Brantley C

you do you, only you can

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

If you’re tired of being out of shape realize how lame it is that you literally suffer because you can’t control what you put in your mouth.

Like a baby.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

More than the population of 36 states in just over 3 years!

I am very much in favor of legal immigration, being an immigrant myself, but allowing a flood of millions of unvetted people to enter the United States illegally is insane.

[Dave Benner, Nemesis of Neocons @dbenner83]

@VivekGRamaswamy As Snowden said, we're a country born from an act of treason.

[Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy]

56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. 
12 had their homes ransacked.
5 were captured and tortured by the British. 
9 died in the war or post-war ailments. 
2 had children die in the Revolutionary War.  
They sacrificed their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor for a country they knew would outlive them. Our freedom didn’t come for free.

[The Wolf of Franchises 🍟 @franchisewolf]

CHICK-FIL-A DOES IT AGAIN 🚨

Their 2023 financial data is hot off the press, with an average revenue of...

$9,374,320 per store

That's a +6.5% increase from last year, and a 39% increase since 2018 🤯🤯

The highest performing store generated $19,094,334 in revenue, while the lowest did $2,742,171.

That means the "worst" Chick-Fil-A generated more revenue than the AVERAGE:

• KFC
• Wendy's
• Burger King
• Taco Bell
• Popeyes

and a longgggg list of other brands.

Notes:

• The above data factors in 2,049 Chick-Fil-A units that have been open + operating for a full year in 2023, *and* aren't a "captive venue unit" i.e. they are not located in a stadium or other captive environments

• Additionally, the average Chick-Fil-A that is located in a mall does $4,496,740 in revenue (based on 188 mall units)

Once again, this brand continues their dominance.

See you in 2025 when they break $10M in avg revenue per store 🫡

[Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok]

California Governor Gavin Newson raised the minimum wage of fast food workers to $20/hour and now companies are doing massive layoffs some have to shut down.

Democrat policies never fail to hurt American workers.

[Patrick Bet-David @patrickbetdavid]

Biden says “if we raise taxes on billionaires to 25% it would help raise an additional $500 billion next 10 yrs.”

Basic question for Americans.

Who do you trust can do more to help the US economy?

Billionaires or politicians?

One will reinvest money in 🇺🇸, the other to 🇺🇦.

[Sawyer Merritt @SawyerMerritt]

Apple tried to make an EV for 10 years, has a cash pile of $162 billion, and still ultimately came to the conclusion that it's too hard, and that margins would be too small—even at a $100k price.

Originally, Apple wanted it to be a fully autonomous vehicle, but they didn't have the vehicle fleet, real-world data, nor the experience to be able to accomplish that.

There are only two major American carmakers that haven't ever gone bankrupt: Tesla & Ford

[Texas My Texas @BerryhillRl]

@POTUS Ukraine wasn't in NATO. Why do Americans have to fund their war?

[Hi-Rez The Rapper @HiRezTheRapper]

Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump, & Joe Biden made a rap song about Putin!

[Candace Owens @RealCandaceO]

Fully team Matt on this subject, as per usual. Been covering the harms of therapy on my podcast for the last 2 years.

With few exceptions, it renders people weaker. Makes them believe that every feeling they have is valid and in need of expressing.

They inevitably develop “special snowflake” mentality.

Therapy is what happened to Prince Harry,

[Ross Ulbricht @RealRossU]

Myself and other drug offenders serving life took this picture in 2018.

Since then, three have gone free. I hope and pray my turn will come someday.

[Big Ten information and news @Genetics56]

A $150M power move was made in front of the eyes of the college football world and not many people realized it before the news came out. On December 3rd, college football fans saw an undefeated team left out of a college football playoff for two teams with a loss.

So, what led to that happening? To understand the timeline of the eventual exit of Florida State from the ACC, you need to understand history for why the exit makes sense and the timing.

When it comes to college football, there is nothing that pisses me off more than an undefeated team that gets told they can’t compete for a chance at a national title. As a person who loves college football and played the sport, I 100% understand all of the time, tears, energy, etc, that gets put into a season. It hurts to see the $150M heist, as the former Ohio State WR coach calls it, happen in front of our eyes and there is nothing we can do to turn the event into a result that should have happened, but money won out because of the control ESPN has and the blowhards like Kirk Herbstreit that lack the balls to stand up their bosses and tell them this isn’t right.

When you study the history of conference realignment, there are specific events that led to the formation of the P2 and Florida State being left out of the college football playoffs. Yes, both are connected.

Arguably the most important date in college football history turns us back to the year 1984. In 1984, the U.S. Supreme Court decided NCAA vs. Board of Regents, declaring that the NCAA was in violation of antitrust laws by dictating individual school television rights deals. That led to ESPN airing its first live regular season game that fall. Thus, why would ESPN not invest in more college football content in the coming decades now that they could air college football games? They did.

According to the court ruling, schools and conferences should be free to negotiate their own media deals. For many years, there wasn’t a large gap of money being spent for each conference by ESPN and other TV networks to broadcast college football games. Over the course of time, some of the networks that were telecasting college football games went out of business, were acquired, or stopped broadcasting games as they lost the rights to other networks. That was the free market at work, after all. Eventually FOX and ESPN became the two main players.

Nobody knew it at the time, but the Supreme Court’s decision is what led to the start of the modern day conference realignment moves. Less than 10 years later, after the court ruling, conference realignment started to pick up steam. However, one important event that allowed that to happen, happened before 1984 and that was the 1981 situation between the Big East and the A-10 (then-called the E8). For more details on this, reach out @TJAltimore . He knows more about that than anyone else.

ESPN still holds the mindset, as stated by Magnus this past summer, that conferences should remain regional. FOX and the Big Ten, however, do not have that mindset anymore. Thus, there are two conflicting goals at play - the network with the long held concept of regional conferences and another network that is building a national conference with the country’s largest brands not in the SEC. But don’t be mistaken, they both care about one thing - money.

The movement to a P2 really began late 1950's. While there were many Eastern Independents in 1959, they have since joined conferences. The ACC picked up three teams and the Big Ten two. Three others play in G 5 conferences, nine teams play FCS in the Colonial and Patriot, ten play DIII, and two have dropped football.

ACC (3): Boston College, Pitt, Syracuse

B1G (2): Penn State, Rutgers

American (2): Navy, Temple

Mid-American (1): Buffalo

FBS Independent (2): Army, UConn,

FCS Colonial (4): Maine, UNH, Rhode Island, Villanova

FCA Patriot (5): Bucknell, Colgate, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Lehigh

DIII (10): Amherst, Bowdoin, Carnegie Tech, Colby, Middlebury, RPI, Trinity, Tufts, Wesleyan, Williams

Dropped (2): Boston U., Vermont

I share that data to help people understand all of the movement that transpired with all of the independents back in the day that eventually joined conferences and how the power structure started to get put into place over the course of decades.

The Ivy League is the only conference whose membership has been unchanged since 1959. Of course, they shifted to DI-AA (now FCS) in 1982.

Among the 1959 Midwest Independents, only Notre Dame istill indy. other independs have joined a conference. Butler and Dayton moved to non-scholarship FCS, while Wayne State plays DII and WashU plays DIII. Detroit, Marquette, and Xavier dropped football.

FBS Independent (1): Notre Dame

FCS Pioneer (2): Butler and Dayton

DII (1): Wayne State

DII (1): WashU

Dropped (3): Detroit, Marquette, Xavier

The Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU) came together in 1959 after the breakup of the Pacific Coast Conference. Its five members were part of the Pac-12 that collapsed in the summer of 2023

Another major event that led to the formation of the P2 was the destruction of the Southwest Conference, that led to the destruction of the Big 8, and then destruction of the Big 12. The Southwest Conference broke up in 1996 and Arkansas left for the SEC in 1991.

After that, most schools joined the Big 12 while TCU, Rice, and SMU bounced around before finding their current homes.

Big 12 (4): Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech, Texas

SEC (2): Arkansas, Texas A&M

Conference USA (1): Rice

American and then ACC (1): SMU

The Border Conference disbanded after the 1961-1962 academic year, and its members settled in various conferences.

Pac-12 (2): Arizona, Arizona State

Conference USA (1): Texas Western

FBS Independent (1): New Mexico State

DII (1): West Texas A&M

DIII (1): Hardin-Simmons

Eventually we saw the largest brands in the Big 12 leave for other conferences:

Pac 12: Colorado
SEC: Missouri, Texas A&M
Big Ten: Nebraska

Prior to Nebraska joining the Big Ten, Penn State had already joined.

When news broke out about Texas and Oklahoma leaving the Big 12 for the SEC it created a angst among administrators wondering what the domino effect will be. Will the SEC look to bring in more members? Will an arms race begin among the P5 conferences? How will all this shake out? We know the answer today. But to provide some info, two years prior the Oklahoma and Texas news, USC already spoke in public that all options were on the table in 2019 and in the summer of 2021 they and UCLA started to communicate with the Big Ten.

As you can see, four major brands were on the move at roughly the same time. Their exits were just announced in seperate years.

The Pac-12's inability to find a satisfactory broadcast rights deal led to a max exodus that produced one of the more remarkable days in sports history and the demise of one of the oldest conferences in sports.

The implosion of the Pac-12 was a result of choices made several years earlier by the Big Ten. To be clear, I am not blaming the Big Ten for the loss of the Pac-12, but what has transpired through the years led to it. The free market spoke and that should not be a blame game.

April 30, 2004, ESPN’s leadership team and the Big Ten had meetings in Chicago. On that day, there were three years remaining on the Big Ten + ESPN TV deal. On that day, the meeting was expected to be a simple one, conversations about schedules and announcers. Then it got ugly and it is one of the most impactful days in college athletics history - a conversation started about a contract extension and ESPN gave a lowball number. The famous words were spoken by ESPN: “ take it or leave it. If you don't take our offer, you are rolling the dice.” Jim, the Big Ten commish said, “Consider them rolled.”

The Big Ten then went to FOX, struck a larger TV deal for more money and the creation of BTN was born. Since that day on 2004, the Big Ten Conference started to become a national conference. Nebraska joined from the Big 12, Maryland joined from the ACC, Rutgers, USC, UCLA, OR and WA all joined. Why? More money. Massive TV contracts. National appeal. The real national conference. ESPN then went back home and started to fuck over the ACC and “forced” them into a low balled TV contract and the ACC network.

The P2 was in full swing and up next is the acquisition of the top ACC brands.

In comes Raycom. How is the Raycom and Florida State situation from December 3rd connected? Swofford, the president of ESPN at the time, let the strongest bidders, ESPN and Fox, know that he wanted to include Raycom, which went into the talks as a partner to both networks, rather than trying to bid against their deeper pockets. Why? Swofford's son, Chad Swofford, was the Senior Director of New Media and Business Development at Raycom Sports. The ACC moronically signed away all of their third tier rights and were fucked over by a long-term contract and a GOR forced down their necks after Maryland left to the Big Ten. Thus, the ACC was stuck in the worst TV deal of all-time and many times lower in dollar value than the Big Ten now has with FOX. Thus, the appeal for wanting to get into the P2 for the ACC schools. A $500M gap was formed becuase of the stupidity of the ACC and the brave move of the Big Ten going with FOX. Free market at play.

Thus, the ACC has no influence, no control, no power. And ESPN decided after Oklahoma and Texas joined the SEC that ESPN would only invest in the SEC for the regular season. ESPN + SEC married each other. What the SEC doesn’t realize yet is that they too signed off their death bed to ESPN by making similar mistakes that the ACC made with ESPN. The SEC going away from CBS and putting everything to ESPN and the ACC having no power, ESPN having full control of the current 4 team playoff, led to ESPN dictating the talking points of who should be in the college football playoff. This year ESPN couldn’t bash the Big Ten since Michigan was a three time Big Ten champion and undefeated. Thus, now we are back to the $150M heist. ESPN wants their new asset in the playoff and their biggest asset of all, Alabama in the playoff. It was all about the viewership and money. And because the ACC has no power besides wagging their tail between their asses while folded down in their lap, ESPN was able to screw over Florida State and declare their season unworthy in favor of the assets that they already decided they would invest more in. Never once did the ESPN employees push for Florida States inclusion into the college football playoff. Never once. The whole orchestration started before Florida State’s QB got hurt.

So, here we are, Florida State being told an undefeated season is worth nothing to ESPN. Remember, the ACC is already slave to ESPN at this point. The ACC is thus sitting at home realizing their partner doesn’t love them. Yes, I’m using a marriage comparison to get the point across. Florida State learned the words “divorce me if you want to.” Since Florida State has already been working on an exit from the ACC prior to what transpired on December 3rd, an exit is not a “should we leave but stay if we can get more money," but instead a conversation of how quickly can we get out of here and be with someone that will appreciate us and value what we bring to the table.

The heist was achievable becuse of what ESPN had already decided to invest more in, they don't value the ACC - as indicated by zero support for an undefeated Florida State team - and a contract wrapped around the throates of the ACC until 2036 and anyone that dares try to get out will get trashed by ESPN employees.

Look, the relationship between Florida State and ESPN is broken. There is no repair.

[FSU Plays Daily @FSUplays]

In the past month all 4 playoff teams have had 1 score games against really bad football teams.

FSU has played 2 games without Jordan Travis and they won them both by 2 scores.

The narrative that Florida State had “no chance” in the playoff is absolutely fucking insane.

[RedditCFB @RedditCFB]

By all definitions, it’s definitely a playoff-quality resume.

[Just Beachin @nolelifestyle]

I do understand why FSU is getting harsh judgement. I mean

-only a 1-score lead against a G5 in the 4th
-lost at home by 2 scores
-only won by 3 at home to a 4-8 team
-needed a Hail Mary to beat a 6-win team.

Ohhhhh, sorry. That was Alabama’s season @CFBPlayoff

[Jason Staples @DocStaples]

Remember this: the SEC’s best nonconference win AS AN ENTIRE CONFERENCE is over Louisville. The same Louisville FSU held to 2.7 YPP and 6 points.

Think about that for a second.

[Joe Pompliano @JoePompliano]

Mark Cuban is selling the Dallas Mavericks.

Dallas Mavericks Valuation
• 2000: $285 million
• 2023: $3.5 billion (+1,128%)

But this deal is really part of a bigger plan to bring legalized casino gambling to Texas.

Let me explain 👇

Mark Cuban is one of the NBA's best owners.

He purchased a bad Mavericks team in 2000 — they won just 40% of their games the prior 20 years — and changed everything.

• Renovated the locker room
• Put players in 5-star hotels
• Catered meals after practice & games
• Hired more coaches and staff
• Invested heavily in analytics
• Bought a 757 jet for team flights

This led to the Mavericks winning their first-ever NBA Championship in 2011, and the team now ranks #1 in attendance.

Dallas Mavericks NBA Attendance Rank
• 2000-01: 14th
• 2023-24: 1st

So why is Mark Cuban selling the team?

Well, it's not because he wants to be President, as there is no rule requiring him to sell the team, and he will still be just as busy running basketball operations.

Instead, my guess is that he isn't as bullish on the future of the NBA as he once was — regional sports networks are going bankrupt and valuation growth might slow over the next decade.

So this deal allows him to take billions in profit off the table while still running the team. That's a win-win.

But the interesting part is the Adelson family.

Miriam Adelson is the largest shareholder of Las Vegas Sands — the world's largest casino company.

She is the world's 35th richest person and would instantly be the 3rd richest owner in US sports.

Wealthiest Owners In US Pro Sports
1. Steve Ballmer (Clippers): $100 billion
2. Rob Walton (Broncos): $67 billion
3. Miriam Adelson (Mavericks): $32 billion
4. Dan Gilbert (Cavaliers): $21 billion
5. David Tepper (Panthers): $20 billion

But Miriam Adelson is also 78 years old and not getting any younger. She won't be running the team day-to-day and had to sell $2 billion of stock to complete the deal.

That's why I think this is really a lobbying play to bring legalized casino gambling to Texas.

The Mavericks arena is 20 years old, and Cuban has previously said he wants the new one to include a resort and casino around the property.

He specifically mentioned wanting to work with Las Vegas Sands on that project.

The Adelson family also donated millions last year to political campaigns in Texas, and Las Vegas Sands hired 89 lobbyists in Texas — the most ever.

Now, last year's resort and casino legislation bill didn't make it past the House.

But Tillman Fertitta (Houston Rockets) and Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys) are donating millions as well, and owning the state's most popular NBA team is certainly a good bargaining chip for the future.

Think about it this way...

The Adelson family could dangle a $1 billion privately financed arena over politicians' heads, or maybe they even threaten to move the team if it doesn't get passed.

We don't know what will happen, of course.

But don't be surprised if casino gambling eventually gets approved in Texas.

Many Dallas residents are already traveling 80 miles into Oklahoma to gamble, and the 22 other states with commercial casinos are making billions in tax revenue.

Remember, all you need to do is follow the money.

If you enjoyed this breakdown, share it with your friends and follow me @JoePompliano for more sports business content!