Happy Honey Deuce Season! The US Open kicked off in NYC yesterday, with organizers aiming to draw in 1 million attendees and top last year’s sales of 450k Honey Deuces. Apple is gearing up to unveil its latest iPhones and Apple Watch models on September 9th. Meanwhile, IBM has become the latest U.S. tech giant to exit China, and Canada is slapping a 100% tariff on Chinese EV imports, including Tesla. Plus UBS may have pulled off the deal of the decade with the Credit Suisse rescue, and how Trump was ‘orange-pilled’ by three Bitcoiners in Puerto Rico.

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NFL 🤝 Private Equity

Private equity is finally getting its hands on one of the last corners of the U.S. economy it hasn’t conquered yet—the NFL. 

Later today, the NFL is poised to vote on private equity ownership. The word on the street is it’s all but a formality. If it weren’t heading towards approval, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wouldn’t have bothered putting it up for a vote. 

The plan is to create a small, elite group of buyers who get approval from the NFL, with any actual deals themselves needing a thumbs up from the other owners.

The NFL will become the last league to join the party among major U.S. sports. It’s become somewhat of a necessity, with sky-high team sale prices and a need for liquidity pushing the move. Most NFL owners are just billionaires, not multi-billionaires, and they could use the cash. 

Some deals might not actually be about ownership and will rather be all about growth like a private equity firm pumping money into a team to renovate a stadium or build a mini-city around it. The Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans are already getting new stadiums, and the Browns, Bears, and Commanders are expected to be right behind them in the planning stages. They could use some cash to fund these $5B+ projects.

Don’t be shocked if the NFL rolls out its list of approved buyers right after the vote. Names like Arctos Partners, Ares Management, and Sixth Street Partners are expected to make the cut, along with a supergroup featuring Blackstone, Carlyle, CVC Capital Partners, and Dynasty Equity. 

Takeaway: Becoming an owner of an NFL team is still a huge flex - and the NFL wants to keep ownership as an exclusive club. There’s still a chance an ‘unapproved’ private equity could get in on the action down the road. It might not be long until you see Blackstone own your favorite team!

_{PRESENTED BY SIDEBAR}

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_HEADLINES

Top Reads

• US Open’s $10 million Honey Deuce is back and more expensive (FoS)

• US Open fans can move around in the stands (AP)

• Apple announces iPhone event for Sept. 9 (CNBC)

• Nvidia results loom over market (YF)

• IBM is latest U.S. tech giant to pull back from China (Axios)

• Canada to put 100% tariff on China EV imports like Tesla's (YF)

• How Trump was ‘orange-pilled’ by three bitcoiners in Puerto Rico (CNBC)

• UBS may have pulled off the deal of the decade with the Credit Suisse rescue (CNBC)

• Investors betting Powell pivot will relieve regional bank woes (YF)

• The sense of global gloom is abating (Axios)

• Intel has hired Morgan Stanley, other advisers for activist defense (CNBC)

_{CAPITAL PULSE}

Markets Rundown

S&P 500, Nasdaq slide as tech lags ahead of Nvidia earnings.

Movers & Shakers

• (+) Petrobras ($PBR) +8% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the Brazilian oil company.

• (–) Super Micro Computer ($SMCI) -8% after a selloff for chip stocks.

• (–) Solaredge Technologies ($SEDG) -9% after the company’s CEO stepped down.

Private Dealmaking

• McKesson is in advanced talks to buy Florida Cancer Specialists, a cancer care provider, for $3.5 billion

• CBC of Singapore and Mubadala bought UCB’s allergy business for $680 million

• Agilysys bought Book4Time, a spa management SaaS provider, for $150 million

• Rentvine, a property management software provider, raised $74 million

• Butlr, a sensor platform for buildings, raised $38 million

• Zafran, a security risk startup, raised $30 million

For more PE, VC & M&A deals, subscribe to our Buysiders newsletter.

_{BOOK OF THE DAY}

Discrete Charm Of The Machine

A few short decades ago, we were informed by the smooth signals of analog television and radio; we communicated using our analog telephones; and we even computed with analog computers. Today our world is digital, built with zeros and ones. Why did this revolution occur? The Discrete Charm of the Machine explains, in an engaging and accessible manner, the varied physical and logical reasons behind this radical transformation.

The spark of individual genius shines through this story of innovation: the stored program of Jacquard’s loom; Charles Babbage’s logical branching; Alan Turing’s brilliant abstraction of the discrete machine; Harry Nyquist’s foundation for digital signal processing; Claude Shannon’s breakthrough insights into the meaning of information and bandwidth; and Richard Feynman’s prescient proposals for nanotechnology and quantum computing.

Ken Steiglitz follows the progression of these ideas in the building of our digital world, from the internet and artificial intelligence to the edge of the unknown. Are questions like the famous traveling salesman problem truly beyond the reach of ordinary digital computers? Can quantum computers transcend these barriers? Does a mysterious magical power reside in the analog mechanisms of the brain? Steiglitz concludes by confronting the moral and aesthetic questions raised by the development of artificial intelligence and autonomous robots.

The Discrete Charm of the Machine examines why our information technology, the lifeblood of our civilization, became digital, and challenges us to think about where its future trajectory may lead.

“The genesis of the digital idea and why it transformed civilization.”

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Honey Deuce Inflation

This year, a Honey Deuce cocktail costs $23 at the US Open.

_{PRESENTED BY BILT REWARDS}

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_{DAILY ACUMEN}

Financial Planning

Financial planning isn't just for the wealthy; it's for everyone who wants to secure their future.

It's about making your money work for you, not the other way around.

How well-planned are your finances?

Warren Buffett, one of the world's wealthiest people, still lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500.

It's not about how much you make, but how you manage it.

Create a budget.

Set financial goals.

Invest wisely.

Remember, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.

The second-best time is now.

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Short Squeez Picks

• Confronting feeling like you’re missing out on social media

• Shake Shack’s CEO on the power of using your words

• 10 motivation myths you probably believe are true

• Doing nothing has never been more important

• How to get better at public speaking

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Memes of the Day