Raphael Stevens

Angel City FC announced Willow Bay and Bob Iger had agreed to an investment of an undisclosed amount that values the team at $250 million.
Last year, Angel City FC generated the highest revenue of any women’s team in the world. It was also No. 1 in NWSL attendance and sponsorship revenue.

Bob Iger, chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Co., and his wife attend Willow Bay the Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference on July 11, 2024 in Sun Valley, Idaho. 
Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images

Willow Bay and Bob Iger will take a controlling stake in Angel City Football Club, the world’s most valuable women’s professional sports team.
On Wednesday, Angel City of the National Women’s Soccer League announced the couple had agreed to an investment of an undisclosed amount that values the team at $250 million. The club said Bay and Iger will invest an additional $50 million in the club’s future growth.

According to NWSL bylaws, controlling owners must own at least 35% of the team, which puts the pair’s purchase agreement at a minimum of $87.5 million.
Bay will serve on and have full control of the Angel City FC board, the team said.
Last year, Angel City FC generated the highest revenue of any women’s team in the world. It was also No. 1 in NWSL attendance and sponsorship revenue.
“We know they are the right partners to lead us into this new era – they are committed tofurther strengthening ACFC’s position as a preeminent organization and brand in women’s sports and to championing the team’s broader mission, including the advancement of equity for athletes and women founded businesses,” the ACFC Board of Directors said in a statement.

Claire Emslie #10 of Angel City FC passes against the Bay FC in the first half at PayPal Park on June 22, 2024 in San Jose, California. (Photo by Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
Eakin Howard | Getty Images

Angel City FC was founded in 2020 by actress Natalie Portman, venture capitalist Kara Nortman and entrepreneur Julie Urhman.

The ownership group also includes a long list of sports icons including Billie Jean King, Abby Wambach, and Lindsey Vonn.
Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian had been the club’s controlling owner.
Bay, who also serves as Dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said she’s committed to advancing the club’s mission of driving equity on and off the field.
“With this investment of resources and capital, we hope to accelerate the growth of the Club and the NWSL,” she said in a statement. More

Spirit said non-ticket revenue, which accounts for the myriad fees long associated with its rock-bottom fares, came in “several dollars lower than anticipated” per passenger.
The carrier is struggling with weak fares, an oversupplied U.S. market, an engine recall and the aftermath of its failed acquisition by JetBlue Airways.

A Spirit Airlines aircraft undergoes operations in preparation for departure at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Austin, Texas, on Feb. 12, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Spirit Airlines said Tuesday it would post a wider-than-expected loss for the last quarter because of revenue that came in short of its expectations.
Spirit expects to report an adjusted loss of between $160 million and $173 million for the three months ended June 30, compared with a previous estimate for a loss of no more than $145 million. It expects sales of $1.28 billion, down from a forecast of at least $1.32 billion.

Spirit said non-ticket revenue, which accounts for the myriad fees long associated with its rock-bottom fares, came in “several dollars lower than anticipated” per passenger.
Shares of the budget airline were down about 6% in extended trading after the airline released its investor update in a securities filing.
The airline, along with rival Frontier Airlines, has recently revamped how it sells tickets by offering bundles that include things like seat assignments and carry-on bags that it used to sell a la carte. That brings its business practice more in line with larger competitors.
“As the Company progresses on its transformation strategy, it anticipates that over time it will be able to drive improvement in total revenue per passenger segment,” Spirit said.
The company is facing several challenges, such as oversupplied U.S. domestic market, an engine recall from supplier Pratt & Whitney that has grounded dozens of aircraft and the fallout of a federal judge’s ruling to block a planned acquisition by JetBlue Airways earlier this year.

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Royal Caribbean thinks shortening trips and packing the days with activities and exclusive opportunities will help it capture customers as travel demand soars.
The cruise company is bringing Utopia, the world’s second-largest ship with a maximum capacity of nearly 5,800 passengers, to market. It features 13 pools, 21 dining options, two casinos, and much more.
“There is not an area on the ship that we’ve seen a change in their spending behavior,” CEO Jason Liberty told CNBC.

With consumers getting more selective on how and where they vacation, cruise lines are fighting for Americans’ tourist budgets. Royal Caribbean thinks shortening trips and packing the days with activities and exclusive opportunities will keep customers hooked.
“I think we are an experience-driven mindset,” Royal Caribbean CEO Jason Liberty told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” this week. “Over half of our guests are actually millennials or younger, and when you survey those guests, about 42% of them say in the next 12 months their plans are to actually go on shorter vacation experiences.”

Onboard Royal’s Utopia of the Seas, the world’s second-largest ship with a maximum capacity of nearly 5,800 passengers, customers are welcomed to 13 pools, 21 dining options, two casinos, and much more. This is the second cruise ship Royal Caribbean is bringing to market in the span of six months. Liberty says the voracious appetite to cruise post-pandemic has not died down.
“We’re not seeing any pullback from the consumer, whether that’s planning their vacation experiences further out … [or] then on the ships, they go out and they continue to spend,” Liberty said. “There is not an area on the ship that we’ve seen a change in their spending behavior.”
To scale its business and widen its appeal, Royal Caribbean is looking at how to better compete with other types of vacations customers opt for, like skiing, casinos or theme parks.
“When we look at what our guests are doing when they’re not with us, they’re going to Orlando, they’re going to Vegas, they’re going to all-inclusive resorts,” Liberty said. “What we’re trying to do is make sure that our experience, whether on the ship or at our private islands, is something that is highly competitive with land-based vacation.”
Morningstar travel and leisure analyst Jamie Katz thinks Liberty’s strategy to get the Disney theme park traveler on board is working.

“The American traveler doesn’t always have time to take a six- to eight-day cruise due to work schedules and kids’ school calendars,” Katz said. “A three-day cruise provides customers with more options.”

Expansion plans

One of the benefits of bringing a new ship to market — you’re able to charge more.
“You’re really seeing sizable pricing premiums. Historically, pricing of a new ship is a 20% premium to existing ships across the industry,” said Patrick Scholes, travel and leisure analyst at Truist Securities.
Scholes said the Utopia price bump for Royal Caribbean could be even higher.
Liberty said he expects higher pricing to hold into the second half of the year, pointing to the “value gap” between cruises and land-based vacations.
Rival Carnival, too, has raised prices amid strong demand.
“We haven’t seen that sign of a consumer slowdown, if anything, we are seeing an acceleration,” CEO Josh Weinstein told CNBC after the company’s most recent earnings report in mid-June.

Analysts point out that cruising is one of the few areas within the travel and hospitality sector where prices continue to sharply rise. Last week, Delta Air Lines revealed softer prices compared with last year. HSBC analysts expect airfares to stay flat or decline in 2024 over 2023.
Several analysts and investors will be sailing aboard Utopia this week to better understand what differentiates the cruise ship from its competitors.
One area of interest will be the impact of cutting-edge technologies: Liberty said artificial intelligence is helping Utopia reduce food waste by 30% to 40%. The company is also using AI to help with dynamic pricing and smart management of customer data.
Beyond Utopia, there aren’t too many ships coming online from the cruise giants.
Royal Caribbean currently has the strongest order book in the industry. The company’s Icon of the Seas, the biggest cruise ship in the world with a capacity of 7,600 passengers, made a splash earlier this year.
On Royal Caribbean’s recent earnings call, executives said Icon bookings are holding strong through 2025.
“We’re entering a two- to three-year period where there are minimal number of ships coming online. Typically, the industry grows supply by 5% to 7% ever year,” Scholes said.
But building a massive cruise ship requires extensive work. Wall Street analysts estimate it takes three to five years to order and get a ship delivered.
Norwegian Cruise Line is working on bringing eight new ships to market in the next six years.
Viking Cruises, which went public earlier this year and has seen its stock trade well above its debut price, is bringing three new ocean cruise ships to market over the course of the next three years, not including its river-based ships.

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It’s natural for prices to rise over time, but the pandemic pushed inflation to levels not seen in decades.
There are a handful of retail categories, dominated by consumer electronics, however, that are cheaper today than they were pre-pandemic.
Some of the deflation has to do with nuances with the calculation of the consumer price index.

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It’s the nature of prices to go up over time, even in low-inflation environments. Historically, the target for the U.S. Federal Reserve has been 2% annual inflation.
So when worldwide events like the Covid-19 pandemic push inflation well above that 2% target, it can be a real shock to consumers. Since hitting 9% in June 2022, it’s been a slow crawl to get the pace of inflation down to the Fed’s preferred target.

And while inflation has indeed pulled back from that 2022 peak — now down to 3%, according to the most recent consumer price index from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — prices are still about 20% higher than they were pre-pandemic.
There are a handful of retail categories, dominated by consumer electronics, that buck the trend and are actually cheaper now than they were before the pandemic, based on a CNBC review of CPI categories in June 2024 compared with June 2019.
That includes telephone hardware; televisions; audio equipment; computers; certain cookware; and toys, game and hobby items.

Same price, better value

Even when annual inflation was at its peak, prices for consumer electronics consistently showed signs of deflation. Some of that has to do with nuances with the calculation of the CPI itself.
Prices for smartphones, for example, which are a large component of the telephone hardware category, get special adjustments at the Bureau of Labor Statistics to account for rapid improvements in technology.

The CPI routinely shows that smartphone prices are falling, but it’s actually reflecting that consumers are getting better, more sophisticated products for the same price.
Such hedonic adjustments — the term BLS uses to describe it’s adjustments for changes in item quality — span the whole consumer price index and include categories from men’s underwear to home computers to refrigerators. They’re meant to reflect the change in value that the consumer is receiving for what they’re paying.

Why televisions continue to be cheap

But hedonic adjustments can’t account for everything when the CPI is registering drops in prices. Televisions are a good example: Prices keep falling, but in some cases, manufacturers have to slash prices to stay competitive and get consumers’ attention.
“Purely from a manufacturing standpoint, in general with new technology and consumer electronics, there’s a learning curve that naturally evolves, which lowers the cost of a product without compromising the quality,” Andrew Csicsila, head of the Americas for consumer products at AlixPartners, told CNBC ahead of Black Friday last year.
That’s happened aggressively with smart TVs, to the point that the technology has become pretty universal and making it difficult to compete on product features. But Csicsila has also cited other revenue streams for manufacturers that allow them to sell units barely above cost and flood the ultra-competitive marketplace with low-price products.

“The reason they’re trying to do this is really to gain data,” Csicsila said. “If you look at their earnings reports, [manufacturers] are citing new revenue streams, which are actually the monitoring and exchanging of data that they’re capturing.”
In other words, the price of the television box is just an entry point to get into your house. Once you’ve connected it to the internet and use it with all the functionality a smart TV can offer, there’s a lot for manufacturers and app developers to learn about your entertainment habits.
“The amount of data that is being leveraged and targeted for advertisers to capture is astounding,” Csicsila said.
In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled for those door-buster prices. More