Morning Brew Daily
Is the World Ready for Trump Tariffs? & MrBeast Raises Funds After ‘Beast Games’
Fri, 28 Feb 2025
Episode 529: Toby and Ann recap the latest news on Trump’s tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, why consumer confidence is so low, and why the job market may be showing some cracks. Then, beloved game shows ‘Jeopardy!,’ and ‘Wheel of Fortune,’ may find a new home in the streaming world. Meanwhile, MrBeast is our Stock of the Week and Tesla is our Dog of the Week. Finally, worthy headlines to know heading into the weekend! LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Go to LinkedIn.com/MBD Terms and conditions apply. Only on LinkedIn ads. Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://linkedin.com/MBD for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow Hear more from Ann on After Earnings: https://open.spotify.com/show/5I5q3LIg1ueDWoTM8AZsHQ?si=d427df87994941e2 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are Trump's new tariffs and when do they take effect?
And Jeopardy, the 50-year-old TV show, does it still have the heat?
It's Friday, February 28th. Let's ride.
Good morning. It's Friday. You made it. And I encourage you all to start getting those neck muscles loose this morning because tonight you should be looking skyward. A rare celestial event is on display as all seven planets in our solar system, apart from Earth, will be visible. So Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, all visible tonight in what is called a planetary parade.
Toby, if someone wanted to see all the members of our solar system strutting their stuff, how should they go about doing that?
All right, here is the game plan, Skywatchers. Look for Mercury in Saturn soon after the sun goes down right near where the sun went down. Binoculars are encouraged. Then once night starts to fall, look to the western sky for a very bright dot. That is... Venus. High overhead is Jupiter, which will also look like a bright star.
Rotate back towards the east, but keep looking up and you'll get a view of the reddish Mars. Uranus and Neptune are up there as well, I promise, but will be so faint you do need a telescope. However, for those hoping to see a reunion with Pluto, don't get your hopes up. The dwarf planet that was demoted to that status all the way back in 2006 will be below the horizon during the parade.
Poor Pluto, never getting to participate. But get out there tonight, everyone, and take it all in. This really is a once-in-a-generation event. Now a word from our sponsor, LinkedIn Ads. And LinkedIn is known for its precise B2B targeting, helping you reach decision makers based on industry, role, and company. It's like Apple's Find My Friends if you're friends or B2B customers.
I was just going to say, B2B advertising is kind of like trying to find your friend in a crowd of a music festival. Sure, you can just yell their name into the void, hoping they hear you, or you could text them and actually track them down.
And meanwhile, some random guy named Todd who has nothing to do with you or your friend is hearing you yell. He's confused. You're confused. Everyone's confused.
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Chapter 2: How will the new tariffs impact the economy and consumer confidence?
Well, kind of like me at high school prom, it took a while, but we finally have a date for when Trump's tariffs against Canada and Mexico will take effect. Circle March 4th on your calendars, everyone. That is when the broad-based 25% duties will hit, with Trump citing drug trafficking into the U.S. as part of the motivation behind the import fee.
Trump also announced he was slapping another 10% tariff on goods coming from China, which will be in addition to the previous 10% one imposed on February 4th. Of course, these tariffs, especially those against some of the U.S. 's biggest trading partners, are expected to add to the economic strain that has emerged early in the Trump presidency.
The market has been shaky over the last week, with three of the four past trading days ending in the red. And the Consumer Confidence Reading from Wednesday showed sentiment fell the most since summer 2021. The threat of tariffs are also rattling business execs.
If a deal to prevent them isn't reached, which is still certainly a possibility, more than $1 trillion worth of imports would see higher tariffs. Nervy times for the economy, and especially under this looming threat of tariffs.
And also at a moment when we're getting a ton of economic data, you sort of touched on it, Toby, and we think about the domino effect here. You've got tariffs that impacts inflation, inflation that impacts interest rates, interest rates that impacts consumer confidence, consumer confidence also impacted by the labour market, all of that impacting the housing market. And guess what?
Data on all of those coming out over the next week.
Let's hit some of those datas because you're right. We did get a flood of kind of economic data that paints a picture of where the economy is currently at. Pending home sales came in this week, and they were not good. Sales dropped 4.6% from December to the lowest level seen by the National Association of Association of Realtors who measures this.
Since they've been tracking the metric all the way back in 2001, it's the same story we've been hearing. High mortgage rates, elevated home prices are just kind of crushing home sales right now. So that was one piece of economic data we got. We also got jobless claims. First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose a lot more than expected in the last week.
That is a potential hint that maybe there's some cracks forming in what has otherwise been a very solid labor market so far. There were 242,000 jobless claims filed last week. That was above economists' expectations of 220,000 claims by a fair amount there as well. We get PCE data today. That's the Fed's preferred inflation metric. We'll see how that comes into.
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Chapter 3: Why are Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune considering streaming?
We don't know yet how much this is going to end up getting paid for, but big numbers, big numbers.
Big numbers indeed. I do think that these are just enduring cultural institutions at this point, which is why Sony is being very careful in handling them with kid gloves because they don't want to. Yes, it is an aging audience. And by going to streaming, they're after a younger audience. But they do not want to alienate that older audience who is their bread and butter at this point.
So I think that's why. We've seen them be a little later to the streaming game than, you know, some other properties as well. You also mentioned, too, that initial winning bid for whoever will get them on their streaming platforms, they'll only be able to stream them the day after they air on, you know, live television. So to me, there's an arbitrage opportunity there to impress your friends.
Watch Jeopardy on traditional cable the night before and then just catch up. casually suggest, oh, let's toss it on streaming. Let's see what's on Jeopardy and then nail all the answers and press your friends right there. So that's a little bit of, you know, personal social arbitrage that you can do if these come to streaming, but are come to streaming a day after they actually air on cable.
All right, I've just learned how you play quiz games right there. There's just so much insight into how Toby plays games. These are such national treasures, as you've talked about it, really part of the American culture. I'm from Britain originally, and I love watching Jeopardy. Love it. And Wheel of Fortune, too. It's something I've really embraced. I do wonder...
Jeopardy had a really long serving host, Alex Trebek, from 1984 to 2020. So lots of people will have grown up with him having hosted. And since then, there have been the sort of two co-hosts. I wonder for the streamers if they have to do something differently.
I mean, yeah, Ken Jennings has stepped in and people have liked him a lot. Same with, you know, Pat Sajak and Weryl Fortune. Now you have Ryan Seacrest who stepped in. So they have tried to... you know, bring in these modern faces. A lot of people know Ryan Seacrest to set them up for the next, you know, 40 year run, which is a good point to kind of end this segment on.
There is a staggering amount of volume that comes with these shows as well. 425 episodes a year are produced. That is very appealing to streamers because it, It creates a sticky audience. Hopefully people are coming in night in, night out. Maybe it can help reduce with churn if Netflix becomes the platform that you watch Jeopardy on every day.
So again, I expect there to be a fairly large bidding war. I mentioned Netflix there, but it's not guaranteed that they'll get it. There will be a bidding war over this very valuable franchises. Up next, it is time for Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week. This message, it's a paid partnership with Apple Card.
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Chapter 4: How do Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune's viewership numbers compare to other shows?
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Neil, you've had the chance to work with plenty of leaders in your career.
What traits do you think are most important? In my experience, a few things stand out, like leading by example, taking risks, and being passionate.
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Chapter 5: What is the significance of streaming rights for classic game shows?
It's Stock of the Week, Dog of the Week time, where Anne and I pick one stock from the week's news that is having a better time than Neil sipping Mai Tais on a beach. And one stock that is facing the inevitable sunburn that will follow. I won the pre-show game of who can do the best British accent. Huge upset there. So I am up first. And my Stock of the Week is not a stock at all, but a man...
and a man by the name of Mr. Beast. Yes, Jimmy Donaldson, aka Mr. Beast, aka the YouTuber that your 13-year-old nephew idolizes, is raising money at a $5 billion valuation. He wants to use the cash to expand his burgeoning business empire, which includes the chocolate brand Feasibles and the snack company Lunchly, and of course, the largest individual YouTube channel in the world.
He says the business is profitable and brought in more than $400 million in sales last year. The upside of investing in MrBeast may lie in his ability to bring TV-level production to YouTube. His Squid Games in Real Life video has amassed over 750 million views on YouTube.
but he has also made the jump to actual TV, creating the Beast Games game show for Amazon Prime this year with the biggest prize in TV history. All of it adds up to create an empire that is apparently worth $5 billion to investors, Anne.
You know, not the first person in the celebrity world to do this. Do you remember Jessica Alba with Honest? We had George Clooney with Casamigos, Ryan Reynolds, Aviation Gin. And then, of course, the OG of influencers, the Kardashians, right, with their Empire Skims, Kylie Cosmetics, Good American. So this has been done before, but not, I don't think, at numbers this big right out of the gate.
Right. I think part of the reason why this number is so big is that it is wide-ranging. He has a very successful CPG brand. Lunchly and Feasibles are these money-making CPG brands. But then his YouTube empire alone is worth a hefty chunk of change, especially as he's trying to wiggle his way deeper into traditional entertainment. We have to talk about the Beast Games game show.
He actually just went on a podcast and started talking through – The economics of that and the economics were not good for Mr. Beast. He said, quote, I lost tens of millions of dollars on Beast Games, but it's about making season one as good as possible. The reason why part of or part of the reason why he lost money on it is that
He was giving out $5 million for this game show, which was the biggest prize in TV history. But then during the series, they did a coin flip, which if it landed on heads or tails, would determine if the prize would double or not. It did double, so then he gave out $10 million.
And he's like, it was decisions like that that weren't the best financially, but he said hopefully it was the best entertainment-wise.
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Chapter 6: What is the Stock of the Week and Dog of the Week segment about?
I'm so excited for this. I saw this. I was so excited, first of all, to see all those ladies in space. Women in STEM love it. But also, when you look at this lineup, Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, I am dying to know what their astronaut suits look like. I want to know who's designing the space costumes for this all-star lineup.
I can't wait. It is an all-star lineup. It's very funny. You know what is the most funny to me, though, is that Gayle King is not even going to be the first morning show host into space because, remember, Michael Strahan went back in 2021. He was on the third crude fight. Imagine you think you're going to be the first one up there, but no, Michael Strahan. Made it.
And then I do, I will say a driving force behind this flight has been Lauren Sanchez, which is Jeff Bezos' fiance. She is a former journalist, author, and a pilot. And she has been, according to all reports, very instrumental in putting this flight together. So I think it's going to be very cool. I wonder what they're going to be chatting about because it is, I call it an eclectic group.
And I mean, Katy Perry is just there. I don't even know how she made it in, but I'm excited to see, you know, their, this launch come together come this spring.
They're going to be listening to Morning Brew Daily as they get launched on up there. Moving on now, let's talk about Target and Warby Parker, Toby, teaming up to bring some trendy new shades to the retailer. The partnership will feature five shopping shops in stores located in Illinois, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio.
By integrating Warby Parker's expertise, Target aims to enhance its eyewear offerings and attract new customers seeking quality and convenience. Warby Parker, otherwise the e-commerce play, stock was up 6% at one point yesterday. Toby, do you need some new glasses? Because I know a spot or I can lend you my Warby Parker.
I'm more of a blue light glasses because I still got that 2020. But this to me is definitely... Definitely a bid by Target to try to, you know, reverse the flagging store traffic that they've been seeing in recent years. Target has been kind of caught in the middle in recent times. They can't compete with Walmart or Costco on groceries.
So they've always relied on sort of these spontaneous drop-in visits where you buy stuff that you don't really need, mostly home goods and clothing, stuff like that. Walmart is more for essentials. Target is for some of the fun stuff. So is adding a trendy eyewear place like Warby Parker something going to bring and inspire those drop-in visits?
Maybe, who knows, but you can see kind of why they're trying to, they're just throwing stuff at the wall right now to try to get people to keep coming back to their stores since they've lost some of that store traffic.
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