game and not care
about the baseball and just literally explore around the park
and then come sit down and you know, maybe it
might still be the inning of which you got up
and left from. Nowadays, and any can be over very
(20:03):
quickly because of the pitch clock. And we saw this
sort of in the World Series where shohe Atani pitched
in Game seven and you had Toronto's manager who's telling
them like, listen, I know he needs to get warmed up,
but I don't want to give him too much time
to where now he's fully warm. Let's get this expedited.
And so that's one of the biggest rule changes. And then,
of course it helps to have a dynasty. It helps
(20:25):
to have the Los Angeles Dodgers who have a bunch
of superstar players outside of show hey, and they're performing
really well, and from a viewership perspective, you either love
it or you absolutely hate it, but you want to
watch it.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, about three years ago, Rob Manford, the commissioner you
mentioned him earlier, did a bunch of things, not.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Just the mease. Let me make the franchise a.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Guy who runs baseball. So one of the things that
had happened, Randall brought it up. The games had gotten longer,
so you were sort of losing people, and there were
teams that were taking advantage of this, and so they
instituted essentially a shot clock for pitching. You get penalized
if you don't throw the pitch within a certain amount
of time. They also changed a bunch of the rules
to create more action.
Speaker 9 (21:07):
Sports as a business cannot thrive if all they're attracting
is sports fans.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
You have to be good with content.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They made the bases bigger so that it would be
easy to steal bases, and they changed up a couple
of the rules around runners on base to encourage base stealing.
They basically wanted to have more action stuff happening. Yeah,
that makes sense, but I think the rule change is
basically worked.
Speaker 9 (21:32):
Yeah, absolutely, and we see leagues experiment with rule changes
like this isn't the first time, but for baseball it
has changed things drastically and it's had a huge impact.
On top of that, you have to have a good
product as well, you have to have teams perform well.
You have to have a compelling show, compelling entertainment and
superstars show going from the Angels to the Dodgers, and
(21:53):
he was almost a blue Jay as well.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
That it captivated audiences for sure, not just here but
around the world.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, I've said this before on the podcast. I mean,
Sho Hay is like the Babe Ruth. He's like, arguably
the best baseball player in one hundred years.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
And as Randall saying, is that right?
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Yeah, there's a legitimate argument.
Speaker 9 (22:13):
They called this the greatest baseball game ever played, where
he struck out ten people and hit three home runs
in the same game.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
He's simply doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It plays for the biggest team, the La Dodgers, in
the second biggest city in the United States, and he
is the biggest star in Japan. He's Japanese, and Japanese
baseball is a big thing. The sort of MLB Japan
connection has grown tremendously over the last I don't know
since shohe has been here, and even going back before then,
(22:40):
there's baseball is promoting itself in Japan with this wonderful
advertisement that was like going around on Twitter.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
I don't know if you saw it, Randall, but.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's all these Japanese people watching the games in the
middle of the night because and getting really excited and
being like super into this sport. And you you know,
it shows up in the ratings baseball. Major League Baseball
has started releasing its ratings combining Canada, US and Japan
because Japan is so big.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So Randall, give us, like, in the spectrum of sports
that you cover, where does baseball fall? Because one thing
I did notice was that apparently Netflix just cut a
deal with Major League Baseball, And we had you on
talking about Netflix cutting a deal for football, and that's
made it into this big kind of musty event.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
Is baseball in that same track? Is this a very different?
Speaker 9 (23:26):
So I'll give you the top three, and the top
three have always been the NFL, the MLB, in the NBA,
and for many years, I'd say for the past fifteen
it's been NFL, NBA, MLB. But I would say at
this current juncture, the MLB has overtaken the NBA really
in terms of interest, and the reason for that is
because it's a multitude of things. We've talked about the
(23:47):
rule changes, but also there is the dynasty effect of
the Dodgers, like they have dozens of It feels like
they have a Justice League team. And that helps because
not only do they have incredible superstars, they're in the
second biggest media market and people are going to watch that.
On top of that, of course, when you have the
second biggest media market, people with ratings are then going
(24:08):
to tune in and say, like, okay, with Game seven,
you have the greatest World Series of all time. And
that's my opinion, of course, but it was a really
compelling game in which the Dodgers were outscored that series.
I believe it was twenty six to thirty four, and
somehow still came out victorious. And then they go into
free agency reload, and now we're getting ready to start
another season again.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
All right, So I want to bring up a couple
other possible explanations.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Okay, one is this going to be conspiracy.
Speaker 7 (24:32):
Okay, this one is borderline conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
But you see it showing up and I'd say maybe
the conservative corners of sports media this narrative that like
the NBA has lost a step because it's too woke,
and that baseball is like perfectly tuned to the Trump
moment or something like that. You know, in polls, there
was a poll that kind of went viral a couple
(24:56):
of weeks ago showing that baseball players are the most
republican of sports athletes. I don't know how, I don't
know how seriously we should take this, but I believe
the NHL is number two.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Do you put any stock in that?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Because you really do see this argument show up that
sports have suffered by engaging too much politically. I would
argue that baseball has not been as politically engaged as
some of the other sports, like the NBA.
Speaker 7 (25:18):
Do you think there's anything to that or is.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
It not necessarily?
Speaker 9 (25:21):
I think the NBA specifically is in this new era
that I would call the parody era where you've had
seven different champions.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
You've had I believe it's six or seven.
Speaker 9 (25:28):
Different international MVPs, and they are typically the dynasty sport.
You think of the Lakers, you think of the Warriors,
you think of the Lebron Air, you think of the
Bulls and the Celtics.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Of course that's been them for fifty years.
Speaker 9 (25:40):
When you have seven different champions, and we're not talking
about the Lakers being one of them. That happened in
twenty twenty we had the Warriors, but since then it's
been Celtics, Denver and last year Oklahoma City against the Pacers.
These are middle sized markets, of which sometimes the storytelling
isn't always there. I do think that the NBA could
do a better job of marketing at superstars, but the
product is going to catch up.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
It always catches up. Now, what does that look like
long term?
Speaker 9 (26:05):
If Oklahoma City's dynasty continues, or if they do start
a dynasty, if the Spurs with victor Ian Binyama, or
even if the Knicks show up or Anthony Edwards and
the Timberwolves, there can be a sudden surge and at
the same time, the Dodgers can fall off a cliff
even with all of these superstars.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
When you say it sounds like having a dynasty is good, yes,
but it seems like having different teams from all over
the place win would actually be good for audiences, but
it sounds like not so much.
Speaker 9 (26:32):
So why is that It's very fascinating to me because
in the NFL, parody has existed for a long time,
Like we've lived in this era of the Patriots for
twenty years and now the Chiefs, but we've seen different
teams win in between there as well, and different teams
go to the playoffs and things like that. In the NBA,
it really hasn't been like that, Like if you go
back ten years to twenty sixteen, it was calvs. Warriors,
(26:55):
and then of course you have Warriors Raptors, right, But again,
like the season is so long, and when you think
about people who are tuning into these games, there's an
argument that not all of these NBA games matter, and
so when it is finally time to get to the
pinnacle of the NBA Finals, there are some viewers who
are like, oh, you know, I'm so used to watching
(27:15):
Lebron and Steph that if they're not there, I'm not playing.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
I'm not gonna watch.
Speaker 9 (27:19):
Whereas with baseball and with all of these sports, really
people watch brands, and so you think of the biggest
brands in the NBA, Nicks, Warriors, Celtics, Lakers, you think
of them in the NFL, Patriots, Cowboys, I'd say Chiefs
as well, and then you could throw a couple more
in there. When those teams aren't showing up and it
(27:39):
is the Pacers and it is the Thunder, then there's
going to be a slight down tick, but it'll catch
up eventually.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can't believe I'm the one bringing this up, but
because this is much more up Stacy's alley than mine.
But I think another argument you could make is that
baseball is more suited to this moment because it's cheaper,
it's more affordable. There are studies sports in general hold
up pretty well during economic down terms.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
Sure, baseball.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
There's some research suggesting that baseball holds up even better
than some of the other sports. I'm not sure why
that is, but the games are definitely cheaper, and I
was thinking back to the sort of height of the NBA,
that kind of Steph Curry era twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 7 (28:24):
That was also the Zerp era.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You know, like people had a lot of money, you
could you could splash out and go and sit court
side at a game. And NBA tickets are really expensive
Baseball tickets because there's so many games, because the stadiums
are bigger, they're just cheaper.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Economics leagues are different, And you're right.
Speaker 9 (28:42):
I do think that basketball and especially football are becoming
luxury experiences. The get in price, whether you want to
sit at a mid level or upper level, is going
to cost you a couple hundred bucks gone or the
days where if you have a family of four, you
can just decide on a Thursday that we're going to
go to a Packers game. And I said the Packers
for a reason because they're based in Green Bay. Imagine
what that's going to look like for a Knicks game
(29:03):
or a Giants game. It might cost a vacation to
wherever you want to go. It could very easily cost
you fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
You definitely can go to a Brewers game.
Speaker 9 (29:12):
It's exactly because there's so many games. Yeah, but I'll
leave you all with this, And you brought up a
good point about season length. What the NFL is trying
to do right now is get one more game for
a multitude of reasons, because the fact that the biggest
one is that they can sell one more game. The MLB,
the argument with the fans is to bring the number
of games down so that these games can matter more.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
But of course there is media.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
There's a media conversation around that, and will NBA owners
and NBA players want to lose money long term in
order to gain money or lose money short term in
order to gain money long term. The MLB is going
to have to have a similar conversation. And the reality
is these billionaire owners millionaire players are going to have
to decide do we want to shrink the season and
order in order for the next generation of owners and
(29:54):
players to make money? And I think the answer to
that question is going to be no, They're not going
to cut game because they're all too rich right now
in order to be like, why would I care about
the player and owner twenty years? I want to be
rich now. NFL I think will eventually add an eighteenth game,
but I think that's where they'll stop.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Randal, you brought up these kind of long term risks,
and we haven't talked about the big one for baseball,
which is the labor dispute.
Speaker 7 (30:19):
There is a very good chance I am trying to
soak up this.
Speaker 6 (30:22):
I think I know it's like the players right, so the.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Owners are very likely to lock the players out at
the beginning of next year or as soon as this
season ends, and it's over the question of a salary cap.
Baseball is the only major sport renal correct me, I'm
wrong where there isn't a salary cap that's a sort
of a top level that teams.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
Can they're going to amount the team can spend, right,
and they.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
Say they have to divvy it out. Now, in baseball,
you can spend as much as you want.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
Here's why the Dodgers have the superstars that they do there.
I had an agent tell me some time ago that
if you are a very good baseball player, you might
not be top twenty five, but if your top fifty
and you start your free agency, there's one conversation you
need to have and it's with the Dodgers because they're
gonna set your market. And the Dodgers are willing to
spend seven hundred million dollars on show hal Tani and wow,
(31:09):
that's his contract over a long period of time, but
an incredible amount of money. And we're seven hundred million
is top. But imagine like these guys are trying to
get anywhere between one hundred and fifty and maybe two
hundred and fifty million dollars Max gohead.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I just was gonna ask you, Randall, where do you
think it's gonna go. I mean, like, as a fan,
I am trying to soak in this season because we
may not have a baseball season next year, which is
like super sad. And it does feel like baseball has
made all this progress and it's like, you're kidding me,
You're gonna blow all that up over a salary people,
but it seems like they might.
Speaker 9 (31:43):
So here's the reality is that if you were watching
the WNBA this season, there was a collective bargaining negotiation
between the players and the owners that everyone was.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Like, this is ugly, there might not be a season.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
But the WNBA had one big advantage, and they had time,
Like this season starts in a WNBA around April, and
they had at least six to seven months. And I'm
sure that they had many different collective bargaining sessions over
the course of a year. When they opted out, it
was November twenty four. They negotiated for over a year.
Baseball does not necessarily have that time on their side.
(32:16):
And you brought up the point of salary cap versus
a minimum spending limit because the players are going to
say you have owners who are okay with not winning,
who are okay with not competing because of the fact
that these media deals are paying X amount of dollars
and they're not selling your teams. And I think that
is a problem. And you, again, you should soak up
this season because I don't know, if you're the players,
(32:39):
you cannot give up a salary cap. That is a
losing conversation. Now, I do think in terms of competitive
equity it would help. But is it going to help
more than having a minimum requirement that owners have to
spend on players?
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 9 (32:53):
And what would I rather see? Would I rather see
the Dodgers build a Justice League squad? Or would I
rather see the Pittsburgh Pirates actually don't care about probably
the best picture in baseball and not build around him
just because he's going to pack out the stadium by himself.
I personally would rather see a minimum requirement. But we're
gonna find out how it's all going to play out
(33:13):
over the course of many months.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Okay, Randall, I always ask you the kind of sports
question at the end of these conversations.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Who do you have this year? Who?
Speaker 7 (33:21):
Which which are the IMO.
Speaker 9 (33:23):
For I'll tell you what I'm rooting for. I'm rooting
for Dodgers Yankees. And the reason that I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm not a purist. I'm sorry Dodger, I'm As a
matter of fact, I'll give you two. I'm rooting for
Dodgers Yankees or I'm rooting for Mets Yankees. The reason
for that is because I root for the business of
sports and I do think that those type of matchups
(33:46):
and I would even go rematch from last year with
Dodgers Blue Jays. Those type of matchups bring people to
the screen, and ultimately, we all want this business to grow.
We don't want baseball to be in a bad spot
as it was ten years ago. And I think if
this is going to be a swan Song season for
however many months and years, that they're going to go
out with a bang, go out with a bang, let's
I think that's best. But also we'll see I love
(34:08):
an underdog story, but those three would be my matchups.
I would like to see Dodgers Yankees, Yankees, Mets or
Dodgers Blue Jays all over again.
Speaker 7 (34:16):
Randall Williams, thanks for being here, Thank you all for
having me thanks Randall.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
All right, Max, we have spent a lot of the
last few months talking about prediction markets, so.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Much time stacy that we decided we needed a little
theme song every time we talk about this time.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I bring you a new segment everybody's business listeners. It's
called this Week in Prediction Markets.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
Wo.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Wo.
Speaker 6 (34:53):
That's awesome. I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
I feel very excited to hear the latest development in
prediction markets.
Speaker 7 (34:59):
All right, So the big news in this world is backlash.
It's it.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You know, we end of prediction Marcus end.
Speaker 7 (35:07):
But remember our.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Last the last time we talked about this on the
Live show with Robert Smith and Jake Goldstein, and we
sort of kept circling around all the kind of uncomfortable
things about this world. The fact that you could bet
on the return of His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
or that you could people there's insider trading. There's been
all sorts of stuff, and I think regulators and even
(35:34):
people are starting to catch up. So let me just
run you down a couple of things that have happened
super recently. What one is that the State of Arizona
charged Calshi criminally with operating a sports book, an illegal
sports book.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
Sports betting is I am guessing illegal in Arizona, No, but.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's it's regulated under a separate regime, and so and
and so this is coming up in a couple of states. Basically,
what they're saying is that Calshi and poly Market, which remember,
you can bet on elections, you can bet on war,
you can bet on anything, but a lot of what
people actually bet on is sports, And what they're saying
(36:15):
is that this is a back door to unregulated sports betting.
And I think anyone who uses these sites, and we've
talked about this on the podcast before, there's some truth
to that, because there is not a huge difference between
placing a bet on draft Kings and placing a bet
on poly Market, at least from the point of view
of most people who are gambling. There are some technical differences,
(36:38):
but you know, you're ultimately risking money on the outcome
of a sports game, of a sports ball match.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
How big of a deal is it for Calchi and
poly Market if they can't.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Do sports bets, I think it would be really really bad.
The volume numbers is like most of their business, I
think it's the majority of at least Calshi's business. I
don't know that we know for sure what polymarkets volumes
look like, but they're huge. You know, the numbers have
spiked during the Super Bowl. If you go on one
of these sites, you know right now, you'll see that.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Polly Market just cut a deal with Major League Baseball.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Polymarket cut a deal with Major League Baseball. And that
gets me to another point, which is that when they
cut this deal, AOC Alexandria o Cassio Cortes, potential Democratic
presidential contender. The congresswoman tweeted basically saying, let me read
this comment because I think it's indicative of a vibe shift.
This is sad regarding the Polymarket MLB deal. I know
(37:38):
as a politician, these companies are going to spend a
billion dollars against me for saying it, but shruggy emoji.
Pervasive gambling is not good for society. It turns life
into a casino, traps people in addiction and debt surges,
domestic violence, and Foster's manipulation. And what's interesting about this
is you saw a lot of people in kind of
AOC's camp cheering along, but also a lot of Republicans
(37:58):
Bill O'Reilly who I I didn't realize it's still around.
But he still hosts his own, you know, conservative talk
show at a headline that was like shocker, I agree
with AOC. I saw a lot of that on social media,
just a lot of sort of politicians getting mad. And
this is showing up in some bills. There's actually a
bill in the House right now to stop sports gambling
(38:20):
on prediction markets, and then a Senate bill which is
about to be introduced today, I believe, according to Axios,
but there are a.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Lot of other places to bet on sports, So it's
not like sports betting would go away. It's just these
particular sites would not allow it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, and if that happened, it would be very bad
for these sites, these prediction market sites.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
There's March madness happening in our office right now. I've
never understood what that means. Is that just because I
don't know about brackets. I've never I don't know what
a bracket means. I've done stories on it.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
I don't know what a bracket means.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
All Right, we'll have Tracy Alloway next week.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
We can get together, we can walk through brackets that
would I would appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
This has been this week in. This show is produced
by Jasmine J. T. Green and Stacy Wong. Magnus Hendrickson
is our supervising producer, Sam Rogich handles engineering, and Dave
Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin
(39:18):
and Maria Ling. If you have a minute, please rate
and review the show. It'll mean a lot to us.
And if you have a story that should be our
business or a sports bet, you want to suggest that
we make email US at everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
That's everybody with an US at Bloomberg dot net. Thank
you for listening and we'll see you next week.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Stacy Max, I've got something that I need to show you.
It's very important to me on a personal level, and
I believe important on a societal level as well.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
Andy, coming into Bac de ROSARIOI Lida Hey, Debba Lok
Baseball Classic.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
That was a clip of the World Baseball Classic team
Italy beating Puerto Rico in a huge upset in the semifinals.
I bring this up right now because baseball season is
having a moment, the MLB season, the Major League Baseball
season starting as we record, and Stacey, we're gonna talk
with Bloomberg's Randall Williams about how this epic sports comeback
(00:57):
happened and why baseball in particular is sort of recession proof.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I am very curious to hear about that and how
it is recession proof, and speaking Max of recessions, I
think two thousand and eight has been on everyone's mind
a little bit lately because of one phrase that has
been all over Financial News.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Private credit, private credit, private prides.
Speaker 6 (01:20):
Private credit, private credit.
Speaker 7 (01:21):
You're bringing me down, Stacy, Yes, private.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
Credit brings everyone down, although it can be a little confusing.
What exactly it is yeah, what exactly the problem is
and how.
Speaker 5 (01:31):
Big it is?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And we're going to have Oddlot's co host Tracy Alloway
here to kind of talk us through this potential financial crisis.
Or maybe it's just an exciting new asset class that
will be with us for a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
We'll find out are we doomed? In short, this is
everybody's business. I'm Max Chafkin and I'm Stacy mannock Smith.
Grab your cracker jacks and your favorite distressed assets. We
are going out to the ballpark.
Speaker 6 (02:00):
I'm in. I don't care if I never come back.
Speaker 7 (02:07):
How do you all feel like the economy is going
right now?
Speaker 5 (02:11):
I feel like it's not going well. Everyone's talking about inflation.
Speaker 6 (02:16):
I don't drive a car in New York, but I
am noticing gas prices.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
I guess it's struggling as much as our economy in London.
It's not great a disaster.
Speaker 8 (02:25):
Nobody knows what's going on. Nobody has a plan, the
sense of what's going to happen. We're all living month
by month.
Speaker 5 (02:33):
We just went out to breakfast.
Speaker 8 (02:35):
We had pancakes and an omelet, and with the tip
it came to seventy seven dollars.
Speaker 7 (02:41):
I think it's more than double the Yeah, as a eggs.
Speaker 8 (02:45):
There is no sense of security anywhere, a lot of lies.
I think everybody is struggling in different ways. Where do
we find support among o ourselves but not from the government.
Speaker 6 (02:58):
And there's probably a future for people our age to
buy a house or.
Speaker 9 (03:02):
Anything like that.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
As she said, do any of you know what private
credit is?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I do not.
Speaker 5 (03:10):
No, No, I don't know. No, I'm not aware.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
That was our producer Jasmine J. T. Green talking to
people in Manhattan and Max.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
As you can tell, a lot of people are not
feeling great about the economy. Also, maybe not a thousand
percent sure what private credit is.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
Not me say, I know you do, and as do I.
Speaker 6 (03:34):
We know everything about private credit, but some of our
listeners might not.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
We should be kind, if.
Speaker 7 (03:39):
I'm being honest, there may be a few little bits
that I'm hazy on.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
We're very like can have someone who does understand private
credit here in the studio with us. Tracy Alloway, host
of the Odd Lots podcast, fellow Bloombergian. Welcome, Tracy, thank
you so much, thanks for having me. First of all,
what do you think of what people were saying? About
the economy.
Speaker 10 (04:00):
What was your reaction to that? Yeah, I mean that
tends to be what you hear nowadays. In fact, it
tends to be what you've been hearing for a couple
of years, which I think is why people are kind
of uncertain about what it means, what sentiment means right now.
Because you'll remember in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three,
if you looked at all the consumer sentiment surveys, everyone
was basically saying things are terrible, yes, and yet if
(04:21):
you look at the headline numbers of the economy, it
was kind of chugging along for a while. So there
was a lot of introspection about whether the surveys weren't
just not working anymore. Fast forward to today, and it
seems thing people feel worse about things than ever really,
But the big question mark is still are you going
to see that actually show up in the economic numbers?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
All right? Tracy Stacy and I are professional business journalists.
We've been both doing this for a very long time.
We follow news closely, so of course we know what
private credit is and why people I believe worried about
But just in case, hypothetically, so if we weren't one
hundred percent sure what this conversation is because there have
(05:04):
been a lot of headlines. There have been headlines about redemptions,
blue wowl, like, there's a lot of stuff. A lot
of people are anxious. Can you just lay out what
this asset class is and why it has gotten so
big over the last few years.
Speaker 10 (05:17):
Sure, So let me reframe this with a question to
you guys. But if I said, what's shadow banking? Do
you think you'd have a better handle on what shadow
banking is versus private credit?
Speaker 6 (05:28):
I feel like it sounds much more ominous.
Speaker 7 (05:31):
Okay, regulated lending?
Speaker 10 (05:33):
Yeah, all right, we're getting at something here.
Speaker 6 (05:35):
Okay.
Speaker 10 (05:36):
So when I first started covering this space, we called
it shadow banking. And when I first started covering it
was in the aftermath of the two thousand and eight
financial crisis. You had all these new bank regulations coming
in which basically made it either harder or impossible or
more expensive for banks to make certain loans and investments,
(05:57):
and so all that activity started migrating away from the
regulated banks to non bank players. And if you think
back to two thousand and eight, that makes a lot
of sense. Right, We just experienced this terrible financial crisis
where all the big banks basically had to be bailed
out by the government. Regulators, policymakers, government officials were saying,
(06:17):
we never want to do that ever again, and so
we want all that risky activity to be pushed away
from the banks to entities that aren't important enough to
be bailed out if things get wrong. But the idea
was that you're going to move stuff out of the
regulated banking system so that you're not going to end
up with a systemic crisis the way you saw with mortgages. Right,
(06:40):
banks made a bunch of bad mortgages, those went south.
You had all this leverage that was built onto the mortgages,
and when people stopped paying their mortgages, suddenly all of
that was in doubt in the entire banking system basically collapsed.
So we never want to see that again. And this
is when you started to see new credit entities, the
new fund managers. They all had different names back then.
(07:04):
Broadly we referred to them as the shadow banking system.
So I used to be at the Financial Times and
I remember twenty twelve, twenty thirteen writing about the rise
of the shadow banking system, and.
Speaker 6 (07:15):
They just rebrand to private credits.
Speaker 10 (07:17):
This is what I'm getting at. I had this realization.
I can't believe it didn't like it took me a
while to get it. I was like, oh, private credit,
we're actually just talking about shadow banking.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I eat.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Junk bonds sometimes get called high yield because if you're
selling them, you don't want to say, by my junk bonds.
Speaker 10 (07:32):
That's exactly right, and we should talk about the impact
on the junk bond market as well from private credit.
But this is exactly what happened. You had these companies
called business development companies who were in a very similar
business to the banks. They were extending credit to companies,
usually smaller or riskier companies that banks no longer could
or wanted to lend to, and they really started to
(07:54):
take off. In the aftermath of the financial crisis. You
got the rebrand around private credit. It was pitched as
this like juicy yield generating investment. It's not as safe
as investing in what we call an investment grade or
blue chip bond, like something issued by a really safe company,
but it was still supposed to be secured lending. So
(08:18):
if the company went belly up, there were some assets
that you could supposedly get in a default scenario and
you would have some recovery of your original investment. But
in the meantime you were earning yields of nine percent,
which was great. That's private credit now. It's the loans
that have been pushed out of the regulated banking system
and have now been funneled into business development companies BDCs,
(08:42):
into certain securitizations, and then also into massive funds whose
whole raise on debt is to extend private credit to
other investors.
Speaker 4 (08:52):
Okay, trouble started here like last year that we started
to see I feel like I started to see more
and more headlines what started to go wrong.
Speaker 10 (09:01):
So I think the real troubles started late last year.
You started to see some investors in private credit vehicles,
but they started to want to get their money out.
So the thinking was, like growth is maybe slowing, Maybe
some of these private credit investments are looking a little
bit bubbly. Again, I think it's really important to emphasize
how much money went into the space. So we're talking
(09:23):
about a private credit market that's now estimated to be
one point eight trillion dollars, which is not that big
actually in the grand scheme of investments. But just to
put it into context, it's bigger than the junk bond
market now, and that's happened in just a couple of years.
The junk bond market started in like the nineteen seventies
with Mike Milkin, and now the private credit market has
(09:47):
managed to eclipse it in basically five years or so.
That's enormous amounts of growth, and so it's understandable that
people are starting to say, wait a second, like that
money has grown so fast, there's been so much money
pouring into the space, do we actually know if those
loans are high quality, if we're investing to good companies.
The other thing about private credit is the clue is
(10:09):
in the name.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Right.
Speaker 10 (10:10):
It's very private, it's very opaque. If you're an investor
who wants to invest in a company, you have a
bunch of different choices for doing that. You can buy
the stock right, or you can buy a bond issued
by the company in the public market. This is what
we call public credit, basically syndicated bonds and loans. When
(10:30):
a company sells a bond in the public market, there's
a lot of documentation and red tape that gets attached
to that. They usually have financials that get released very regularly.
You can see how the company is doing, what the
company's assets look like. If you have a company that
is investing or selling a private loan or private bond,
(10:53):
you don't really get that. It's not rated by the
rating agencies for the most part, so you're sort of
relying on the deal makers around that particular structure to
get it right. And so it's not that surprising that
when things start to look a little wobbly on the
economic front that people are going, wait a second, what
actually is all this private credit?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It seems to me that there are two concerns going on.
One is about this asset class. Are these companies that
have been making these loans? Are they going to be okay?
A lot of investors are worried. I think so far,
what the private credit executives have said is our loans
are still fine, We're still okay. There is like a
second question, which is could this somehow spill over into
(11:36):
the larger economy. Could this line you talked about at
the top, Tracy, that we tried to draw a line
between the banking we were okay with and banking we
weren't okay with Yeah, and I'm curious what you think
of both of those questions, like first the asset class,
but then the risk of some broader contagion.
Speaker 10 (11:53):
Yeah, okay, two very big topics and excellent questions. So
on the first one on the marks, one of the
finding features a private credit and one of the reasons
that people were interested in it in addition to the yield,
is that it doesn't actually get marked to market that frequently.
Speaker 8 (12:09):
Does that mean?
Speaker 10 (12:10):
So that means it doesn't get reassessed as frequently as
stuff in the public market. So if you have a
syndicated loan, a loan that was publicly issued and is trading,
that thing gets reevaluated. It gets repriced on a pretty
regular basis. It varies depending on what type of loan
it is. But if you have a private credit loan
(12:32):
that gets reassessed, I think it's on a quarterly basis
for most BDCs, and so you don't really know what
your ultimate selling price is going to be if there's
a fire sale basically in the market. And so one
of the concerns we're seeing now is when people start
to pull their money out of private credit vehicles if
the funds actually have to rush to sell their portfolio
(12:55):
to meet those redemption requests. How much money are they
actually going to be able to get for those loans,
especially if everyone is having to sell at the same time.
And that's why you've seen a bunch of private credit
funds start to reinforce gates that are actually in the documentation.
So we've had just in the past week, Apollo and
Ares say that we've had a bunch of investors asking
(13:16):
for their money back. But the difference is, because we
wanted this to be different from the regulated banking system,
we put up gates on those funds so we can say,
or the fund managers can say, we're only going to
let you take out five percent of the money at
any given time.
Speaker 4 (13:33):
You said in the beginning that when you were starting
out as a reporter, you were covering the after effects
of the financial crisis, the housing crisis. Is this shaping
up to be that, Yeah, okay, well this goes.
Speaker 6 (13:45):
Back to our question, aka are we doing and how doom?
Speaker 10 (13:49):
Yeah, this one's tough for me because when I look
at some of the stuff that's happening, a lot of
the behavioral stuff seems very two thousand and eight Esque.
So you have Jeffreys, which has been one of the
more aggressive private credit players, is their stock has fallen
by forty or fifty percent. They're now pitching themselves to
a Japanese bank as a takeover target, which feels very
like two thousand and seven two thousand and eight to me.
(14:11):
You have these all hands on deck calls that you
know Ares and Apollo are doing with their employees. You
have some banks that are starting to publish their own
exposure to private credit, which again think back to two
thousand and seven two thousand and eight, you had all
the banks going, this is our subprime exposure. Stuff like
that makes me nervous. However, it's difficult to see that
(14:34):
there is that much leverage attached to private credit. But
at the same time, this is where I also start
to get worried because we know, for instance, that one
of the major investors in private credit has been the
insurance companies. We know that banks have also partnered with
private credit firms in some of this lending, which, to
(14:54):
get back to the original start of this conversation, seems
kind of insane if you're thinking that all of the
was supposed to get that riskier activity away from the
banking system. Some of it supposedly has been used in
what's known as the repo market as collateral, which again
has two thousand and eight connotations. So there are little
(15:15):
linkages in the system that worry me. And because the
space tends to be so opaque and because it's still
relatively new, it's really hard to track some of those linkages.
So I would say, you know, broadly, one point eight
trillion sounds like a lot. It's probably not in the
grand scheme of things, But just as in the financial crisis,
(15:35):
you don't tend to find out about these added layers
of leverage until the losses start materializing.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
So it doesn't sound like you are completely buying into
the panic. You are concerned, but you're not like, yeah,
I think red Okay.
Speaker 10 (15:51):
I think that's a fair way to be at the moment.
But again, there are a lot of unknowns here, and
one thing I would emphasize is, again, this is a
new asset class that grew rich really really quickly. It's
never been through a downcycle, and so we're about to
find out what that downcycle actually looks like, and potentially
we're about to find out in a down cycle that
(16:12):
is unlike many other downcycles in history. So we have
worries over AI and the threat to a lot of companies.
I should have mentioned earlier, but a lot of private
credit has been extended to software companies who now basically
face an existential question mark over their business. And then
we have the whole Iran situation where we're talking about
(16:33):
the closure of the strait of our moves, which is
a scenario that oil analysts have worried about for years
and years and years, with ripple effects into everything that
we buy. You think about energy, transportation, plastic packaging on
your food that has the potential to push up inflation,
which presumably would lead to higher interest rates. So you
(16:53):
could get this big economic slowing right when the Fed
starts raising interest rates and raising the cost capital for companies.
That's a pretty bad mix for private credit. I would argue, all.
Speaker 6 (17:06):
Right, Tracy Alloway, odd lots, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Thank you so much for having me, Stacy. We have
reached the seventh inning stretch of this podcast. All right,
so we're going to move on to a topic that
is close to my heart, and I would argue, close
to everyone's heart.
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Baseball, Major League baseball is okay.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
The season starts today, and I would argue that this
is a really interesting business story because you go back
about a decade and there were all of these kind
of like obituaries written about baseball and it's decline or
a parent decline. You know, Ratings were falling, the fans
were getting old, long games, the games were really long.
(17:53):
You also had the NBA was having a moment, the
National Basketball Association and the NFL had far and away
surpassed everyone.
Speaker 7 (18:01):
We've talked about the moment, but baseball is having a
little bit of a cultural moment. The ratings have been
going up for two years in a row. Attendance is up,
the average age of the fan has fallen dramatically over
the last six years. So yeah, it was it's like
from what to what? From fifty I'm skeptical.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
I feel like we need to bring in an expert,
and we've got one.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Randall Williams, Bloomberg Sports reporter. He is here with us now, Randall,
how are you.
Speaker 5 (18:28):
I'm doing all right. It's interesting to hear the way
you all talk about baseball.
Speaker 7 (18:31):
All right, Randall, hater. I don't know why the hater.
Speaker 6 (18:35):
I'm just wondering.
Speaker 9 (18:36):
I think America's biggest past time has definitely gotten younger. Okay,
I think even going to the games, watching the games,
it's pulled me to the screen. When I was younger
and I used to play MLB the Show, which is
a baseball's video game, one of the issues that I
have was that it wasn't fast paced enough for.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
My ten or eleven year old mind.
Speaker 9 (18:55):
And now even I'm tuning in for the World Baseball
Classic on TV, which is a bigger time amitment than
any video game could ever be.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Randall brought up the World Baseball Classic, that is this
international tournament. We heard a clip at the top of
the show, Tam Italy. Randall, I'm sure you were a
Team Italy guy. Absolutely, Team Italy overperformed. The ratings for
this thing were really good. The World Baseball Classic final
averaged eleven million viewers in the US. That's like a
basketball finals game. Like maybe not a big game, but
(19:23):
that's a good rating. The World Series ratings were really high,
incredibly high. So there's a lot going on and I
wanted to just take this kind of step by step,
rand So you brought up the rule changes that I
think have been a big part of driving this turnaround.
Can you just explain why that happened and how it's happened.
Speaker 9 (19:41):
The games were going on too long, there was too
much space between when a pitcher was throwing the ball
and when a batter was swinging, and just a time period.
I mean, that's why it was a pastime, is because
you could go to a baseball game and not care
about the baseball and just literally explore around the park
and then come sit down and you know, maybe it
might still be the inning of which you got up
and left from. Nowadays, and any can be over very
(20:03):
quickly because of the pitch clock. And we saw this
sort of in the World Series where shohe Atani pitched
in Game seven and you had Toronto's manager who's telling
them like, listen, I know he needs to get warmed up,
but I don't want to give him too much time
to where now he's fully warm. Let's get this expedited.
And so that's one of the biggest rule changes. And then,
of course it helps to have a dynasty. It helps
(20:25):
to have the Los Angeles Dodgers who have a bunch
of superstar players outside of show hey, and they're performing
really well, and from a viewership perspective, you either love
it or you absolutely hate it, but you want to
watch it.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, about three years ago, Rob Manford, the commissioner you
mentioned him earlier, did a bunch of things, not.
Speaker 6 (20:44):
Just the mease. Let me make the franchise a.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Guy who runs baseball. So one of the things that
had happened, Randall brought it up. The games had gotten longer,
so you were sort of losing people, and there were
teams that were taking advantage of this, and so they
instituted essentially a shot clock for pitching. You get penalized
if you don't throw the pitch within a certain amount
of time. They also changed a bunch of the rules
to create more action.
Speaker 9 (21:07):
Sports as a business cannot thrive if all they're attracting
is sports fans.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
You have to be good with content.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
They made the bases bigger so that it would be
easy to steal bases, and they changed up a couple
of the rules around runners on base to encourage base stealing.
They basically wanted to have more action stuff happening. Yeah,
that makes sense, but I think the rule change is
basically worked.
Speaker 9 (21:32):
Yeah, absolutely, and we see leagues experiment with rule changes
like this isn't the first time, but for baseball it
has changed things drastically and it's had a huge impact.
On top of that, you have to have a good
product as well, you have to have teams perform well.
You have to have a compelling show, compelling entertainment and
superstars show going from the Angels to the Dodgers, and
(21:53):
he was almost a blue Jay as well.
Speaker 5 (21:55):
That it captivated audiences for sure, not just here but
around the world.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Yeah, I've said this before on the podcast. I mean,
Sho Hay is like the Babe Ruth. He's like, arguably
the best baseball player in one hundred years.
Speaker 7 (22:10):
And as Randall saying, is that right?
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Yeah, there's a legitimate argument.
Speaker 9 (22:13):
They called this the greatest baseball game ever played, where
he struck out ten people and hit three home runs
in the same game.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
He's simply doesn't happen.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
It plays for the biggest team, the La Dodgers, in
the second biggest city in the United States, and he
is the biggest star in Japan. He's Japanese, and Japanese
baseball is a big thing. The sort of MLB Japan
connection has grown tremendously over the last I don't know
since shohe has been here, and even going back before then,
(22:40):
there's baseball is promoting itself in Japan with this wonderful
advertisement that was like going around on Twitter.
Speaker 7 (22:45):
I don't know if you saw it, Randall, but.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
It's all these Japanese people watching the games in the
middle of the night because and getting really excited and
being like super into this sport. And you you know,
it shows up in the ratings baseball. Major League Baseball
has started releasing its ratings combining Canada, US and Japan
because Japan is so big.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
So Randall, give us, like, in the spectrum of sports
that you cover, where does baseball fall? Because one thing
I did notice was that apparently Netflix just cut a
deal with Major League Baseball, And we had you on
talking about Netflix cutting a deal for football, and that's
made it into this big kind of musty event.
Speaker 6 (23:24):
Is baseball in that same track? Is this a very different?
Speaker 9 (23:26):
So I'll give you the top three, and the top
three have always been the NFL, the MLB, in the NBA,
and for many years, I'd say for the past fifteen
it's been NFL, NBA, MLB. But I would say at
this current juncture, the MLB has overtaken the NBA really
in terms of interest, and the reason for that is
because it's a multitude of things. We've talked about the
(23:47):
rule changes, but also there is the dynasty effect of
the Dodgers, like they have dozens of It feels like
they have a Justice League team. And that helps because
not only do they have incredible superstars, they're in the
second biggest media market and people are going to watch that.
On top of that, of course, when you have the
second biggest media market, people with ratings are then going
(24:08):
to tune in and say, like, okay, with Game seven,
you have the greatest World Series of all time. And
that's my opinion, of course, but it was a really
compelling game in which the Dodgers were outscored that series.
I believe it was twenty six to thirty four, and
somehow still came out victorious. And then they go into
free agency reload, and now we're getting ready to start
another season again.
Speaker 7 (24:27):
All right, So I want to bring up a couple
other possible explanations.
Speaker 5 (24:30):
Okay, one is this going to be conspiracy.
Speaker 7 (24:32):
Okay, this one is borderline conspiracy.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
But you see it showing up and I'd say maybe
the conservative corners of sports media this narrative that like
the NBA has lost a step because it's too woke,
and that baseball is like perfectly tuned to the Trump
moment or something like that. You know, in polls, there
was a poll that kind of went viral a couple
(24:56):
of weeks ago showing that baseball players are the most
republican of sports athletes. I don't know how, I don't
know how seriously we should take this, but I believe
the NHL is number two.
Speaker 7 (25:05):
Do you put any stock in that?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Because you really do see this argument show up that
sports have suffered by engaging too much politically. I would
argue that baseball has not been as politically engaged as
some of the other sports, like the NBA.
Speaker 7 (25:18):
Do you think there's anything to that or is.
Speaker 5 (25:20):
It not necessarily?
Speaker 9 (25:21):
I think the NBA specifically is in this new era
that I would call the parody era where you've had
seven different champions.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
You've had I believe it's six or seven.
Speaker 9 (25:28):
Different international MVPs, and they are typically the dynasty sport.
You think of the Lakers, you think of the Warriors,
you think of the Lebron Air, you think of the
Bulls and the Celtics.
Speaker 5 (25:38):
Of course that's been them for fifty years.
Speaker 9 (25:40):
When you have seven different champions, and we're not talking
about the Lakers being one of them. That happened in
twenty twenty we had the Warriors, but since then it's
been Celtics, Denver and last year Oklahoma City against the Pacers.
These are middle sized markets, of which sometimes the storytelling
isn't always there. I do think that the NBA could
do a better job of marketing at superstars, but the
product is going to catch up.
Speaker 5 (26:02):
It always catches up. Now, what does that look like
long term?
Speaker 9 (26:05):
If Oklahoma City's dynasty continues, or if they do start
a dynasty, if the Spurs with victor Ian Binyama, or
even if the Knicks show up or Anthony Edwards and
the Timberwolves, there can be a sudden surge and at
the same time, the Dodgers can fall off a cliff
even with all of these superstars.
Speaker 4 (26:20):
When you say it sounds like having a dynasty is good, yes,
but it seems like having different teams from all over
the place win would actually be good for audiences, but
it sounds like not so much.
Speaker 9 (26:32):
So why is that It's very fascinating to me because
in the NFL, parody has existed for a long time,
Like we've lived in this era of the Patriots for
twenty years and now the Chiefs, but we've seen different
teams win in between there as well, and different teams
go to the playoffs and things like that. In the NBA,
it really hasn't been like that, Like if you go
back ten years to twenty sixteen, it was calvs. Warriors,
(26:55):
and then of course you have Warriors Raptors, right, But again,
like the season is so long, and when you think
about people who are tuning into these games, there's an
argument that not all of these NBA games matter, and
so when it is finally time to get to the
pinnacle of the NBA Finals, there are some viewers who
are like, oh, you know, I'm so used to watching
(27:15):
Lebron and Steph that if they're not there, I'm not playing.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
I'm not gonna watch.
Speaker 9 (27:19):
Whereas with baseball and with all of these sports, really
people watch brands, and so you think of the biggest
brands in the NBA, Nicks, Warriors, Celtics, Lakers, you think
of them in the NFL, Patriots, Cowboys, I'd say Chiefs
as well, and then you could throw a couple more
in there. When those teams aren't showing up and it
(27:39):
is the Pacers and it is the Thunder, then there's
going to be a slight down tick, but it'll catch
up eventually.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can't believe I'm the one bringing this up, but
because this is much more up Stacy's alley than mine.
But I think another argument you could make is that
baseball is more suited to this moment because it's cheaper,
it's more affordable. There are studies sports in general hold
up pretty well during economic down terms.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
Sure, baseball.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
There's some research suggesting that baseball holds up even better
than some of the other sports. I'm not sure why
that is, but the games are definitely cheaper, and I
was thinking back to the sort of height of the NBA,
that kind of Steph Curry era twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.
Speaker 7 (28:24):
That was also the Zerp era.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
You know, like people had a lot of money, you
could you could splash out and go and sit court
side at a game. And NBA tickets are really expensive
Baseball tickets because there's so many games, because the stadiums
are bigger, they're just cheaper.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
Economics leagues are different, And you're right.
Speaker 9 (28:42):
I do think that basketball and especially football are becoming
luxury experiences. The get in price, whether you want to
sit at a mid level or upper level, is going
to cost you a couple hundred bucks gone or the
days where if you have a family of four, you
can just decide on a Thursday that we're going to
go to a Packers game. And I said the Packers
for a reason because they're based in Green Bay. Imagine
what that's going to look like for a Knicks game
(29:03):
or a Giants game. It might cost a vacation to
wherever you want to go. It could very easily cost
you fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 7 (29:10):
You definitely can go to a Brewers game.
Speaker 9 (29:12):
It's exactly because there's so many games. Yeah, but I'll
leave you all with this, And you brought up a
good point about season length. What the NFL is trying
to do right now is get one more game for
a multitude of reasons, because the fact that the biggest
one is that they can sell one more game. The MLB,
the argument with the fans is to bring the number
of games down so that these games can matter more.
Speaker 5 (29:32):
But of course there is media.
Speaker 9 (29:33):
There's a media conversation around that, and will NBA owners
and NBA players want to lose money long term in
order to gain money or lose money short term in
order to gain money long term. The MLB is going
to have to have a similar conversation. And the reality
is these billionaire owners millionaire players are going to have
to decide do we want to shrink the season and
order in order for the next generation of owners and
(29:54):
players to make money? And I think the answer to
that question is going to be no, They're not going
to cut game because they're all too rich right now
in order to be like, why would I care about
the player and owner twenty years? I want to be
rich now. NFL I think will eventually add an eighteenth game,
but I think that's where they'll stop.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Randal, you brought up these kind of long term risks,
and we haven't talked about the big one for baseball,
which is the labor dispute.
Speaker 7 (30:19):
There is a very good chance I am trying to
soak up this.
Speaker 6 (30:22):
I think I know it's like the players right, so the.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
Owners are very likely to lock the players out at
the beginning of next year or as soon as this
season ends, and it's over the question of a salary cap.
Baseball is the only major sport renal correct me, I'm
wrong where there isn't a salary cap that's a sort
of a top level that teams.
Speaker 6 (30:43):
Can they're going to amount the team can spend, right,
and they.
Speaker 7 (30:45):
Say they have to divvy it out. Now, in baseball,
you can spend as much as you want.
Speaker 9 (30:49):
Here's why the Dodgers have the superstars that they do there.
I had an agent tell me some time ago that
if you are a very good baseball player, you might
not be top twenty five, but if your top fifty
and you start your free agency, there's one conversation you
need to have and it's with the Dodgers because they're
gonna set your market. And the Dodgers are willing to
spend seven hundred million dollars on show hal Tani and wow,
(31:09):
that's his contract over a long period of time, but
an incredible amount of money. And we're seven hundred million
is top. But imagine like these guys are trying to
get anywhere between one hundred and fifty and maybe two
hundred and fifty million dollars Max gohead.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I just was gonna ask you, Randall, where do you
think it's gonna go. I mean, like, as a fan,
I am trying to soak in this season because we
may not have a baseball season next year, which is
like super sad. And it does feel like baseball has
made all this progress and it's like, you're kidding me,
You're gonna blow all that up over a salary people,
but it seems like they might.
Speaker 9 (31:43):
So here's the reality is that if you were watching
the WNBA this season, there was a collective bargaining negotiation
between the players and the owners that everyone was.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
Like, this is ugly, there might not be a season.
Speaker 9 (31:54):
But the WNBA had one big advantage, and they had time,
Like this season starts in a WNBA around April, and
they had at least six to seven months. And I'm
sure that they had many different collective bargaining sessions over
the course of a year. When they opted out, it
was November twenty four. They negotiated for over a year.
Baseball does not necessarily have that time on their side.
(32:16):
And you brought up the point of salary cap versus
a minimum spending limit because the players are going to
say you have owners who are okay with not winning,
who are okay with not competing because of the fact
that these media deals are paying X amount of dollars
and they're not selling your teams. And I think that
is a problem. And you, again, you should soak up
this season because I don't know, if you're the players,
(32:39):
you cannot give up a salary cap. That is a
losing conversation. Now, I do think in terms of competitive
equity it would help. But is it going to help
more than having a minimum requirement that owners have to
spend on players?
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I don't know.
Speaker 9 (32:53):
And what would I rather see? Would I rather see
the Dodgers build a Justice League squad? Or would I
rather see the Pittsburgh Pirates actually don't care about probably
the best picture in baseball and not build around him
just because he's going to pack out the stadium by himself.
I personally would rather see a minimum requirement. But we're
gonna find out how it's all going to play out
(33:13):
over the course of many months.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Okay, Randall, I always ask you the kind of sports
question at the end of these conversations.
Speaker 5 (33:19):
Who do you have this year? Who?
Speaker 7 (33:21):
Which which are the IMO.
Speaker 9 (33:23):
For I'll tell you what I'm rooting for. I'm rooting
for Dodgers Yankees. And the reason that I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
I'm not a purist. I'm sorry Dodger, I'm As a
matter of fact, I'll give you two. I'm rooting for
Dodgers Yankees or I'm rooting for Mets Yankees. The reason
for that is because I root for the business of
sports and I do think that those type of matchups
(33:46):
and I would even go rematch from last year with
Dodgers Blue Jays. Those type of matchups bring people to
the screen, and ultimately, we all want this business to grow.
We don't want baseball to be in a bad spot
as it was ten years ago. And I think if
this is going to be a swan Song season for
however many months and years, that they're going to go
out with a bang, go out with a bang, let's
I think that's best. But also we'll see I love
(34:08):
an underdog story, but those three would be my matchups.
I would like to see Dodgers Yankees, Yankees, Mets or
Dodgers Blue Jays all over again.
Speaker 7 (34:16):
Randall Williams, thanks for being here, Thank you all for
having me thanks Randall.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
All right, Max, we have spent a lot of the
last few months talking about prediction markets, so.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Much time stacy that we decided we needed a little
theme song every time we talk about this time.
Speaker 7 (34:40):
I think that's fair.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
I bring you a new segment everybody's business listeners. It's
called this Week in Prediction Markets.
Speaker 7 (34:53):
Wo.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
Wo.
Speaker 6 (34:53):
That's awesome. I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
I feel very excited to hear the latest development in
prediction markets.
Speaker 7 (34:59):
All right, So the big news in this world is backlash.
It's it.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
You know, we end of prediction Marcus end.
Speaker 7 (35:07):
But remember our.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Last the last time we talked about this on the
Live show with Robert Smith and Jake Goldstein, and we
sort of kept circling around all the kind of uncomfortable
things about this world. The fact that you could bet
on the return of His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
or that you could people there's insider trading. There's been
all sorts of stuff, and I think regulators and even
(35:34):
people are starting to catch up. So let me just
run you down a couple of things that have happened
super recently. What one is that the State of Arizona
charged Calshi criminally with operating a sports book, an illegal
sports book.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
Sports betting is I am guessing illegal in Arizona, No, but.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
It's it's regulated under a separate regime, and so and
and so this is coming up in a couple of states. Basically,
what they're saying is that Calshi and poly Market, which remember,
you can bet on elections, you can bet on war,
you can bet on anything, but a lot of what
people actually bet on is sports, And what they're saying
(36:15):
is that this is a back door to unregulated sports betting.
And I think anyone who uses these sites, and we've
talked about this on the podcast before, there's some truth
to that, because there is not a huge difference between
placing a bet on draft Kings and placing a bet
on poly Market, at least from the point of view
of most people who are gambling. There are some technical differences,
(36:38):
but you know, you're ultimately risking money on the outcome
of a sports game, of a sports ball match.
Speaker 6 (36:44):
How big of a deal is it for Calchi and
poly Market if they can't.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Do sports bets, I think it would be really really bad.
The volume numbers is like most of their business, I
think it's the majority of at least Calshi's business. I
don't know that we know for sure what polymarkets volumes
look like, but they're huge. You know, the numbers have
spiked during the Super Bowl. If you go on one
of these sites, you know right now, you'll see that.
Speaker 6 (37:11):
Polly Market just cut a deal with Major League Baseball.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
Polymarket cut a deal with Major League Baseball. And that
gets me to another point, which is that when they
cut this deal, AOC Alexandria o Cassio Cortes, potential Democratic
presidential contender. The congresswoman tweeted basically saying, let me read
this comment because I think it's indicative of a vibe shift.
This is sad regarding the Polymarket MLB deal. I know
(37:38):
as a politician, these companies are going to spend a
billion dollars against me for saying it, but shruggy emoji.
Pervasive gambling is not good for society. It turns life
into a casino, traps people in addiction and debt surges,
domestic violence, and Foster's manipulation. And what's interesting about this
is you saw a lot of people in kind of
AOC's camp cheering along, but also a lot of Republicans
(37:58):
Bill O'Reilly who I I didn't realize it's still around.
But he still hosts his own, you know, conservative talk
show at a headline that was like shocker, I agree
with AOC. I saw a lot of that on social media,
just a lot of sort of politicians getting mad. And
this is showing up in some bills. There's actually a
bill in the House right now to stop sports gambling
(38:20):
on prediction markets, and then a Senate bill which is
about to be introduced today, I believe, according to Axios,
but there are a.
Speaker 4 (38:27):
Lot of other places to bet on sports, So it's
not like sports betting would go away. It's just these
particular sites would not allow it.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yeah, and if that happened, it would be very bad
for these sites, these prediction market sites.
Speaker 4 (38:39):
There's March madness happening in our office right now. I've
never understood what that means. Is that just because I
don't know about brackets. I've never I don't know what
a bracket means. I've done stories on it.
Speaker 6 (38:50):
I don't know what a bracket means.
Speaker 7 (38:51):
All Right, we'll have Tracy Alloway next week.
Speaker 4 (38:54):
We can get together, we can walk through brackets that
would I would appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
This has been this week in. This show is produced
by Jasmine J. T. Green and Stacy Wong. Magnus Hendrickson
is our supervising producer, Sam Rogich handles engineering, and Dave
Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin
(39:18):
and Maria Ling. If you have a minute, please rate
and review the show. It'll mean a lot to us.
And if you have a story that should be our
business or a sports bet, you want to suggest that
we make email US at everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.
That's everybody with an US at Bloomberg dot net. Thank
you for listening and we'll see you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com