SPORTS

The Supreme Court Sits in the Student Section

College athletes scored another big W in their looooong quest to get paid for their work on the field.

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the NCAA cannot stop colleges from compensating student athletes, as long as that compensation is tied to education.

So you won't see your favorite running back receiving a salary (yet). But athletes can now receive monetary benefits like tutoring, study abroad, academic awards, and more.

The Xs and Os

Writing the court's decision, Justice Neil Gorsuch explained that the NCAA, the 115-year-old organization that governs college athletics, is not exempt from antitrust laws put in place to promote fair competition. But it was Justice Kavanaugh who really skewered the NCAA with the passion of an aggrieved LSU baseball fan. 

• “The bottom line is that the NCAA and its member colleges are suppressing the pay of student athletes who collectively generate billions of dollars in revenues for colleges every year.”
• “But the student athletes who generate the revenues, many of whom are African American and from lower-income backgrounds, end up with little or nothing.” 

Interesting fact: College coaches were the highest-paid public employee in 40 states in 2019.

For its part, the NCAA claims that compensating student athletes would undermine the “amateur” flavor of college sports, damaging fans' enjoyment of the product.

But that argument is increasingly sounding tone-deaf

And lawmakers are chipping away at the NCAA's stranglehold. At least seven states have passed bills allowing college athletes to make money from their names, images, and likenesses that go into effect next week. 

Looking ahead...this trickle of bad news for the NCAA could turn into a flood. If more justices adopt Kavanaugh's aggressive stance, “It could only be a matter of time before all of the NCAA's restrictions on compensation are struck down as antitrust violations,” Tulane sports law administrator Gabe Feldman told the NYT.

WORK

Nature Is Healing and Employees Are WeWorking

Like Jon Snow, WeWork's making the most of its second chance. From April to May, the company sold more desks than it had cancellations, making it WeWork's best stretch for sales since September 2019, Bloomberg reported.

Although its occupancy rate has improved to 53%, that's still well below its former peak of ~70%.

Give WeWork some credit

After shelving its IPO plans in 2019, it went from most-anticipated stock to laughing stock. But then WeWork implemented tough-but-necessary changes under the supervision of major investor SoftBank. It parted ways with CEO Adam Neumann and dramatically cut expenses, including through thousands of layoffs.

While the pandemic was initially a gut punch, it also offered the company a shot at reinvention. More offices are looking for hybrid or remote-friendly setups, and WeWork is once again poised to scratch the labor market's newest itch. The company is already offering more flexible memberships with on-demand booking and access to multiple locations.

Looking ahead...WeWork is tracking for $1.9 billion in revenue and aims to go public this year exactly how you'd expect: a $9 billion SPAC deal with BowX Acquisition Corp.

ENTERTAINMENT

Catch Netflix If You Can

Steven Spielberg's production company, Amblin Partners, is speeding toward the future of entertainment with a new Netflix deal. The company has agreed to produce two or more movies a year for the streamer, some of which could be directed by Spielberg himself.

• The deal won't affect Amblin's current partnership with Universal, to which it supplies three-to-five movies a year.

This is a sign of changing times for Hollywood: In a 2018 interview, Spielberg said this about streaming: “You certainly, if it's a good show, deserve an Emmy, but not an Oscar.” This year, Netflix received 36 Oscar nominations.

And Netflix wants more

The company plans to release 70 movies in 2021—which may seem overly ambitious, but streaming companies are in a sprint to stockpile the most, and best, content. Just last month, Amazon acquired MGM, and with it the historic studio's entire back catalog, including all the James Bond, Legally Blonde, and Rocky movies.

Bottom line: Striking a deal with Spielberg is a flex for Netflix; he has more Oscars under his belt than any other living filmmaker.

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GRAB BAG

Key Performance Indicators

Stat: The number of Costco memberships is now higher than the number of US households that pay for cable TV, according to Bloomberg. The renewal rate was 91% last year, when Costco's stock jumped 33%.  

Quote: "My life isn't worth a dead-end job." 

23-year-old Aislinn Potts of Tennessee told the Washington Post why she left her $11/hr job at a national pet chain retailer to pursue her interests writing and making art. She's not alone: More people quit the retail industry in April (~649,000) than any other month on record. 

Read: Covid proved the CDC was broken. Can it be fixed? (NYT Magazine)

FOOD & BEV

Thighstop, Full Stop

Yesterday, restaurant chain Wingstop launched a new virtual brand, Thighstop, selling crunchy chicken thighs. Alas, Wingstop's embrace of the mighty thigh has not come about because consumers finally realized they've been overpaying for the worst cut of chicken.

It's because wings are in short supply. They've been a popular takeout dish during the pandemic, but now that strong demand is crashing up against a nationwide chicken shortage, prices are flying. Wingstop's wholesale prices have risen from as little as 98 cents last year to over $3 now, according to the company's CEO.

Thighstop won't just be a departure from Wingstop's namesake business. The company will use its existing physical restaurants to prepare the meals, but the menu will be available online only as Wingstop tries to keep its "digital momentum" from the pandemic going. 

• Digital sales now account for 65% of Wingstop's business and topped $1 billion last year. 

Zoom out: Changing demographics have boosted dark meat's popularity in recent years. Thighstop may be as mainstream as it gets.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Carl Nassib, a defensive end for the Las Vegas Raiders, became the first active NFL player to announce that he is gay.
• Sweetgreen filed confidentially for an IPO. And Soho House has kicked off the process of going public.
• Facebook rolled out its live audio product and a podcast tool. 
• Exxon Mobil plans to cut its US workforce between 5%–10% annually over the next three-to-five years, according to Bloomberg.
• The NYC mayoral primary is today. Because the city’s using ranked choice voting for the first time, we may not know who won for weeks.

SPONSORED BY LEDGER

Is it time to get a Bitcoin tat? We have thoughts, but it’s safe to say crypto is here to stay. As a result, it’ll call for more secure and comprehensive methods of trading and storing. But before we get ahead of ourselves, get all the deets in our latest article with Ledger, Will Crypto Rule the World?

BREW'S BETS

Tech Tip Tuesday: Try this free online photo editor as an alternative to Photoshop.

Get a load of these events: Emerging Tech Brew is talking robots and jobs on Thursday (register here), and next week Retail Brew is discussing transformations in the workplace post-Covid with Warby Parker co-CEO Dave Gilboa (register here). 

Pike Place at the right time: Check out Starbucks’s complete training manual for an encyclopedia of coffee. 

GAMES

Wiki What?

Before you dig into today's trivia, first play our Brew Mini crossword puzzle.

Okay, this one's a full-brain workout: We'll give you the name of the chapters to a particular Wikipedia entry, and you have to name the entry. 

Chapter titles: Plato's dialogues, Interpretations, Location hypotheses, Literary interpretations, Artistic representations

ANSWER

Atlantis