Numlock News: December 9, 2021 • Horse Races, Camel Pageants, Bass Pro Shops
By Walt HickeyMLBMajor League Baseball and the Players Association have gone to the mattresses, as the two sides have failed to come to a labor agreement and the league locked the players out. At issue is a key split in the revenues that go to the owners and the salaries that go to the players. The average MLB salary is up just 21 percent from a decade ago, and has been flat since 2015. At the same time, the average MLB team’s value has popped to $2.2 billion, and the league added $1 billion in total annual revenue from 2015 to 2019. And while players in the NFL and NBA have reaped some of their league’s gains through guaranteed percentages of revenue, ball players have not. The median salary in the MLB peaked in 2015, at $1.65 million, and today is down 30 percent to $1.15 million. Over the same period, NFL salaries are up 25 percent and NBA salaries are up 50 percent. The One That Got AwayLast week the Great Outdoors Group, which owns Bass Pro Shops and Cabelas, called off a merger with Sportsman’s Warehouse, another major outdoors chain with 112 locations, after scrutiny from the FTC. The news, which will maintain at least some level of competition in the outdoor retail business, will also result in Great Outdoors paying $55 million in a termination fee. Bass Pro Shops is in fact the third-most government subsidized retailer in the United States just behind Amazon and Sears, having received $395 million in state and local incentives, more than larger retailers like Walmart and Target. All is not entirely lost, as at least when Bass Pro Shops tells the story to its family it’ll definitely make it sound like they were way closer to actually landing the catch, and that actually the company it was trying to reel in had like 167 or maybe even 500 locations, and that the boat nearly sank after FTC Chair Lina Khan looked at it, and gosh you really had to be there. HobbiesOf the 20 thoroughbreds who ran in this year’s Kentucky Derby, six of them were owned by horse-racing operations that lost a collective $600 million. Your first thought would likely be, dang, those guys are terrible at horses, but in reality those paper losses are just fine for the billionaires that own the operations, and can simply write off the losses from their rich guy hobby on their taxes. According to tax records obtained by ProPublica, tobacco tycoon Brian Kelley (worth $2.7 billion) has claimed $189 million in losses over 16 years, Campbell Soup heiress Charlotte Weber (net worth $1.6 billion) wrote off $173 million over 19 years, and Reebok’s Paul Fireman wrote off $9.3 million racing horses since 2018. Nice work if you can get it! Paul Kiel, Jesse Eisinger and Jeff Ernsthausen, ProPublica BeautySaudi Arabian authorities have cracked down on cheaters in the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival’s camel beauty contest, with some 40 camels ejected from the pageant amid allegations that the ungulates received injections of Botox and other artificial performance enhancers. The breeders of camels come to the festival — which has $66 million in prize money — and jurors pick a winner based on the posture, dress, humps, necks and heads of the camels, sort of like a dog show but with less animal in-breeding and an equal amount of ridiculous rich people. This year’s crackdown revealed a host of unsavory techniques designed to get the camels looking their best, from Botox to rubber bands to fillers to hormones. Work WeekStarting on January 1, the United Arab Emirates will move its weekend from Friday–Saturday to Saturday–Sunday, and will roll out a 4 1/2-day work week for state employees. That aligns the country’s work week with much of the rest of the world, but is a departure from the norm in the Gulf region, where Friday is a holy day in Islam. That’s one reason that Fridays will now be a work day, but a half-day at that. The move only applies to government workers — including central bankers, teachers, and the government — but the government’s hope is that the private sector follows suit, and UAE aligns with the majority of the world in its work week, which could make it more competitive at attracting overseas investment compared to regional rivals. Abeer Abu Omar and Zainab Fattah, Bloomberg Sokovia? Do we not remember Sokovia?A new poll finds people are willing to look past a whole lot of stuff with a mere snap of the fingers, with the survey of 2,200 adults finding that Iron Man has a net favorability of 62 percentage points, a point higher than Captain America and Thor. Among the 1,526 self-identified Marvel fans in the set, that net favorability rises to 78 percent for Iron Man, you know, the guy who invented Ultron, the one who caused that whole Civil War incident and incarcerated people like Hawkeye, the origin of a schism in the sole organization capable of confronting a persuasive extraterrestrial threat, you know, that guy. This isn’t to say that he didn’t do some good things, but net 78 points is nuts, like the Pope has a net favorability of merely 68 points among Catholics, and if the Pope invented an Ultron I’m sure he’d take a bit of a dent. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Marvel Headquarters to pitch my What If? comic, “What If The Pope Invented Ultron?” Alyssa Meyers, Morning Consult EarthRight now 0.3 percent of electricity generation worldwide comes from geothermal power. There’s enough heat coming up from the inside of the Earth to meet twice the planet’s global energy needs, but it’s not especially popular in part because at the current state of the art it’s pricier compared to other energy sources, even renewables. The capital investment needed for a geothermal project is around $3,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt, much higher than the $1,700 per kilowatt for wind and $2,100 per kilowatt for solar. There are perks, though: wind and sun are volatile, but the Earth keeps pumping the same kind of heat, which means reliability gains. However, the infrastructure bill sets $84 million aside at the Department of Energy to build out four demonstration facilities to test newer versions of geothermal tech in the hopes that efficiency gains can be proven out and the ROI gets more manageable. The hope is to get geothermal up to 60 gigawatts by 2050, per the Department of Energy, which would increase its share of generation from 0.4 percent to 9 percent of generation in the U.S. Casey Crownhart, MIT Technology Review Thanks to the paid subscribers to Numlock News who make this possible. Subscribers guarantee this stays ad-free, and get a special Sunday edition. Consider becoming a full subscriber today. The best way to reach new readers is word of mouth. If you click THIS LINK in your inbox, it’ll create an easy-to-send pre-written email you can just fire off to some friends. Send links to me on Twitter at @WaltHickey or email me with numbers, tips, or feedback at walt@numlock.news. Send corrections or typos to the copy desk at copy@numlock.news. Check out the Numlock Book Club and Numlock award season supplement. 2021 Sunday subscriber editions: Billboard records · Black Friday · Natural Gas · PEDs in Hollywood · Machiavelli for Women · Weather Supercomputers · TKer · Sumo Wrestling · Giant clams · Instagram · Remote Work · Latinos · Vapes · Smoke · Jeopardy! · Mangoes · BBLs · Summer Box Office · Time Use · Shampoo Bars · Wikipedia · Thriving · Comic Rebound · Return of Travel · Sticky Stuff · For-profit Med School · A Good Day · Press Reset · Perverse Incentives · Demon Slayer · Carbon Credits · Money in Politics · Local News ·Oscar Upsets · Sneakers · Post-pandemic Cities · Facebook AI · Fireflies · Vehicle Safety · Climate Codes · Figure Skating · True Believer · Apprentices · Sports Polls · Pipeline · Wattpad · The Nib · Driven2020 Sunday Edition Archive2019 Sunday Edition Archive2018 Sunday Edition ArchiveYou’re a free subscriber to Numlock News. 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Numlock News: December 8, 2021 • Daylighting, Traffic, Marijuana Taxes
Wednesday, December 8, 2021
By Walt Hickey Tax-Free In 2018 the city of San Francisco voted to approve a 1 percent to 5 percent tax on cannabis businesses that is set to take effect next year. However, the Board of Supervisors
Numlock News: December 7, 2021 • Run, The Jewels, LA
Tuesday, December 7, 2021
By Walt Hickey Oscars The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reported their annual finances, and following last year's ceremony — which saw record-low viewership, to the point that they
Numlock News: December 6, 2021 • Encanto, Petabytes, Cream Cheese Shortage
Monday, December 6, 2021
By Walt Hickey Welcome back! Leftovers Quiet weekend at the box office, with Disney's Encanto leading the weekend with just $12.38 million. This kind of post-Thanksgiving dip for Disney's
Numlock News: December 3, 2021 • True Crime, Pangolins, Broncos
Friday, December 3, 2021
By Walt Hickey Have a great weekend! Repaid In the 1840s, a cache of Nez Perce artifacts were obtained by a minister and eventually entered the possession of the Ohio Historical Society. In the 1970s,
Numlock News: December 2, 2021 • Dinosaurs, Tortas, Passports
Thursday, December 2, 2021
By Walt Hickey Soccer Fans FIFA, a global money vacuum that occasionally organizes soccer games, has proposed to increase the frequency of the World Cup from once every four years to once every two.
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