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Carnival Cuts Profit Outlook as Iran War Pushes Up Fuel Cost · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. You're listening to the
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  Speaker 1: or watch us live on YouTube.
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  Speaker 2: Let's turn our gaze to the cruising business. I know
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  Speaker 2: nothing about the cruising business.
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  Speaker 3: That will change in October when I take my first cruise.
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  Speaker 4: I know he's finally taking the plunge.
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: Finally taking the plunge.
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  Speaker 2: But with the guy we have here now, our next
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  Speaker 2: guest is an expert on all this stuff. Brian Eggery
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  Speaker 2: covers all the fun stuff gaming, casinos, hotels, and cruises
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  Speaker 2: for a Bloomberg Intelligence Carnival.
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  Speaker 3: What's going on in carnival here.
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  Speaker 5: So they came out with but otherwise would have been
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  Speaker 5: a very good quarter in terms of bookings demand. Eighty
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  Speaker 5: five percent of the year sold actually raised revenue old guidance,
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  Speaker 5: but they had a cut ebit dog guidance because the
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  Speaker 5: cost it from fuel due.
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  Speaker 6: To the war I ran.
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  Speaker 5: And so the underlying demand part of the business is
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  Speaker 5: quite good.
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  Speaker 6: You know.
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  Speaker 5: The concern would be if that warn't persists. They are
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  Speaker 5: modeling in a level of fuel costs assumption for the
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  Speaker 5: second half that might not be conservative enough.
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  Speaker 7: The thing that people like about these cruise lines and
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  Speaker 7: cruise line operators is that they have a lot of
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  Speaker 7: visibility into their bookings because people book years in advance
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  Speaker 7: or months in advances in the case of Paul Sweeney
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  Speaker 7: and his upcoming cruise.
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  Speaker 4: But that also locks in the revenue that they brought in.
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  Speaker 7: Do cruise lines add a fuel surcharge later on because
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  Speaker 7: you know oil prices have gone up so much, or
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  Speaker 7: is it something they just have to eat?
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  Speaker 6: Well?
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  Speaker 5: I think the revenue youild management part of it is
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  Speaker 5: always the science behind it because eighty five percent of
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  Speaker 5: booking sold. If you oversell too much and demand goes up,
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  Speaker 5: you're left with inventory that could have been sold at
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  Speaker 5: a higher price, or you're missing inventory. You're not saying
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  Speaker 5: so much in terms of fuel cost surcharge, but I
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  Speaker 5: mean the reality is even with one hundred and fifty
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  Speaker 5: million dollars in offsetting cost savings from efficiencies, their estimate
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  Speaker 5: is that the full year impact on their adjusted income
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  Speaker 5: from the fuel price increases we've seen since December could
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  Speaker 5: be about five hundred million dollars, and our concern is
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  Speaker 5: that assumes eighty to ninety rent in the second half,
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  Speaker 5: and what if that's much higher, that's the concern.
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  Speaker 2: What's what are these cruise lines saying about their underlying
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  Speaker 2: demand at some point some of these inflation pressures if
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  Speaker 2: they do remain here a little bit longer than and
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  Speaker 2: maybe we initially thought fuel and in particular about other
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  Speaker 2: areas as well, why does that typically impact the top
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  Speaker 2: line for those guys.
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  Speaker 5: So I think generally think speaking, cost inflation can have
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  Speaker 5: an impact. The assertion of the industry would be that
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  Speaker 5: they are relatively affordable as per day compared to other
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  Speaker 5: forms of vacationing and travel, and so that's been a
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  Speaker 5: big underpinning behind their assumption. They continue to get more
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  Speaker 5: consum repenetration.
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  Speaker 7: And you know, people might have pre booked their cruises,
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  Speaker 7: but the amount that they spend is also another big,
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  Speaker 7: big revenue increase for these cruise line operators. I mean,
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  Speaker 7: that's where they make up a lot of ground. How
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  Speaker 7: do you expect that to play out if oil prices
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  Speaker 7: stay high? I mean, people are still going to go
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  Speaker 7: on their cruises, but they're not going to spend for
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  Speaker 7: the all you can drink package.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that may be a concern. Right now,
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  Speaker 5: the oield out look is quite favorable. It's still solid
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  Speaker 5: wellst single digits. Over time, an increasing portion of the
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  Speaker 5: overall revenuees come from either on board ticket spending or
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  Speaker 5: pre cruise purchases of excursions and other amenities and all
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  Speaker 5: that could be subject to vulnerability if there's a major
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  Speaker 5: change in discretionary spending.
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  Speaker 3: On fuel for these big cruises. They don't use a
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  Speaker 3: lot of the alternative fuels, do they. They're just burning
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  Speaker 3: that big bunker funnel play stuff.
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  Speaker 5: It mixes over time increased more more towards LNG and
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  Speaker 5: other forms of I guess more efficient fuel and clear fuel.
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  Speaker 5: I think one of the cruise lines downs now it's
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  Speaker 5: its first hydrogen powered ships, so they are looking at
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  Speaker 5: alternative uses, and a big offset to these cost increases
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  Speaker 5: has been few cost efficiencies. You know, the amount of
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  Speaker 5: metric tons of fuel consumed per passenger capacity to day
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  Speaker 5: has over time gone down. So they've tried to get
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  Speaker 5: some offset and have gotten some offset from increased efficiencies
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  Speaker 5: both from the general way they operate, but as well
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  Speaker 5: as more efficient ships.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they knows. I'm sitting on the beach in Aruba
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  Speaker 3: and I can see the smokestack from the.
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  Speaker 2: Court there of Aruba and as it shops are docked
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  Speaker 2: and it's just building the black.
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  Speaker 4: And you're thinking, well, I'm going to enjoy those people one.
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  Speaker 2: Day exactly exactly, But boy, I could just say that's
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  Speaker 2: just BRUI and they don't hedge they or do they?
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  Speaker 5: Carnival has not hedged historically. They've had over in past
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  Speaker 5: years have had some collars Norwegian and Royal Caribbean new
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  Speaker 5: hedge and so you know there is a cost benefit
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  Speaker 5: analysis to whether or not you put hedges in place.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, because George Ferguson was just telling us that the airlines.
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  Speaker 7: Don't head you, well, they got messed up during the pandemic,
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  Speaker 7: right and they all came out worse for it.
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  Speaker 2: So yep, all right, Brian, thanks so much, Brian Nigger
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  Speaker 2: appreciate that senior gaming and logic analyst Bloomberg Intelligence joining
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  Speaker 2: us live here in our Bloomberg and area.
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  Speaker 4: I have a cool question hermy cruises do you go
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  Speaker 4: on a year?
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  Speaker 6: A year?
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  Speaker 5: That's that's over time. I have gone on a number
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  Speaker 5: of cruises double door Uh, well maybe. Of course, I've
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  Speaker 5: been covering the sector for longer than yeah, as long
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  Speaker 5: as Paul has been doing this too, So yes, long time.
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  Speaker 3: Long time.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So I've been out on the Disney cruise a couple
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  Speaker 2: of times when they have a new ship. We'd fly
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  Speaker 2: out to l A hop in the thing. They take
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  Speaker 2: us out overnight.
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  Speaker 7: Oh yeah, but that's that's as an analyst exactly.
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  Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean I have taken a vacation cruise
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  Speaker 5: separate from my roles.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there you go.
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  Speaker 4: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
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  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple Cocklay and Android
• 6:06
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• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Well, if you're anything like me, you probably feel like
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: you spend too much time on your phone, particularly with
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: the scrolling through the social media sites. New Year's resolutions
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: every year usually include, you know, let's spend some less
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: time on the personal device.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't always work. It's tough to do.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: There's actually been the subject of a lot of litigation
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: against some of these social media platforms, Meta, Alphabet, those
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: types of folks, and there's been some cases coming down
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: against these companies as well. So let's see what it
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  Speaker 2: means for a lot of these social media companies and
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: tech companies in general. Matthew Sheltenham joins us here. He's
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  Speaker 2: media litigation analyst Bloomberg Intelligence. Hey, Matt, it seems like
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  Speaker 2: we've had a couple of court rulings come down against
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: some of these social media companies. Summarize what's going on
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  Speaker 2: out there and does those a risk to these companies?
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, So this is litigation that has been developing for
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  Speaker 9: the past three to four years, and it's finally in
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  Speaker 9: the first couple cases in line reached the stage of
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  Speaker 9: juris making decisions. So Meta had a loss in New
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  Speaker 9: Mexico State court when a jury announced a verdict of
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  Speaker 9: three hundred and seventy five million dollars. We also, as
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  Speaker 9: you said, had this California jury come down with a
• 7:28
  Speaker 9: personal injury suit on behalf of a woman who claimed
• 7:31
  Speaker 9: that she was harmed by the social media's features. There,
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  Speaker 9: the jury came down with an initial three million dollar
• 7:39
  Speaker 9: award against Meta and Google's YouTube and then added three
• 7:44
  Speaker 9: million dollars of punitive damages. On top of that, these
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  Speaker 9: are just the very tip of the iceberg. There are
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  Speaker 9: a number of other cases lined up to go to
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  Speaker 9: juries this year, and the whole goal here is to
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  Speaker 9: try to shape a settlement. Potentially, these are bell weather
• 8:01
  Speaker 9: cases to try to give information about Okay, do these
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  Speaker 9: cases have legs or not? And how should that how
• 8:08
  Speaker 9: should everyone think about trying to quantify them to settle them.
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  Speaker 2: So I think pretty much if your parent out there
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: would say, boy, my kids just spend way way too
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  Speaker 2: much time on their devices.
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  Speaker 3: Here, what is that? What do these companies say, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: because otherwise they're just going to be in litigation forever.
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  Speaker 9: Absolutely. I mean, I think you're looking at a lot
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  Speaker 9: of tough headlines here because you have a lot of
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  Speaker 9: parents on these juries and maybe these these you know,
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  Speaker 9: social media isn't the most popular thing right now, so
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  Speaker 9: it's going to be sort of an assault of headlines
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  Speaker 9: for the companies here. Now, the companies say, look that
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  Speaker 9: you know, there are lots of problems in the world.
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  Speaker 3: We're not responsible for it.
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  Speaker 9: In fact, we add a lot of value to the
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  Speaker 9: world as well, And there are real legal problems that
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  Speaker 9: the companies say with these cases. One is that the
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  Speaker 9: companies say, look, we have a first amend right to
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  Speaker 9: speak and to develop our product. We have a liability
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  Speaker 9: shield under federal law section two thirty. All of that
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  Speaker 9: sort of looms behind these jury decisions, and you can
• 9:11
  Speaker 9: you can guarantee that the companies are going to appeal
• 9:14
  Speaker 9: these initial decisions to higher courts on those tough legal questions.
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  Speaker 2: So you know, the amounts being awarded here are immaterial
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  Speaker 2: to these companies. Six million dollars here, three hundred million
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  Speaker 2: dollars there through, and seventy five million dollars there. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: they're just not material to the finances of these companies.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a scenario where we could get really, really
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  Speaker 2: multi billion dollar type things that might get these attention
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  Speaker 2: to these companies?
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  Speaker 9: So these personal injury lawsuits probably not. You know, this
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  Speaker 9: California case was brought by by a single person, and
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  Speaker 9: there's no vehicle really to bring it as a class
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  Speaker 9: action because damages are so individualized. The thing to watch
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  Speaker 9: here are the state attorney's general lawsuits and also slightly
• 9:59
  Speaker 9: behind them, lawsuits brought by school districts, because they both
• 10:04
  Speaker 9: offer opportunities to pool a number of supposed victims and
• 10:10
  Speaker 9: to bring claims on their behalf. So I think Meta
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  Speaker 9: has been sued by thirty to forty different state attorneys general,
• 10:16
  Speaker 9: and a number of those cases are consolidated in federal
• 10:19
  Speaker 9: court in California. That's a bigger ticket item, and so
• 10:23
  Speaker 9: that's the one to watch. I think these individual personal
• 10:26
  Speaker 9: injury suits are lowered down the line because of their
• 10:29
  Speaker 9: individualized nature. Meta made sixty billion in profit last year
• 10:33
  Speaker 9: and a six million dollar loss isn't a huge deal.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Has it been a deal for the stocks at all?
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Is this an overhanged off for these stocks thinking that
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: or is it? Could it be like the tobacco industry
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  Speaker 2: where investors are like, it's just it's just costed doing
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: business kind of thing.
• 10:49
  Speaker 9: Well, you know, it's been a tough couple of days
• 10:51
  Speaker 9: for Meta stock, and there's just been a barrage of
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  Speaker 9: headlines on this, and as I said, this is just
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  Speaker 9: the beginning. But there are a lot of people that
• 11:03
  Speaker 9: don't feel that great about social media right now and
• 11:05
  Speaker 9: use these decisions as an opportunity to jump on top
• 11:09
  Speaker 9: of it. And so in that sense, I think it's
• 11:11
  Speaker 9: going to be a lingering and ongoing risk that helps
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  Speaker 9: drive a global settlement here to make this litigation go away.
• 11:19
  Speaker 9: And I think that's the decision the company's going to
• 11:22
  Speaker 9: have to make, is do we have to make this
• 11:24
  Speaker 9: go away sooner rather than later, or do we test
• 11:27
  Speaker 9: these legal theories which might be pretty strong to make
• 11:30
  Speaker 9: the stuff go away, but it's going to take a
• 11:31
  Speaker 9: long time for those appeals to play out.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
• 11:47
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• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 11:55
  Speaker 7: All right, let's bring in George Ferguson. He is our
• 11:57
  Speaker 7: senior aerospace, defense and airlines analysts. And George, there was
• 12:00
  Speaker 7: a headline earlier this week that got my attention, which
• 12:03
  Speaker 7: is Jet Blue looking to team up with someone looking
• 12:07
  Speaker 7: for a partner in some capacity. It was reported from Semaphore,
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: and Jet Blue has tried this before. It tried to
• 12:14
  Speaker 7: merge with Spirit Airlines or tried to buy Spirit Airlines
• 12:18
  Speaker 7: and it failed in that quest. What do we know
• 12:20
  Speaker 7: about Jet Blue's m and a ambitions.
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  Speaker 6: Yeah, So I mean, we haven't heard anything out of
• 12:25
  Speaker 6: Jet Blue, right, but when you look at Jet Blue,
• 12:28
  Speaker 6: you know, I think that one sort of their financial
• 12:32
  Speaker 6: performance hasn't been great since the pandemic, partly due to
• 12:36
  Speaker 6: this failed merger with Spirit Airlines, and so you could
• 12:41
  Speaker 6: see as they're you know, looking out at the US
• 12:43
  Speaker 6: market right now, or fuel prices have doubled, they probably
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: think of demand's going to come down pretty hard. You know,
• 12:51
  Speaker 6: it's going to be hard to sort of turn around
• 12:54
  Speaker 6: financial improvement in that environment. And so I'm not sure
• 12:58
  Speaker 6: you know who sent before talk to inside, but I
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: don't think it's hard to see how Jet Blue would
• 13:04
  Speaker 6: be starting to think about what might be different permutations
• 13:08
  Speaker 6: of how they could get the carrier through what I
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: think is going to be a difficult summer for the business.
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  Speaker 3: George. Typically, can airlines pass along fuel increases like we're
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  Speaker 3: seeing here these huge jumps and fuel prices. Can they
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  Speaker 3: pass that along to consumers or they that goes into
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  Speaker 3: their bottom line?
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  Speaker 6: So I think the opportunity to pass it along is
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  Speaker 6: pretty good this time, and typically they do. Typically they
• 13:32
  Speaker 6: pass it along at a lag, and so the airlines
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  Speaker 6: usually will go through a bumpy ride, you know, in
• 13:38
  Speaker 6: their profits for a little period of time for I
• 13:41
  Speaker 6: don't know, a quarter or something like that, as they're
• 13:43
  Speaker 6: getting ticket prices up. If you look at the US
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  Speaker 6: airline business right now, now, though nobody hedges inside the
• 13:50
  Speaker 6: business anymore, it used to be there there was a
• 13:52
  Speaker 6: smattering of airlines that hedged. Southwest is one of the
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: bigger ones that hedged, and you might have some Alaska,
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: some Jet Blue edging. Nobody really hedges anymore, and that
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: means everybody has to increase ticket prices so that can
• 14:06
  Speaker 6: remain profitable. And I think that means the move to
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: higher ticket prices it goes faster this time.
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  Speaker 7: So when they increase ticket prices, is that something that's
• 14:15
  Speaker 7: kind of static it? You know, once it goes up,
• 14:18
  Speaker 7: it goes up, it doesn't come back down. Or would
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  Speaker 7: any of them consider adding kind of a fuel search
• 14:24
  Speaker 7: charge a way a UPS or FedEx does.
• 14:27
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, like I always think of a fuel
• 14:28
  Speaker 6: search charge as a way of reminding your customer that
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: the reason you're increasing the cost of the product that
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: you're delivering to them is because of fuel. And I
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: think always yeah, exactly, So FedEx goes Hey, look, sorry
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  Speaker 6: about it. You know, the world economic environment is such
• 14:46
  Speaker 6: that I'm gonna have to charge you more because fuel
• 14:47
  Speaker 6: prices are higher. Look, I think at airlines. Airlines are
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: very competitive business, and so airlines see a lot of
• 14:56
  Speaker 6: movement up and down in ticket prices and so so
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: I think because of that competitiveness, yes, you could see
• 15:04
  Speaker 6: where they would rise here. And then you know, as
• 15:07
  Speaker 6: soon as you start to get decreases in the price
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: of fuel, we typically see some of the airlines that
• 15:12
  Speaker 6: want to take market share. They'll lower fares, they'll add
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: to the airplane, you add people to the airplane, and
• 15:18
  Speaker 6: then the game starts over again. Right, we start moving
• 15:20
  Speaker 6: the wrong direction in fairs. If you're a shareholder, George.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: What are the airlines doing in terms of capacity? Are
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: they adding capacity to the system, are they taking down?
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: What are they doing?
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so we're not seeing much yet. My colleague friends
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: who wanted to flow put out a report this week.
• 15:36
  Speaker 6: It's on our AI r l N dashboard. We haven't
• 15:39
  Speaker 6: seen much movement. And my guess is that the airlines
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: are probably waiting to see if this war could end quickly.
• 15:47
  Speaker 6: If it ends quickly, you know, maybe they don't have
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: to take any capacity out for summer season. Summers their
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: peak season. They've probably sold a lot of it already.
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: But I think if these higher fuel prices persist, I
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: think you'll you'll see as you get through summer they'll
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: have to start to cut capacity to keep fares fire.
• 16:06
  Speaker 6: And that becomes part of the risk as well. For
• 16:08
  Speaker 6: the companies like Jeff Blue, Spirit Frontier that are that
• 16:12
  Speaker 6: you know, cater to the lower the lower tier the
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: traveling public. You know, the challenge is their customers are
• 16:20
  Speaker 6: probably going to be their budgets will be stretched a
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: little bit more. And I think you know, if you're
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: United and you're American, it's actually especially United in Delta
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: and you've got a fair amount of premium travelers flying
• 16:33
  Speaker 6: in your airplanes. They're going to they're they're not going
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: to really be bothered, right by a twenty or thirty
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: percent increase in their in their fair price. They're going
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: to keep flying. And those airlines are they're going to
• 16:43
  Speaker 6: continue to subsidize the back of the airplane that that
• 16:47
  Speaker 6: discount traveler, and it's going to make it harder to
• 16:49
  Speaker 6: fill airplanes. I think at the low cost carriers here
• 16:52
  Speaker 6: for a.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Bit stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: after this.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, Cocklay and Android
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand wherever
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 17:14
  Speaker 7: Because it is Friday, let's just take a step away
• 17:17
  Speaker 7: from the market action, at least for a few minutes,
• 17:20
  Speaker 7: the word and Iran and talk a little bit about
• 17:22
  Speaker 7: the business of sports.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Because the owners of NBA teams.
• 17:26
  Speaker 7: Have voted to consider expanding their league and adding franchises
• 17:32
  Speaker 7: in a couple of other cities. Let's bring in Randall Williams,
• 17:34
  Speaker 7: Our Bloomberg Business of Sports reporter on this story. And Randall,
• 17:38
  Speaker 7: we're now looking at possibly a Las Vegas franchise, a
• 17:41
  Speaker 7: Seattle franchise.
• 17:43
  Speaker 10: Yeah, and it was always going to be those two cities.
• 17:45
  Speaker 10: The league was open to listening to more offers from
• 17:47
  Speaker 10: other cities. You think Nashville, you think Kansas City, you
• 17:50
  Speaker 10: think maybe Vancouver or Mexico City. But Seattle and Vegas
• 17:54
  Speaker 10: are proven sports towns. Seattle used to have the SuperSonics.
• 17:56
  Speaker 10: In Las Vegas has a bunch of different sports teams.
• 17:59
  Speaker 10: I would consider it this or it's capital of the
• 18:00
  Speaker 10: world right now. So they'll be listening to bidders over
• 18:03
  Speaker 10: the course of many months, and if they find the
• 18:05
  Speaker 10: right price, and if the bidders get the right number,
• 18:07
  Speaker 10: then we'll go from thirty to thirty two NBA teams.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: All right, If I want an NBA team, what's going
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: to cost me to get in the door?
• 18:14
  Speaker 10: I would guesstimate it is going to cost you at
• 18:16
  Speaker 10: least eight billion dollars. They're saying seven to ten is
• 18:19
  Speaker 10: the range. I think Seattle will go for probably between
• 18:23
  Speaker 10: seven and eight and a half. And I think that
• 18:24
  Speaker 10: Vegas team could easily reach nine to ten.
• 18:27
  Speaker 7: And who are the obvious bidders here? Who are the
• 18:29
  Speaker 7: people who are right away going to be putting together packages?
• 18:32
  Speaker 8: Sure so.
• 18:33
  Speaker 10: Samantha Holloway, who is David Bonderman's daughter, is the owner
• 18:36
  Speaker 10: of the Seattle Kraken. She just formed this holding company
• 18:39
  Speaker 10: called One Roof Sports and Entertainment. She owns the arena
• 18:43
  Speaker 10: or that has partial ownership of the arena, which is
• 18:45
  Speaker 10: Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle. She's the heavy favorite in Seattle.
• 18:48
  Speaker 10: In Vegas, you have Bill Foley, who is the Vegas
• 18:51
  Speaker 10: Golden Knights owner. He controls alongside MGM and aeg T
• 18:57
  Speaker 10: Mobile arena. And so I think if you have arena
• 18:59
  Speaker 10: ownership and you don't have to spend another billion and
• 19:02
  Speaker 10: a half to two billion dollars, then that's going to
• 19:04
  Speaker 10: enable you to get a bit ahead.
• 19:06
  Speaker 8: Now there.
• 19:06
  Speaker 10: Who knows, maybe someone does come in and say, look,
• 19:09
  Speaker 10: I'll build a stadium in Las Vegas or in Seattle.
• 19:11
  Speaker 10: I think it would be difficult, but those two would
• 19:13
  Speaker 10: be my leading favorites right now.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: All right, so we're just had opening day for Major
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: League Baseball. Let me take it down to the dark side. Oh,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: are we going to get a work stopitch next year?
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball?
• 19:23
  Speaker 10: Absolutely?
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: I think absolutely? I think so.
• 19:27
  Speaker 10: I mean, look, you think about the collective bargaining sessions
• 19:29
  Speaker 10: that we just finished with the WNBA. I think we
• 19:31
  Speaker 10: talked about it last week. Everyone that I've talked to
• 19:33
  Speaker 10: around sports has said that that is the prelude to
• 19:36
  Speaker 10: what is coming with baseball, which is really a war
• 19:39
  Speaker 10: of do they want to have the owners have a
• 19:41
  Speaker 10: salary cap or do the players who are probably going
• 19:43
  Speaker 10: to be negotiating for a minimum floor spending Because you
• 19:46
  Speaker 10: have teams that are just content with not spending any
• 19:48
  Speaker 10: money and being loser franchises. And then you have those
• 19:51
  Speaker 10: same owners complaining about how you have franchises like the Yankees,
• 19:54
  Speaker 10: the Dodgers, the Blue Jays who spend so much on
• 19:56
  Speaker 10: players that there's nothing left. So it's really going to
• 19:59
  Speaker 10: be an argument for the heart of.
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: Baseball Beast or Famin in the MLB. Essentially, is there
• 20:05
  Speaker 7: parody in the MLB? I mean, are there changes they
• 20:07
  Speaker 7: can make to create more parody.
• 20:10
  Speaker 10: I'm in favor of having a minimum floor spending. And
• 20:13
  Speaker 10: the reason for that is because you think about the NFL,
• 20:15
  Speaker 10: and the NFL turns over playoff teams literally every single year.
• 20:19
  Speaker 10: That doesn't mean that that team is able to win
• 20:21
  Speaker 10: the Super Bowl, but we see a lot of turnover
• 20:24
  Speaker 10: different teams make it, and in baseball it does feel
• 20:26
  Speaker 10: like the same teams are winning. Now I'm in I'm
• 20:29
  Speaker 10: definitely rooting for the Dodgers. In terms of the dynasty effect,
• 20:33
  Speaker 10: I think having a franchise to chase, having a franchise
• 20:37
  Speaker 10: to beat then gives the hero and the villain side
• 20:40
  Speaker 10: of things. The city of Los Angeles thinks they're the
• 20:42
  Speaker 10: heroes and everybody else thinks they're the villains. At the
• 20:44
  Speaker 10: same time, there are other franchises out there. You think
• 20:47
  Speaker 10: about the Pittsburgh Pirates, you think about the Florida the
• 20:50
  Speaker 10: Miami Marlins, like these are franchises that no one really
• 20:52
  Speaker 10: talks about. And it's because of the fact that we
• 20:55
  Speaker 10: might not see the investment from their owners in terms
• 20:57
  Speaker 10: of how you know, you compare that to the Yankees
• 21:00
  Speaker 10: the Dodgers, and it does. Maybe they don't have the
• 21:02
  Speaker 10: deep pockets, but you know, you want to be competitive,
• 21:05
  Speaker 10: I would think, and that's not happening right now.
• 21:07
  Speaker 8: But this will if there is a workstopage, it will
• 21:09
  Speaker 8: because the owners, yes, are bringing it because the owners
• 21:14
  Speaker 8: by and large. Is it fair to say the owners
• 21:17
  Speaker 8: won a floor here or do the owners are going
• 21:19
  Speaker 8: to take this work stop which because they want a cap.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: They want a cap.
• 21:22
  Speaker 10: I think the players, I mean the MLB Players Association
• 21:26
  Speaker 10: scored probably the biggest win of any players association ever
• 21:29
  Speaker 10: with not having a salary cap, because that's how you
• 21:32
  Speaker 10: get a seven hundred million dollar deal or a five
• 21:34
  Speaker 10: hundred million dollar deal. Like it's not out of the ordinary.
• 21:37
  Speaker 10: If someone were to one day get a billion dollar contract, show,
• 21:40
  Speaker 10: hey is going to top that right now in terms
• 21:42
  Speaker 10: of you know, we're not paying anyone more than show hey.
• 21:45
  Speaker 10: But for owners like you think about the Dodgers, they
• 21:48
  Speaker 10: just retool every single year because they can. They don't
• 21:51
  Speaker 10: have a spending limit. And if you have an owner
• 21:53
  Speaker 10: who's willing to pay tremendously more than another owner who
• 21:57
  Speaker 10: might not have that, then there's going to be complaints
• 21:59
  Speaker 10: and be like, listen, we to get control of spending
• 22:01
  Speaker 10: because at the end of the day, this is going
• 22:03
  Speaker 10: to become a game in which if you spend the
• 22:05
  Speaker 10: most money, then you're going to win.
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: Let me just bring this full circle.
• 22:08
  Speaker 7: We're talking about NBA expansion to thirty two teams from
• 22:12
  Speaker 7: the current thirty. The NFL already has thirty two teams,
• 22:14
  Speaker 7: as does the NHL. Baseball has thirty teams. I mean,
• 22:18
  Speaker 7: are we going to potentially see expansion of MLB franchises.
• 22:21
  Speaker 10: I think that Baseball will consider expansion after collective bargaining
• 22:25
  Speaker 10: when if slash, when that ever ends. All of these
• 22:28
  Speaker 10: things seem very dire at the beginning because they are clashing.
• 22:32
  Speaker 10: You think about the conversations we were having about the WNBA.
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: A year ago.
• 22:36
  Speaker 10: It seemed like they were never going to come to
• 22:37
  Speaker 10: a deal. But the reality is they will at some pointed. Yah,
• 22:40
  Speaker 10: right exactly. They both have a vested interest in playing,
• 22:43
  Speaker 10: and I think baseball will probably expand to Nashville. I
• 22:46
  Speaker 10: think Nashville's could be a good baseball town. And then
• 22:49
  Speaker 10: I'll find another city, slash location, and they'll go from there.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on Apple, Spotify,
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• 23:03
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