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The prospect of Aaron Rodgers becoming RFK Jr.’s running-mate is hilarious, but it calls into question some of Aaron’s past decision-making.

Why move from a swing state to a deep blue state ahead of election season?

If he’s really serious about running, he should demand a trade to the Steelers, Lions, or Browns immediately.

Just think about it, if he won a Super Bowl for any of those teams the RFK/Rodgers ticket would win PA/MI/OH in a landslide.

🗞 The Big Story: March Madness Missed Big

📉 Biggest Loser: Lululemon’s Controversial Origin

🏆 Winner’s Circle: Voters Decide the Fate of KC Stadiums

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🗞 The Big Story

The NCAA missed out on hundreds of millions of dollars when it comes to March Madness, and an upcoming college football deal could make it look even worse.

Background: In 2010, the NCAA signed a 14-year deal with CBS and Turner Sports worth $10.8 billion or about $770 million annually.

This gave the networks the right to air every single tournament game.

That deal was originally set to expire this year, allowing the NCAA to renegotiate their TV contracts and earn way more money.*

But the NCAA can’t actually start a new March Madness deal until 2033, and it looks like they might be regretting it.

Early Extension: In 2016, just six years into their 14-year deal, the NCAA signed an eight-year, $8.8 billion extension that runs through 2032.

That’s equivalent to $26.9 million per March Madness game every year over the life of the extension.

For Comparison: The College Football Playoff is expected to earn $7.8 billion across six years in its upcoming contract, which equates to $1.3 billion per season (with fewer games.)

In fact, given the length of the men’s March Madness deal, it’s possible that the College Football Playoff will sign, complete, and renegotiate another deal before the NCAA can renegotiate their current March Madness terms.

Future Alignment: At least the NCAA was looking ahead a little bit. Its recent ESPN deal covering women’s March Madness and other championships also goes through 2032.

So the next time the NCAA goes to the negotiating table, it will finally have all of its major championships to package together and present to potential media partners.

📉 Biggest Loser

Lululemon got its name because its founder thought Japanese people wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. I’m not kidding.

I was first tipped off to this theory via a clip from the Bad Friends Podcast.

@chrisdcomedy

Does Lulu Lemon wanna make fun of all Asians?? Im on Bad Friends pod this week. Nashville come see me live this weekend at The Ryman #lul... See more

The story was so ridiculous, that I had to dig in for myself, and boy did I go down a Lululemon rabbit hole…

Background: Canadian businessman, Chip Wilson, founded Lululemon in 1998 after running a successful skate and snowboard brand called Homeless Skateboard in Japan.

Evidently, the “L” sound doesn’t exist in the Japanese language and according to Chip, “brand names with Ls in them sound even more authentically North American/Western to Japanese consumers.”

As proof, Chip says that he was selling snowboard and skateboard gear at a price he thought was “absolutely ridiculous” to the Japanese, but they still bought it.

He even called it the easiest money he ever made in his life.

More L’s, More Money: So when Chip was scheming up a yoga clothing line, that he planned to sell in Japan as well, he wanted to make sure to include as many L’s as he could.

In an interview in 2004, he actually said as much, “It’s a tough pronunciation for them. So I thought, next time I have a company, I’ll make a name with three Ls and see if I can get three times the money.”

He went on to say “It’s kind of exotic for them. I was playing with Ls and came up with Lululemon. It’s funny to watch them try and say it.”

Doubling Down: Chip didn’t receive much pushback for this quote at the time and has since willingly told the story himself as recently as 2022 on his TikTok.

Chip sold part of his ownership in Lululemon for $845 million in 2014 but still owns 8% of the company - making him the brand’s largest single stakeholder.

🏆 Winner’s Circle

The Kansas City Royals just announced a brand new, $2 billion downtown stadium, there’s just one problem:

They don’t know how they’re going to pay for it.

Background: The Royals have been playing at Kauffman Stadium since 1973 and the team’s billionaire owner claims that the ballpark, which is located almost 9 miles from downtown Kansas City, is too old to renovate.

That’s why they’ve proposed a new, 34,000-seat stadium right in downtown Kansas City.

Aside from the ballpark, the team would also develop a commercial district around the stadium complete with:

• Hotels

• Offices

• Shops

• Restaurants

• 4,000-person concert venue.

The stadium itself will cost an estimated $1 billion, with the other $1 billion being used for the surrounding development.

So who’s going to pay for all that?

We The People: The decision is being put up to a vote in Jackson County on April 2nd.

This vote will decide whether or not citizens in and around Kansas City want to approve a new 3/8th-cent sales tax that would be collected over the next 40 years to help pay for a new baseball stadium and $500M worth of renovations to Arrowhead Stadium.

It is worth mentioning that Jackson County already voted “yes” on this same tax increase, in 2006, but that increase is set to expire in 2031. So this vote would effectively extend the increase that is already in place through 2071.

However, during that time, Kansas City residents paid some of the highest sales taxes in the country, with rates as high as 12% between the state, county, and city.

This resulted in taxpayers contributing over $500M to maintain its teams’ stadiums over the last 16 years.

Extending this tax increase means people in Jackson County would be paying an estimated $6 billion to fund its sports teams for the duration of the bill.

Or Else: It’s unclear what voters will decide but the Royals have already stated they’re willing to move the stadium 3 miles north of the city into a different county if it means getting a better deal.

⏱ In Other News

• Adidas in decline?

• Losing your job? You don’t say…

• Ok, boomer.

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👋 Happy Friday! I coach baseball at a high school in Minneapolis and on our first day of practice (March 11) we were outside.

I don’t know if I should thank El Nino or global warming but either way, the number of times Minnesota schools have been able to practice outside on the first day of baseball season in the past 20 years has to be close to zero.

Go Tommies.