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Let's talk a little economically. Let's set the plate. Let's set the scene for the week ahead. Kathy Bost John Chick joins a She's a chief economist at Nationwide. Kathy, thanks so much for joining us here, layout for us. Kind of your view of this US economy here, I've got a Federal Reserve that's cutting rates. I'm not sure how aggressive they're going to be. I got some pretty decent retail sales last week, so I think the consumer is a good place. I think the consumers got a
job if he or she wants one. What's your view of this US economy right here?
Good morning, Paul. Well, the economy is quite resilient. That's what you're seeing in the consumer spending data and and and the labor market data and and it's I think it's surprising, surprising to the Fed Reserve, surprising to many investors. Uh, the strength, you know, continued strength. It's it's obviously welcomed.
You know, the economic expansion can continue. And I guess gives a fit a good problem, uh to try to think about, you know, how quickly they need to continue to recalibrate interest rates as they say, inflation was a little bit sticky though, uh, and that that there's a little bit of a wrinkle in the plans. What they want to make sure is that, you know, as they're recalibrating interest rates lower, they don't stop the disinflationary trend. Uh,
in inflation that has been in place. Right, that's the reason they can cut rates. We've you know, always arguing it's really the pace of employment gains that will dictate, you know, how how fast they can cut rates.
Kathy, what about the uncertainty around the so called neutral rate, the long run equilibrium interest rate are star? What's your sense of sort of what the Fed's thinking on that is, is they as they undertake this recalibration as you call it.
Great question, because that you know is the guiding star, that's the north star. And the problem is, you know, as you know, the New York Fed President John Williams has said many times and he's the foremost expert in the area. As you get closer than the star gets a bit fuzzier, so you don't really know is it two seventy five two point eight, is it three and a quarter on the FED funds rate or is it
three and abcent. It's unsure at this point, so they're going to use the data as guidance to tell them, you know, how close you're getting to neutral. But I think there's another there's a long run neutral, and then there's a current neutral and based on current economic data, you know, that's where the debate I think is ensuring. You know, there's some signs really that monetary policy is very restrictive with the housing market. Look at the auto sector,
they're really being weighed down by high interest rates. Middle income households, low income households are struggling under the weight of high utriss rates. But on the other hand, retail sales continue to show a consumer that is going to carry economic growth, not just you know, capping off a strong third quarter, but momentum into the fourth quarter. So that really is the debate for the Fed. We think
they'll continue to cut interest rates. We still have in our baseline and a twenty five base point rate cut in November. We have another one in December, but both of those odds, you know, have diminished. There is more doubt, I think among FED officials do do we really need to keep cutting rates, especially since they cut rates fifty basis points in September?
Kathy, how about the labor market here? We got a you know, top line unemployment rate four point one percent or so. That seems pretty darn solid to me, but some folks tell us some of the recent trends has been a little troubling. How should we think about this US labor economy?
It is an interesting picture. So on one hand, there's still pretty good demand overall for workers, and the unemployment rate reflects that very low four point one percent. On the other hand, where you look at the jobs that are created from the Establishment survey, they're very concentrated in health and education and also leisure and hospitality. Now that's
not unusual for economic cycles. You could continue to see the economy do well with this high concentration, but it also tells you again it's a sign that high interest rates are hurting the cyclical sectors of the economy. So you'd much have much rather have a broad based employee games. Right now, it's really highly concentrated.
You talked just a moment ago, Kathy, just about following the data. How much of this is data driven? We have a cacophony of fedspeak this week today, four of them as I count them, Mary Daily speaking, Lori Logan of the Dallas Fed, Neil Kashgari, Jeffrey Schmid of Kansas City.
What are you listening for in all of those speeches? Again, it seems like there's such monumental uncertainty just a couple of weeks away, fifteen days away till this election, we might not have a result by the time the FED meets Once again, how valuable are the insights from these FED officials, just bearing in mind that uncertainty that looms so large.
I think it's very valuable because they are that's the fuller guidance, right, and that's one of the tools that they can offer the markets, is this verbal guidance.
You know, there's six.
Weeks in between meetings, so this is our time to give you know, their thoughts. On the other hand, they're all individuals, so you're not getting a consensus view, but you can pick up Where are the doubts increasing, Like, are they leaning forwards saying you know what, we know economic data have come in stronger, but we're still really restrictive and I think we can continue to lower rates and we have room.
To do that.
Or is there some concern that maybe, hey, maybe we need to go a little slower, even slower than the markets thing because we don't want to revive inflation.
Kathy, thanks so much for joining us. Really appreciate getting a few minutes of your time. Kathy Bastoncik. She is the chief economist at Nationwide.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from seven to ten am Easter Listen on Apple car Play and Android Auto with a Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
My question simply is do we trust any of the polls here? I can't, you know, I don't know. Sometimes they tell us the last election they were pretty accurate as it relates to the popular vote, but I don't know. I just think back to all the other elections. I think about Brexit, how bad they were on that one.
Henrietta Tres she does this kind of stuff for a Living Change the manager partner in Vada Partners, Henrietta, Are there any polls that you look at that you feel like are maybe more representative and than others and kind of what are they telling you these days?
Great question, Thanks.
I actually really enjoy the fact that we are in the early voting process already, so now we can start to move or at least add on to our data sets by incorporating the early voting data as opposed to just the polling. So that's informative and helpful. It's not for the faint of heart. It is worse than day trading. You get these huge baskets of data that swing the vote totals by these massive margins every single night.
But nonetheless, if you're really digging into.
The weeds, you can start to watch early polling data, which is very exciting and right now. Effectively, what I would say is pay attention to the really great poles that are done by you know, tried and tested pollsters. So the New York Times swing state poles are particularly valuable, and then all the Bloomberg Morning Console pole, which is more frequent, is very valuable.
Stick to the big ones.
There is a flood of poll right now that is coming from the campaigns themselves, and those tend to have pretty stark biases three or four points in favor of.
Whichever candidate right now.
A number of those like Atlas, Rescues and Trafalgar are coming from Republican outlets, So you're going to see a republic event, which is what the pools are showing you right now.
Well, speaking of bias, the audience knows I bring my North Carolina bias to the show when I fill in. And here's a number that stood out to me. One million, eighty one hundred and twenty three. That's the number of early votes we've seen cast in just four days, and this is a state of about ten point five million.
People.
Talk a bit about early voting and if this seems like an outsize level of enthusiasm so far, sort of what we know just a few days in for how many people are voting early, and what that says perhaps about the trajector here going to election day on the fifth.
It's really exciting, and congratulations on having North Carolina on your radar. And I'm sure you have friends and family that are in the area that you're getting feedback from in real time.
And anecdotal stuff.
North Carolina and Georgia are breaking records for turnout. I would say probably the main takeaway for me now is that Republican voters are voting early in much greater frequency than they have in the past, and about double the rate of Democrats. So that's the case in Nevada, for example, which I was just spending some time with this morning, and effectively what's happening is Republican voters have been very exposed to this idea of an.
Election that may be stolen and what have you.
The Republican governors in those states and Republican operatives like North Carolina and Georgia in Nevada have been spending millions of dollars trying to encourage their voters to come to the polls early, and that is.
Really panning out.
So you're seeing these substantial increases in Republican voters who usually vote on election day coming to vote early, and that's I think a main driver of that record turnout number.
Henry Henrietta, what do we know about I guess the down ballot situation for some of these key states, key seats. What are we hearing and how do you expect that to play.
Out down ballot's really still moving very substantially for the entire year. As we've discussed in the past, Democratic candidates in the Senate seats like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, et cetera, they've all been leading the top of the Democratic ticket, whether that's Kamala Harris or Joe Biden. Throughout the year, they've been pulling ahead five, six, ten points.
As the final voters decide which direction they're going to go, the delta between Democratic senators and Republican Senate candidates has dropped substantially, and now voters are going to the direction that they have since twenty sixteen, which is they're going to vote party line down the ballot. So what we're starting to see is material tightness for the Democratic candidates
in Pennsylvania. We're starting to see that tighten up in a state like Arizona and Nevada where the Democrat is still comfortably ahead, but the Republican under or challenger is starting to move a little bit further up in the polls as voters decide which direction they're going to go. At the top of the ticket, Kamala Harris Donald Trump.
So we're seeing that the races are really tight. My expectation, with ninety percent odds is that Republicans are going to control the Senate next year, and that's mostly a virtue and a factor of Montana. In Montana, Donald Trump is on track to win by twenty one points, and that's a bridge too far for any Democratic incumbent to supersed Usually a down ballot senator can outrun the top of
the ticket by about four or five points. But for John Tester, the Senator from Montana, he's underwater now already against his Republican challenger, and then he's underwater by about fifteen to seventeen points against Donald Trump at the Republican top of the ticket versus the Democratic ticket. So my expectation, almost regardless of how the swing states go, is that Republicans will control the Senate next year.
Henria, let's talk a bit about Elon Musk. He spent his college days in Pennsylvania. He's back in the state spending a lot of money, and the thing that's getting a lot of attention this morning is his that's almost like a sweepstakes. If you sign his pledge here to support the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. You're in the running to win a million dollars a day. My eyebrow is raised as a result of seeing that, wondering
if that's legal. I gather there's some interest on the Democratic side and getting law enforcement to look into what he's pledging to do.
There.
Talk a bit about that scheme, if you would, what you make of it, but then more broadly, sort of how he's changing or trying to change the ground game in Pennsylvania.
Yeah, a couple of really good points here.
First, it's illegal to buy votes, and so what Elon Musk is doing is he's buying signatures. He's trying to get you to sign up to support the First and second Amendment.
He's also trying to get you to sign up to register to vote.
That is a technicality that is different than actually buying your vote on election day, So he's circumventing that part of election law.
Democrats are of course screaming.
About it because it's designed with a monetary value behind it and it's about voting, so they're trying to get the Elections Commission involved. But that is the way that he asides stepping that issue. I think you're seeing as a general strategy from the Republican camp from Donald Trump is to farm out a lot of the campaign to
third parties. So whether that's trying to have a third party boots on the ground program that will get you volunteers and door knockers in an individual state, or in the case of Elon Musk here with trying to buy signatures to get registered to vote, or in the case of even the predictive markets you've seen that on poly Market, for example, with this sharp uptick from an estimated four accounts driving the odds up to sixty one percent as
of this morning that Trump will win. This is all sort of third party designed to influence voter perception in the final days of the campaign, and you still have about twenty four percent of the individual voter base who's undecided about which direction they want to go. What they're trying to do is influence the idea of where momentum
is because voters like to vote for the winner. Trying to give this projection in this image of winning, and I think that's a big part of what the Elon Musk campaign is all about.
So Elon Musk for former President Trump, maybe a mark Cuban for Vice President Harris to these types of celebrity supporters that they mean anything at the end of the day.
I think what Republicans are trying to do specifically is turn out very keyed in media, attentive audiences and the young male demographics. So for this cohort, it very much could take hold that unfortunately has yet to be proven. I mentioned earlier that a lot of the voters who are coming out for the Republican Party right now used to vote on election day, and now they're voting early. What's happening is you're actually not seeing new voter turnout.
You're cannibalizing your election day vote. So there's a big to do about a blue wall going into election day that's overwhelmed by a red wave on election Day.
That was the trajectory we saw in twenty twenty.
Donald Trump has talked a lot about that in the past, sort of thisocratic blue firewall. What Republicans are trying to do with this media strategy and this outreach to young, very online mail voters is get them to come out and vote for Donald Trump. What we're seeing so far is that very enthusiastic repeat Republican voters.
Trump supporters are very galvanized this year.
They're extraordinarily enthusiastic about voting for Trump, and they're.
Turning out early.
So it's not that we're seeing a new influx of voters thus far. There has been strong voter registration from Republicans in the last four years, but that's not what we're seeing in the early returns thus far. Again, as I said in the beginning, this data swings a lot, but right now it's all election day voters that are pulling forward, not new voters coming into the Republican poult.
All right, Henrietta Trez nobody better.
Always great to speak with you.
Always good on that one, Henrietta Trice, Thank you so much again for your time. Henrietta is a managing partner at Veda Partners. Given us the latest breakdown of a fluid situation, again fifteen days away from election day.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting its an am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa, playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
I'm sandwich between two Carolina people. David Gerr, who grew up at North Carolina Chapel Hill and at Chapel Hill, she's also the chief market strategist at Ridolt's Wealth Management. So, Kelly, I mean, I've got a stock market. I'm not jumping off yet. I mean should I be jumping off here? I'm sticking with it.
Well, the economy looks okay, so I don't think you should be jumping off and better yet, expectations are so low that I think it could lead to more of a rally in the future. Of course, everybody's nervous about election, the election coming up, and you know we're seeing some premium in the Vics and in the ten year because of that. But at the same time, I mean, what
post election rallies are quite typical. We're heading into an earning season where you know, estimates have been cut way too much, and up until a few weeks ago, everybody thought we were heading for a recession, and it turns out maybe we're not. So it's all about.
Expectations early days.
Yet in this earning season, I GUS one hundred and thirteen companies reporting this week what have you been able to divine from what we've gotten thus far from the financials and others, and sort of what are you looking for as we get kind of more fully underway in the reporting period.
Well, obviously, earning estimates are way too low on the revenue side, on the earning side as well. That's why you're seeing about an eighty percent beat rate and why you're seeing stocks react really well when you know companies come out with these, you know, not impressive results, but at least they kind of hurdle the low bar. I really like the management commentary that we've heard so far. I feel encouraged by the bank commentary around the economy,
around the consumer that we've heard. You know, I'm more macro, so I don't look as much at individual companies, But so far, so good. I mean, that beat rate is strong.
Valuation. What are the concerns, if any here for you for valuation for this market?
Yeah, well, I think valuation is a distraction for people. So obviously the S and P valuation is quite high, but when you take out tech, the smp sits around like a nineteen forward pe and that's actually quite low. I mean, if you think about the average for that is around seventeen historically. So what I'm trying to say is that there are a lot of opportunities in this market if you're willing to look for them. Valuation isn't
a concern for most stocks. You just have that influence from big tech just kind of clouding the valuation picture that you're seeing for the overall SMP.
So if I'm looking for them, where would you guide me or where would you recommend that I go? Maybe kind of unloved places that might be overlooked.
Well, we've been talking about the S and P. I'm going to look outside the SMP now, I think you have to look at small and mid caps, especially if we think the economy can survive these high interest rates. I mean, small caps were a rate story, but they need a strong or even an okay economy to really thrive in this environment. I mean, normally we see small caps outperform in the first legs of able market. We
haven't seen it this time around. It's because the FED has been restricting the bowl, you know, kind of depriving it of oxygen through higher interest rates. So small apps, midcaps, I think great sensitive sectors are dealing with the same fate right now. You know, I think cyclicals look interesting, but I'm not as excited to jump into them because we've only seen one month of relatively okay jobs data sectors.
Are there sectors that screen well for you guys these days?
Well, we like looking at value over at rid hoolets. I mean you have to remember long term clients, trying to get them from point A to point B. I think value in general is really interesting right now. I think we see some value in real estate and consumer staples again in those rate sensitive sectors. See a lot of value in small caps. Like I mentioned to David, I mean overall, just look at the unloved sectors in this bowl market. What hasn't performed well? Rotate there.
I'm very cleo asking everybody about this, just sort of how the role of the FED is sort of dovetailing with what you're doing. And so it just strikes me as you kind of look ahead to the election and beyond this kind of monumental uncertainty, how do you see around that? How does the FED see around that?
Again?
I bring this up over and over again today. It's like how many FED speakers or speaking I remember we heard from Austin Golesby a couple of weeks ago, saying he loves, he loves getting all those perspectives. He thinks it's valuable. How are you able to sort of divine any sort of sense of direction from from what all these folks are saying and what is it telling you if you are able to.
Well, our clients are lucky they have me. I'm the one that's stressed.
About over the lie.
You have to figure it out.
Trying to put all the tea leaves together, but ultimately reminding people that these headlines these FED speakers don't probably won't push you off of your financial goals. Of course, the FED and what the FED does is important, but what you're hearing from Goalsby and no offense to Golesby, I love Goalsby, but what you're hearing from these FED speakers ultimately is noise.
You know.
Of course FED policy is important, but right now it
looks like the Fed is cutting grapes gradually. I think they have an argument to cut to neutral at the moment, especially if we see job market data, you know, kind of addling along like we've seen for the past few months outside of September, and you know, a gradual cutting is a really good background for the stock market, but it also means that you probably need to lock in rates and prepare for a potential crisis, you know, take advantage of where we are now.
Cally, I know you mentioned rid Holts Wealth Management. You guys think longer term. We've certainly heard that from red Holts himself. How do you guys think about stocks versus bonds, maybe even alternatives for a typical Redolts Wealth Management client?
Well, I mean we offer I think six or seven different portfolios, different stock and bond allocations. That ultimately matters most for the client in their personal situation. Again, right now, with bonds, we're telling clients to think about locking in rates. We don't think they'll stay here for very long on the stock market. I mean we obviously we think you need to be invested in risk of your assets to
reach certain financial goals. And you know, depending on where you are, if you're an accumulator, if you're you know, pulling more income from your portfolio, that's going to change the allocation you're looking at. But right now, we still think the stock market is quite attractive. We always remind people it's expensive to miss a bowl more so, you know, the risk of sitting out most of the time is bigger than the risk of potentially buying at a top.
You know, just make sure that you have that cushion in your portfolio, because we all have emotions, we're all human, you know, we need a little bit of that protection if we do see a bigger sell off.
Could you give us some insight into those conversations, because, as you say, it's costly to miss out, but you look at how much money is sitting on the sidelines. You're trillions of dollars on the sidelines, and so much in money market funds, so much in bonds. How do you compel people or what are the conversations like as you're trying to convince people that there is still opportunity in a moment to get into equities.
Well, there's a lot of talk around big tech. I mean, that was more of the talk in the first half of the year. You know, why are so few stocks driving those market higher? You know, obviously we have an e toward value. So that was a harder conversation to have with clients, but ultimately we reminded them that, you know, over time, there's this area of stasis, and the market
tends to go there. You just have to, you know, kind of wait it out and be prepared for a bunch of different scenarios, and that actually worked out really well. Over the past few months. We're seeing, you know, as the Fed's cut rates, we're seeing more money of course go to those value oriented stocks. But on the whole, I agree with you, there's still a lot of cash on the sidelines. I don't think it's a positive catalyst in the next three to six months. I think there's
a lot of inertia there. But that's something something to consider. I mean, this bull market has grown on doubt and skepticism, and believe it or not, that's a healthy environment for higher prices.
I'm sure your clients are calling up all the time asking about the election and what they should do. I mean, what do you try to tell.
Them, Well, politics don't matter if your portfolio okay, bar none. There are a few caveats there. I think they matter for your financial situation, especially with the tax cuts and Jobs Act, certain provisions they're expiring at the end of twenty twenty five. So that's mostly what we've been talking to clients about. I mean, you need to plan now for any changes that could happen in the next you know,
several months. But on the whole, we we remind our clients who are more long term that, you know, it's one person can't control the fifty seven trillion dollar stock market, maybe j Powell, but you know, I'm not even gonna go there for him. You know, trying to buy or sell stocks depending on who's taking office is usually a fool's.
Errand can we get a little anecdotal sense from you, You a North Carolinian like myself for like what this election, what this part of the campaign cycle has been, Like, how inundated are you just as a citizen of that state? And what's the what is the electoral atmosphere?
Like?
Even better, I'm a resident of Mecklenburg County, which is one of the most important counties in North Carolina. I mean there's a lot of noise, a lot of signs. I mean obviously a lot of conversation I can't really get into. You know, I'm not a polster right now, I'm watching the polls nervously like everybody else, But just know that people are paying attention, and I think that there's a lot of energy around both sides.
Kelly, thanks so much for joining us. Always great to see you. Calli Cox's chief market strategist for Ritholtz Wealth Management.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at seven am Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal.
All right, folks, you dentely look at the front pages around the world. Lisa mitteo newspapers. What do you got for us today?
All right, we're just talking about elections. So I want to get to this reality for the election workers.
What they're living in.
This is Arizona, Macopa County. It's one of the most populous counties in Arizona. They're reporting that some of the workers you have buildings that are been added, metal detectors, arm guards, but there's also police, snipers, drone patrols will be on hand. This is for election day. Election workers going through active shooter drills. So this is like a whole new reality. A lot of these workers are living
through a lot of them volunteers too. On top of it, so a lot of them are saying, some are scared to come in. But why this area of Arizona, Well, you know, it's sparked by years Donald Trump's false claims twenty twenty election was stolen, so he has told his supporters it could happen again. So now you have this whole entire security going on now in order to protect a lot of these workers.
It's it's it's a new reality. In Colorado. Death threats from election deniers have led some county clerks and election officials to bulletproof bulletproof vests on hand, so you get that.
Yeah, so it's not just Arizona, it's like it's nationwide. I mean, they're stockpiling narcan because if you remember, they received ballad En bulps last year that has the white powder with the traces of fental in it. So just a big like overall look at the security, think.
About like will will this continue? Obviously we saw what happened last time and that's what it's informed this time. But as you mentioned, so many people doing this on a voluntary basis or taking these jobs apart time. One wonders if the hassle of doing this and the fears associated with doing it are going to keep people from signing up in the field.
The hanging chad seems so quaint. Now no, yes, well you got it, okay.
So Business I spoke at labor experts. They're looking to see, because it's this whole battle back and forth, is the college degree still a top priority for employers. So Business Insider they spoke with a couple and they say the employers they might no longer require a degree for certain roles, but those doing the hiring still care whether an applicant has one. So there's been different types of research that
has been done. Some consulting firms say that it shows hiring for skills is five times more predictive of how someone performs on a job than hiring based on just education. But they also say that those hired based on their skills rather than education, tend to stay with an employer longer. I don't know if it's that whole thing of just you know, being happy that you've kind of been brought
onto this company because you don't have the degree. But those are just some of the things that they're saying. Whether this degree is still told just before I drive them up and down the Jersey Shore.
Forget about the big monster houses on the beach. That's all the Wall Street folks that tech whoever those people are. How about everybody on the Bay side there are two million dollar homes. There's tens of thousands of them just on the Jersey Shore. Forget about the rest of the world. And the each have a like five hundred thousand dollars boat moored in the back. Who are those people? Where
did they come from? And what I think they are is as I drive around, I think you're just small business owners and they just created this wealth and that's it. I mean. And there's jillions of them out there, and that's I think a lot of them are going to be, you know, coming generations from from the trades. Yeah, and they don't have any college debt or any of that kind of stuff. You just wonder where all that wealth comes from. And it's just small business, I think in this country.
And then we just had that story not too long ago that a lot of private equity pouring money into the trades, like buying out a lot of these hvac and plumbers and all that who are now becoming millionaire.
So there you go, all right, this is this next article is not what I was expecting. Yeah, okay, sandwich generation.
Sandwich generation.
I hadn't heard that term before, so maybe I'm out of low. I don't know. But those are stuff.
Between caring for the old, their older parents, and they have younger kids. And I'm talking younger because a lot of these who this is these are millennials who are now reached that midlife who had kids later in life, you know, so now they have newborns, but yet they have parents who are eighty plus.
They need care, need care.
So now it's this whole struggle of can they afford one daycare and then two, you know, to pay for these aging parents who may not have prepared for staying alive this much longer, and elder care is.
So so expensive.
Yeah, eleven million people in this boat in this country, which is you know, a sizeable chunk, right, that's crazy.
Yeah, it is.
And then it's taking away from their retirement because they're putting all their money into you know, the daycare and the elder.
Care, right. And then and some of them have to leave the workforce because they have to take care of both parts of this sandwich, if you will.
And they're saying that's it. That's a problem because most of those people are women. They're saying, that's a massive, massive risk for the economy if a lot of women start to And.
Staffing is still a huge issue too, just because you can't get people to do this kind of work. So I think a lot of people are doing it by default. You know, they want to get care for their aging parents and they can't do just thrown a people doing those doing those jobs.
That's true, that's true. Now, I know you're happy about the New York Clery right basking in their title. Yeah, the sweatshirt on Friday, Okay, but the league actually said to lose millions this season. Investors are growing and patient. This was in the New York Post, it was exclusive with them. They're saying the NBA, I didn't realize this,
owns nearly sixty percent of the WNBA. So sources are telling the Post that NBA team owners they've invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the WNBA since they formed. But NBA executives are saying that the WNBA will lose forty million dollars. But they're saying that, you know, starting in twenty twenty six, they'll get that two point two billion over eleven years to part of this new basketball media contract.
Right, so they have the new.
Media deals, but still then they have the contracts are up. So now players are going to be starting to get paid more as should. But that's another side of it to think of. But I didn't realize it was. There was so much behind it. It's kind of confusing to me, just.
The way that it's structured. Yeah, and there very few teams I think where they're kind of single owned, but the liberty are I think that it's owned by one family now. But it is kind of jarring to kind of look at the crowds that they were able to pull for the semifinals in the finals, especially, you know, filling up not completely but most of the Barkley Center last night, and the same out the Target Center in Minneapolis.
It looks like there's momentum here, but it's still a financial challenge for a lot of.
All comes down to the broadcasting right now. So if I were revising, if I were advising the teams, I would not sign a long term deal. I would sign a short term deal.
And why is that?
Because their rights are going up in value so dramatically that why lock yourself into a value today for eleven years when I think I can come back in three years of five years and negotiate a much higher rate. So I would go short term. I think they're making a mistake to lock in these higher rates, but I can see the incentive because that's a big jump from where they are now. But again, as you mentioned, the players are going to want to get theirs and they're expanding.
I think they're gonna have three new teams in the next season as well, and they're going to go prolong. The finals are gonna do a seven game series next year, So they're playing this optimistically.
Yeah, well, they're in a great spot. I think again, the value for most of professional sports is in the media rights. That's it counts for the vast majority of the value of these teams. I don't care if you're English Premier Soccer at the NFL, it's the media rights, and so you really have to focus on them.
Now.
They're getting a nice big jump here, but I would I think you've got the leverage to maybe do a little bit more. So all right, Lisa Mitello, thank you so much. That is our newspaper segment back by popular demand.
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