Golf’s new power players

Just over a month ago, a group of financiers and sports team owners, led by Fenway Sports Group, said it would invest up to $3 billion in the PGA Tour, a watershed deal that gave players parity in the league by eliminating competition from the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf.

What wasn’t reported at the time was that several powerful people in sports, music and entertainment had also personally invested. Two names are likely to draw attention: LeBron James, the superstar basketball player, and Drake, the rapper.

The investors bring more than just money. FSG and fellow financiers including billionaires Steve Cohen, Arthur Blank and Marc Lasry believe they can help revive the sport, especially as the value of media rights soars. James and Drake are investing additional capital as “strategic investors” and are expected to use their marketing muscle to help the tour broaden its audience. James and PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan were recently at the home of FSG chairman Tom Werner to discuss just that, DealBook hears.

Fans can see the stars around the greens, perhaps in the same way Drake is a regular at Toronto Raptors games. “Golf can be so much more than a sport. “I remember some of my fondest childhood memories being on the golf course with my uncle,” Drake said in a statement to DealBook. “It’s one thing to invest in a team, but helping reinvent one of the greatest leagues in the world is an incredible opportunity and I’m excited to be a part of it.”

James and Drake are not new to sports investing. In 2021, James took a stake in FSG – he actually is mentioned in the small print as an FSG investor in a press release announcing the $3 billion deal – which owns the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC. James’ investment is different of the involvement of FSG.

In 2022, James and Drake also invested in AC Milan, the Italian soccer club, alongside RedBird Capital Partners and the owners of the New York Yankees.

Here are other previously unknown PGA Tour investors: The actor Chris Pratt; James’ business partner, Maverick Carter, and the player’s agent, Rich Paul; Jeremy Zimmer, the CEO of United Talent Agency; and Steve Stoute, the founder of UnitedMasters and longtime recording and marketing executive.

The man behind the investments is Paul Wachter. The Los Angeles-based financial advisor turned investor runs Main Street Advisors and has been involved in many celebrity and athlete-driven companies, including Beats by Dre and NTWRK’s purchase of Complex last month.

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING

Apple will be fined €1.8 billion ($2 billion) over music streaming. The EU’s competition authority accused the tech giant of breaking antitrust rules by preventing developers from informing consumers about alternative music services such as Spotify. The decision marks the first time the iPhone maker has been punished for breaching EU law, and comes after Spotify filed a complaint against Apple in 2019.

Oil prices are rising slightly after the latest move by OPEC members. Brent crude, the international benchmark, yo-yoed only slightly this morning after Saudi Arabia and other top producers said they would continue to cut production through June. The announcement was aimed at supporting falling oil prices hit by tepid global demand.

New polls provide more bad news for President Biden about the economy. The latest survey from The Times and Siena College, which shows him trailing Donald Trump by five percentage points, shows that a majority of Americans think the economy is in bad shape. A poll by The Wall Street Journal shows that almost a third of respondents are so economic conditions had improved over the past two years – but a large majority believed that inflation was still too high.

An investor group increases its takeover bid for Macy’s. Arkhouse Management and Brigade Capital Management increased their offer to $24 per share, an increase of 14 percent and valued the retailer at $6.6 billion. It’s unclear whether that’s enough to get Macy’s to the negotiating table; the department store chain recently introduced its own turnaround strategy.

ICYMI: The Billionaire Debate on AI

Elon Musk tore a rift in the tech world last week when he sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman.

That fight is about more than accusations of breach of contract. It’s about the future of technology — and other Silicon Valley insiders have voiced their philosophical disagreements.

A reminder of Musk’s argument: OpenAI, which he helped fund for several years, was founded as a nonprofit organization that would release its innovations to the public. He now accuses the organization of violating that principle when it built a profit-oriented branch. The final straw was Microsoft’s billion-dollar investment in that division, which gave it an exclusive license for innovations such as GPT-4.

Not everyone agrees with Musk. OpenAI executives disputed his claims, telling employees they “do not reflect the reality of our work or mission.” And venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, an investor in OpenAI, criticism of Musk:

You jumped in early but didn’t stay committed. And real progress required real funding. Many nonprofits focus on profit efforts.

Musk pushed back. But so did Marc Andreessen, another OpenAI investor who backed Musk and responded that Khosla is “lobbying for ban open source.” That led to an interesting debate between Andreessen And Khosla on the dangers of rapidly advancing AI and whether it should be nationalized

Speaking of AI and the common good: Forty-five companies and tech executives have signed an open letter pledging to ensure their work benefits humanity, DealBook is the first to report. (The letter was planned before Musk’s lawsuit.)

From the letter, written by veteran investor Ron Conway:

While AI is unique in directly augmenting human thinking, we expect its impact will be more like that of the printing press, the internal combustion engine, electricity, and the internet. The balance between its good and bad effects on people will be shaped by the actions and thoughtfulness that we as humans demonstrate. It is our collective responsibility to make choices that maximize the benefits of AI and limit its risks, for today and for generations to come.

Others who have signed include OpenAI, Meta, Google and Microsoft; the AI ​​start-up Mistral; and investors Coatue, Tim Draper and Khosla.

Music is entering the ‘post-streaming’ era

The fight between Universal Music Group and TikTok looks like a repeat of the file-sharing era’s streaming wars, pitting the music giants against a formidable digital force.

But some in the sector believe in a world move largest music company to remove its artists’ work from the platform could have even more profound consequences. And the specter of artificial intelligence looms everywhere.

This is what the fight is about: Universal says TikTok should pay more to license his songs because the platform has grown so big that it actually underpays compared to its peers. The music company also wants TikTok to do more to protect its artists, such as Taylor Swift and Drake, from the AI ​​threat.

says TikTok Universal is endangering the future of its artists by taking them off a massive marketing and music discovery platform, especially for emerging singers.

The conversations have hit a wall. Shou Chew, TikTok’s CEO, and other executives attempts Resuming negotiations has reportedly failed. Universal boss Lucian Grainge doubled down on his warnings during an earnings call last week, saying there were none “free rides” for TikTok.

What happens is important for the entire sector. According to MIDiA Research, TikTok is the top platform where young consumers, especially teenagers, find new music. TikTok is also transforming the music industry and building what MIDiA de “post-streaming era,” defined by the rise of AI and the ‘consumer creator’.

AI is a potential existential threat to music labels. Universal says TikTok is “inundated” with AI-generated music. As the platform embraces user-generated content, this issue has become a sticking point in conversations.

TikTok wants royalties to be shared with fans, and Universal rejects that idea outright, according to The Financial Times. “AI will also allow social users – and even the platforms themselves – to simply use their own AI-generated music for messages, instead of using music created by human artists,” said Tatiana Cirisano, analyst at MIDiA . told DealBook. “I understand why these developments fuel the fears of labels.”

The pre-wedding party of the year

Tech billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Wall Street heavyweights like Larry Fink. Rihanna and Bollywood stars galore.

Those were among the VIPs — a list that also included prime ministers, royalty and figures like Jared and Ivanka Kushner — who flew to Gujarat, India. They were there during last weekend’s pre-wedding celebration to toast Rhadika Merchant and Anant Ambani, the son of Mukesh Ambani, the head of Reliance Industries and Asia’s richest man.

Rihanna played a long set. (She millions were reportedly paid.) But the three-day extravaganza was just a taste of what’s to come: The actual wedding is scheduled for July.

The coming week

It’s a busy week with payrolls, primaries, the State of the Union address and crucial policy meetings in China. Here’s what you need to check out.

Tuesday: It’s Super Tuesday. Voters go to the polls in fifteen states, including California, Texas and North Carolina. The big question: Could this be Nikki Haley’s last stand?

Elsewhere, China’s “Two Sessions” conference begins in Beijing. Investors will look for an official GDP target for 2024 and any signs of policy moves to restart the economy.

Wednesday: Fed Chairman Jay Powell is expected to give two days of testimony on Capitol Hill. He is expected to emphasize that this is so There is no urgent need to reduce interest rates.

Thursday: President Biden will deliver his State of the Union address. In addition to talking about his economic performance, he does that too expected to advocate for lower health care costs and higher taxes for corporations and the wealthy.

Friday: It’s job day. Economists predict employers will add 190,000 jobs last month, a big drop from last month. As a reminder, the January report was a stunner, with payroll numbers well above Wall Street estimates.

READING THE SPEED

Offers

Policy

• A federal judge in Alabama blocked an effort by the Treasury Department to collect more information from small businesses to help combat money laundering. (NYT)

• Bayer would lobby state governments to this end limit its legal liability for its Roundup weedkiller, the subject of a wave of lawsuits. (FT)

The best of the rest

We want your feedback! Send your ideas and suggestions by email to dealbook@nytimes.com.

Listen and follow 'Hard Fork'
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Bluesky, the Twitter spin-off, is now open for public signups. Can his dreams of decentralization save social media? We talk to the company's CEO, Jay Graber. Next, New York Times reporter Erin Griffith talks about how Adobe's inability to acquire Figma has spooked tech companies and disrupted Silicon Valley's startup pipeline. And finally, updates on age-old scrolls and artificial intelligence, Google's chatbots and the battle between record companies and TikTok.

Credits

“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Rose And Casey Newton and produced by Davisland And Rachel Cohn. This episode was edited by Paula Szuchman. Technology through Alyssa Moxley and original music by Then Powell, Elisheba Ittoop, Marion Lozano And Rowan Niemisto. Fact check through Caitlin Love.

Special thanks to Pui-Wing Tam, Nell Gallogly, Kate LoPresti And Jeffery Miranda.

Cydney Alvarez, a fabric developer from Brooklyn, was packing to visit her family in Dallas for Christmas last year when she realized she had knitted two left-handed mittens for her stepmother. She rushed to replace one: “I was frantically trying to finish it in flight,” she said.

But the challenge is part of why Ms. Alvarez, 29, enjoys knitting gifts. Since 2020, she has knitted a dozen gifts for her family every year during the holidays. This year she made five pairs of mittens, four hats, a stuffed fox in a reindeer dress and a sweater for her father’s large French bulldog. “I’m a little nervous it won’t fit,” she said of the dog sweater, her first. “But I hope for the best.”

The coronavirus pandemic sparked a knitting boom, with people craving new hobbies or calming their nerves during lockdown. And at this time of year, knitting is perfect for gift giving. After all, there are only a limited number of hats you can make for a personal collection.

But when it comes to hand-knitted gifts, some New Yorkers face all kinds of concerns and expectations about the fit, style, pattern and color choice of each item. Will the recipient appreciate the time and attention put into the project? Or do you just put the new scarf or turtleneck in a drawer and never take it out again? For many knitters, the decision of who gets a gift depends on these questions.

And then there’s the curse of the ‘boyfriend sweater’: the looming superstition that if you knit a sweater for your partner, he or she will inevitably break up with you.

“You really have to think about the people you’re giving gifts to,” says Joelle Hoverson, the founder of knitting store Purl Soho and author of “Last-Minute Knitted Gifts.” “Because it’s so charged.”

Maya Gooding, 31, has knitted her father a hat every Christmas for the past six years. As craftsmen would say, Mrs. Gooding’s father is “knit-worthy.”

“He always wears those hats,” said Ms. Gooding, a Westchester knitwear designer who works in the Flatiron district. “My mother will call me: ‘How am I supposed to wash his hat? He wears it all the time.’ When I hear that, no matter the cost or time, I will make him a hat if he wants it.”

For Julie Robinson, 34, someone she has cried for is usually knitting-worthy. “We need a close relationship,” she said.

Ms. Robinson, a knitting teacher and designer in Ridgewood, Queens, typically knits small accessories for other people that can be completed quickly. She has knitted only one sweater, for her mother, when she was in high school in the early 2000s. It was tubular with short sleeves and a ribbon around the neck. Mrs. Robinson chose a yarn that was red – her mother’s favorite color.

“She never wore that sweater,” Mrs. Robinson said. “I’d guess it’s still in their house somewhere, probably because she regrets never wearing it, but it’s really not her style.”

Fortunately, Mrs. Robinson prefers to let go of her gifts once she receives them. “I’m very much in line with Marie Kondo on this,” she said.

A skein of yarn can cost anywhere from a few dollars to thirty dollars, and it can cost two or three dollars to make a scarf long enough to loop several times around an adult’s neck on the coldest days. Ms. Gooding, the knitwear designer, estimated that the cost of hand-knitting a sweater — including tools, yarn and fair hourly wages — could be as much as $2,000. Even for the most experienced knitters, a project can take weeks. The fastest Mrs. Robinson has ever knitted a sweater was within a week.

“And that’s with pretty big needles and thick yarn,” she said.

Several yarn companies, such as Brand Lion And We are knitters, have reported big sales spikes during the pandemic-era boom. Celebrities such as Olympic diver Tom Daley, who I recently knitted a cardigan for Gillian Anderson’s character to wear in ‘Sex Education’, have picked up needles. In New York City, knitting circles have popped up in bars, parks and coffee shops. The trend also coincides with a broader desire for eco-friendly clothing made from natural fibers.

“The fashion world is focusing on garments that are originally more politically correct,” says Olivia Eaton, an adjunct associate professor at the Pratt Institute who teaches hand knitting. “I think sheep’s wool is one of the most sustainable materials you can use.”

That can make knitters feel even better about sharing their craft with others. But it can still sting if the gift doesn’t seem to be appreciated.

Lynda Villa-Fournier, 54, a health care worker and longtime knitter in the Bronx, remembered a gift she made for a friend.

‘I knitted something for her baby, but I never got a picture of the baby wearing it. Nothing,” she said. “So I never knitted anything for her baby again.”

Mrs. Eaton echoed this sentiment. “Honestly, I’m more ready to make something for someone if I’m absolutely sure they’re going to wear it,” she said.

However, Ms Eaton believes that hand-knitted gifts should be donated or passed on as hand-me-downs if the original recipient is not happy with the gift. Years ago, Ms. Eaton was waiting at a subway station in Brooklyn when she saw a young woman wearing a colorful granny-square hooded vest. Mrs. Eaton recognized the garment. She had crocheted it for a friend, who, as it turned out, had given it to her roommate.

“I appreciate the fact that most of my friends are ruthless and not sentimental,” she said.

Austin Rivers, 29, started making just gifts after learning to knit in 2018. An initial project included eight sets of fingerless gloves for his castmates during a musical theater tour in Japan.

In 2020, Mr. Rivers started Knit the Rainbow, a New York-based nonprofit that collects and distributes hand-knitted garments to homeless LGBTQ+ youth. For any knitter worried about choosing the right size or colorway, donating to an unknown recipient can be a way to relieve that stress.

“You can make a size 5 sock or a size 12 sock,” Mr. Rivers said. “And we’ll be able to find someone who needs it.”

Some people find it less daunting to knit for children – or better yet, for babies who can’t talk yet and say they don’t like their new blankets.

Amy Reeder, 43, and her fiancé, Kate Zimmermann, 39, live in Manhattan and have both knitted gifts for children and babies over the years. There was a Cookie Monster vest with cookie buttons, a watermelon hat, and a turtle beret and shark balaclava for Mrs. Reeder’s nieces and nephews.

“I feel like it’s a creative exercise for both of us in different ways,” said Ms. Zimmermann, a book editor. “It’s a body of work – sometimes hilarious, a bit weird.”

But for Ms. Alvarez, the fabric developer, knitting for children can be nerve-wracking. They are often more honest than adults, she said. Last year she made a cuddly toy alpaca for her three-year-old niece. “And as I was wrapping it up,” she said, “I thought, ‘What if she thinks it’s scary or what if she doesn’t like it?'”

Luckily her niece loved it.

“I was so relieved,” Ms. Alvarez said.

During the holidays last year, people visited a baking forum on Reddit with two million members to share a photo and ask a burning question: What the heck is this cookie cutter supposed to be?

The serious answers often helped clear up the bakers’ confusion. Soon, however, the messages surfaced so frequently that one member created a subreddit dedicated to unraveling such mysteries.

The forum on Reddit is called r/WhatIsMyCookieCutter, and its popularity — membership rose to more than 250,000 people this fall — says something about baking. Without packaging or instructions, the shape of a cookie cutter picked up at a thrift store or rescued from the recesses of a cutlery drawer can be difficult to interpret. Is it supposed to be a reindeer? A dinosaur? The state of Wyoming?

There are no wrong answers on r/WhatIsMyCookieCutter. As more members arrived, the group evolved into a self-contained world full of inside jokes and running gags. Others respond to questions by uploading renderings of what a cookie cutter could be, often using a drawing and painting app like Procreate to sketch their whimsical and colorful suggestions.

Over time, these drawings became as much the focus of the subreddit as answering questions about the shapes. One person will find a rose in each cookie cutter. Another sees nothing but pineapples. Recently the account from the “I’m Just a Bill” segment on “Schoolhouse Rock!” has made cameo appearances.

“This sub used to have a very specific purpose, which was to identify the shapes of the more unique cookie cutters out there,” says Tes Reilly of Washington, DC, an avid cookie decorator and one of seven current moderators. from the subreddit. “It was practical.”

Now, “people are not here because they are avid cookie-cutter users with pressing questions,” added Ms. Reilly, a doctoral candidate in media psychology, “but because the drawings are hilarious, the inside jokes comforting, the attitude is always positive and despite its size or shape, it is a very real, very meaningful community.”

You spent so much time trying to find a way to virtually bring in the state of Wyoming each form Posted that she felt obliged to one formal farewell last month when the subreddit became too much of a distraction. “I am saddened to announce that I will no longer be posting in Wyoming,” she wrote. “But I will definitely come by again.” The post received thousands of votes and hundreds of comments.

Another drew a rose in so many shapes like cookie cutters that the image became a kind of symbol for the community, inspiring bakers to recreate it in their icing designs. “In honor of our special friend,” one message readsaccompanied by nine cookies, all decorated with icing that resembles the flower.

“Reddit and Reddit users generally get a bad rap on other social media platforms, but this subreddit proves how healthy users can be,” says Angelina Cannon, who lives in Middlesex County, NJ. Ms. Cannon said she didn’t have much baking experience, but was drawn to the subreddit after following similar identification forums, such as r/WhatIsThisThing.

“I really wasn’t expecting all the art when I joined, but it definitely kept me interested,” she said.

There are a few rules. The first is that every message must be related to a cookie cutter; another bans the sale of cookie cutters. The moderators try not to suppress creativity and fun, with the aim of maintaining a lively atmosphere.

“I’ve been part of communities where the moderators are too strict or too strict,” says Garyn Greene of Ohio, who recently joined the group’s moderation team after noticing the subreddit’s rising popularity. “I like to make sure it is what the community wants it to be.”

Even with the self-referential jokes, open lines, and growing sense of camaraderie, the subreddit still serves its original purpose. Last month, for example, a baker posted a photo of the only cookie cutter they had yet to identify from a set. People populated the comments with drawings of a giraffe, a check engine light and of course a pineapple. Many were surprised to hear that a sewing machine was the right answer.

Not everyone appreciates the turn the group has taken, but according to the moderators there are few negative reactions. To keep people involved, there are plans for competitions and online events.

Whether you see roses on a Christmas tree or Wyoming in a circle, Ms. Reilly said there’s one thing everyone can agree on this holiday season: “I mean, who doesn’t love cookies?”