The Business of Sports (and travel)

Author

Luke
June 23, 2023

Welcome back to this week’s (accidentally sportier) edition of Monkey Business

But what about when fishing is your job? A crew in North Carolina is likely in the midst of ripping that bumper sticker off their car. After participating in a professional fishing tournament with potential to reel in $3.5 Million of prize money the crew at Sensation is protesting the decision to disqualify their slightly bite marked 619 pound marlin (the next biggest fish was only 484 pounds) due to the presence of shark bites on the fish. The official rule states to win a fish may not have any bites or marks on it since a maimed fish would fight less and not represent a true catch. TBD if they will be reapplying their bumper stickers anytime soon.

By hitting the ball less times… Oh and he also had a bit of a home field advantage. Wyndham has a close friend who is a member at the highly prestigious and hard to access LA Country Club that is notorious for not even allowing celebs to join in an effort to keep a low profile.

While Rory had mentioned in an interview he resorted to watching YouTube videos to learn the course ahead of time. Wyndham actually played it multiple times with his close friend, who is also an accomplished golfer in his own right, serving as caddie and coaching him through the challenging greens.

Lynard Skinner was believed to be bemoaning the potential entanglements of marriage in that line opting to be a Free Bird rather than a "jail bird", but maybe he was actually singing about his golf game*

*he was not

If you've seen a recent trending search for "Jailbird" on google it is not in reference to the First Son, but rather a putter that stopped being manufactured in 2013. Wyndham Clark was using a slightly modified Versa Jailbird putter when he won. Since he started using the club he went from being one of the worst putters on the tour to one of the best, though again, multiple practice rounds on the course ahead of time may be the real cause. So, who knew, if you suck at golf maybe what you really need to do is practice more…

HISTORIC FAILURES (a walk through business failures throughout history)

Shortly after being the only rookie to ever lead their team to an NBA National Championship Magic Johnson was offered two national shoe deals. The first deal was THE basketball powerhouse, Converse (it was the 70's…), offering top of the market money of $100K per year (again, it was the 70's). The other option was a young unknown company that had only been public for one year offering $1 per shoe sold and $100K in shares that were then worth $0.18 apiece. Magic Johnson opted for Converse over the newcomer named Nike and said those shares of Nike would now be worth $5 Billion… that's unfortunate.

But also untrue, warning this next part is even more boring..

$100K at 18 cents a piece is equivalent to 555,555 shares. At Nike's highest ever valuation of around $170 per share those 555,555 shares would be worth around $95M at most. But wait, Luke, what about that $1 per shoe? Well there are 7 billion people on the planet so unless 5 out of every 7 people on earth ended up wearing Magic Johnson shoes I just don't buy Magic's numbers.

So if Magic is mad at anyone maybe it should be his math teachers… or himself for not using his $100K/year to just, you know, buy the shares of Nike himself

Summer Travel Recommendations

Allow me to introduce Atlantis Adventures! A company that takes you down in a submarine off the coast of Hawaii for the low, low price of $148 per person (MUCH lower than another company I price shopped it against). Their bookings seemed to have opened up to the point that you could catch a ride same day if you wanted! Can't believe more people are jumping at the chance to ride in a submarine…