Raphael Stevens

Major League Soccer said it set a fresh regular season record with nearly 11.5 million fans attending games.
The growth comes a year after the league implemented a new club performance unit, led by Chris McGowan, which advises clubs on business strategies.
The league, which saw its regular season end this past weekend, also experienced more fan engagement on social media and notches record sponsorship revenue.

Lionel Messi of Inter Miami competes during a friendly match between Inter Miami and Newell’s Old Boys at DRV PNK Stadium in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on February 15, 2024. 
Arturo Jimenez | Anadolu | Getty Images

Major League Soccer scored several regular season records, including for attendance and sponsorship, thanks in part to international super star Lionel Messi — and corporate strategy.
MLS has been nabbing well-known athletes like Messi and Luis Suárez, and leaning on the growing popularity of the sport within the U.S. in a bid to solidify its fanbase after nearly three decades of league play. It’s even created a corporate team to help clubs implement new business strategies.

It appears to be paying off. Nearly 11.5 million people attended MLS matches during the regular season — which ended this past weekend — the most in its history, according to data from the league. That’s up 5% from last year, and 14% from 2022. Each match during the 2024 season averaged 23,234 attendees, the highest ever for the regular season.
While those stats pale in comparison to other U.S. professional sports leagues — the National Basketball Association had more than 22.5 million attendees during the 2023-2024 regular season, for example — MLS seems to be building momentum.
Last year, MLS’ Inter Miami signed Messi, which caused a surge in attendance, jersey and other product sales, and overall fanbase engagement. The halo effect from the Messi, often referred to as the greatest of all time, seems to have held even with Messi playing fewer games this season due to an injury.
This past weekend Inter Miami ended the season with 74 points, breaking the MLS record for most scored in a season, and Messi notched a hat trick for the first time with the U.S. league. The MLS postseason begins this week.

Fans with signs supporting Lionel Messi before the start a MLS League game between Inter Miami CF (1) and D.C.United (0) at the Chase Stadium on May 18th, 2024 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA.
Simon M Bruty | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

But it wasn’t just on-the-field talent that made the difference.

This was the first full season that Chris McGowan served as executive vice president and chief club performance officer at the league since joining in June 2023. McGowan was hired to lead the new unit, which serves to advise and develop strategies to help clubs perform better, particularly on the business side.
While most of this season was focused on building out McGowan’s team, he said they also developed a strategic plan when it comes to identifying focus areas and creating relationships with clubs. McGowan’s role is akin to a consultant, making suggestions that the teams can choose to implement or not.
For example, McGowan and his unit helped the New York Red Bulls this season “with some decisions on premium seating that they’re going to launch in their stadium.”
“We foster continued growth by being a great resource for clubs in areas like quickly and efficiently sharing best practices,” said McGowan. “Being able to quickly get information for clubs to make business decisions … these are things that maybe weren’t happening as systematically and as efficiently as they are now.”

Kicking off new records

Fans of Nashville SC cheer for their team prior to the match at GEODIS Park on February 25, 2024 in Nashville, Tennessee. 
Johnnie Izquierdo | Getty Images Sport | Getty Images

The bigger audience is drawing bigger sponsorship dollars.
The league signed 18 new sponsorship partners this season between MLS and Soccer United Marketing, or SUM, the commercial arm of MLS. Sponsorship revenue for the league and SUM was up 13% year to date, and sponsorship revenue at the club level was also up 13% for the same period.
League- and club-level sponsorship revenue both reached records.
Messi’s Inter Miami jersey continued to be a fan favorite, ranking as the highest-selling jersey in the league. It was also No. 1 globally for Adidas in jersey sales of individual players, according to MLS.
Meanwhile, its social media following grew faster than any other major men’s North American sports league on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, according to the league. On TikTok, followers were up 26% since the beginning of the year. On YouTube, followers were up 21%, and on Instagram, they were up 10%.
Inter Miami led the league as the most followed North American sports team on TikTok with 9.4 million followers, according to MLS. It was the third most followed North American sports team on Instagram with 17.2 million followers.
Like other sports leagues in the U.S., MLS has been focusing on growing its audience and presence internationally. Earlier this month it signed an agreement with German digital media platform OneFootball to provide highlights, stats and other content to a global audience.
When it comes to TV viewership — a marquee stat for most other professional sports leagues in the U.S. — MLS is in something of a league of its own. The league has an exclusive media rights deal with Apple, meaning most of its matches are only available through MLS Season Pass on Apple TV, a separate subscription alongside the Apple TV+ streaming service.
Viewership data isn’t available for MLS Season Pass, but Apple executives have said on public calls that the audience has risen since Messi joined the league.

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Walmart said Tuesday that it will start delivering prescriptions to customers’ doorsteps.
The discounter will start with six states, but plans to offer prescription delivery in 49 states by the end of January.
Walmart’s move comes as Walgreens and CVS shutter stores and try to turn around their struggling businesses.

Walmart will start to deliver prescriptions to customers’ doorsteps. Customers can also get additional items dropped off along with medications, such as groceries.
Courtesy of Walmart

As CVS and Walgreens shutter hundreds of stores nationwide to shore up profits and investor sentiment, Walmart said Tuesday that it is offering a new option for customers: Delivering prescriptions to their doorsteps.
The nation’s largest retailer said deliveries are now available in six states: Arkansas, Missouri, New York, Nevada, South Carolina and Wisconsin. The company said in a news release that it expects to deliver prescriptions in 49 states by the end of January. Prescription deliveries will not be available in North Dakota due to state laws, Walmart said.

The prescription delivery service is another example of how Walmart is trying to outmatch competitors on convenience along with low prices. With the new service, customers can get a mix of items dropped off during the same delivery, such as a box of tissues, blanket or chicken noodle soup.
Walmart’s new delivery offering could be another blow to drugstore chains, which are falling out of favor with consumers in a trend that has hit their profits and stock prices and forced them to reconsider their strategies. Still, it is unclear how much market share Walmart could win from CVS and Walgreens, both of which offer same-day, one-day and two-day prescription deliveries.
Tom Ward, chief e-commerce officer for Walmart U.S., said the company added pharmacy deliveries because of shopper demand.
“This is actually the number one service requested by our customers,” he said.
He said Walmart tested the deliveries in several states and saw that customers took advantage of getting a mix of items, including the prescription, in a single delivery.

Walmart’s delivery service will be available for new prescriptions and refills, the company said. It will cost $9.95 for a delivery, the standard price for Walmart doorstep deliveries, but will be free for members of Walmart+, the company’s membership program.
Health insurance plans will be applied to the transaction, like they would in the store, the company said.
The deliveries will come with a few more safety steps than Walmart’s other deliveries, the company said: Medications will be put into tamper-evident packaging. Customers can track orders in real time through Walmart’s app or website and get a photo in the app or by email when the prescription is delivered. And when a customer orders a new prescription and chooses delivery, they are prompted to do a consultation with the pharmacy by phone.
Most of Walmart’s annual revenue in the U.S. – nearly 60% – comes from groceries, but health and wellness is a growing category for the company, according to the retailer’s most recent annual filing for the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31. Health and wellness accounts for about 12% of its annual revenue in the U.S. It includes pharmacy, over-the-counter drugs and other medical products, optical services and other clinical services.

A new challenge for drugstores

As of Monday’s close, shares of Walmart were up around 54% for the year. Meanwhile, shares of CVS were down roughly 26% so far this year, while shares of Walgreens were down nearly 60%.
CVS is the top U.S. pharmacy in terms of prescription drug revenue, holding more than 25% of the market share in 2023, according to Statista data released in March. Walgreens trailed behind with nearly 15% of that share last year, while Walmart held just 5% of that share.
CVS and Walgreens are grappling with falling reimbursement rates for prescription drugs. Inflation, softer consumer spending and competition from Amazon, big-box retailers and grocery stores are making it difficult for them to turn a profit at the front of the store, which carries cleaning supplies, beauty products and pantry staples, among other items.
CVS CEO Karen Lynch left the company and was replaced by David Joyner last week, as CVS faces pressure from Wall Street and, more recently, an activist investor to turn around its business. On top of the leadership shakeup, CVS plans to cut $2 billion in expenses over several years. That includes slashing less than 1% of its workforce, or roughly 2,900 jobs, on the corporate side of its business.
The company is also wrapping up a three-year plan to close 900 of its stores, with 851 locations closed as of August.
Walgreens is similarly cutting costs, announcing last week that it will close roughly 1,200 stores over the next three years, which includes 500 in fiscal 2025 alone. The chain has around 8,700 locations in the U.S., a quarter of which it says are unprofitable.
Walmart has faced its own financial challenges on the health-care side of the business. The discounter planned to bring its low-price spin to health care by opening clinics that offered doctor, dentist and therapy appointments for less.
Yet in the spring, Walmart shuttered all of the clinics, saying in a news release at the time that it couldn’t operate a profitable business because of “the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.” More

“Swicy,” a portmanteau of sweet and spicy, has become the popular term to describe the resurgence of sweet and spicy food and drinks appearing on menus this year.
Nearly a tenth of U.S. restaurants have “sweet and spicy” menu items, according to Datassential.
While sweet and spicy pairings are nothing new, a more diverse population and Gen Z’s desire for heat have fueled the latest iteration of the trend.

A general view of atmosphere during ‘Sonic Desert’ presented by Coca-Cola Spiced and Topo Chico in partnership with BPM Music on April 13, 2024 in Thermal, California. 
Randy Shropshire | Getty Images

The hottest food and drink trend this year isn’t just spicy — it’s also sweet.
“Swicy,” a portmanteau of sweet and spicy, has taken over restaurant marketing. While the term hasn’t actually appeared on menus, the shorthand has become a popular way to describe the resurgence of foods and drinks marrying sweet and spicy flavors. The Food Institute even dubbed it the “Summer of Swicy” this year.

Nearly 10% of restaurant menus have “sweet and spicy” items, up 1.8% over the last 12 months, according to market research firm Datassential. Over the next four years, its menu penetration is expected to rise 9.6%.
A slew of restaurant chains have embraced the trend, from Shake Shack’s swicy menu to Burger King’s Fiery Strawberry & Sprite to Starbucks’ Spicy Lemonade Refreshers. Common menu items have paired fruity flavors and chili powder, or used sauces like hot honey and gochujang, a red chili paste that’s a popular Korean condiment.

Starbucks Spicy Lemonade Refreshers.
Courtesy: Starbucks

Although the menu items were largely only available for a limited time, culinary experts think that the swicy trend has staying power.
Buzzy, trendy menu items are more important now to restaurants, which are leaning on both discounts and innovation to attract diners and reverse declining sales. In August, traffic to U.S. restaurants fell 3.6%, the industry’s second-worst monthly performance this year since January, according to Black Box Intelligence. Limited-time menu items are particularly attractive to Gen Z customers, a key demographic because they account for roughly a fifth of Americans.

The ‘swicy’ story

While the swicy portmanteau might be new, the flavor pairings have been around for decades, according to trendologist Kara Nielsen. The one element that might have changed over time are the spice levels.

“I’m sure food is hotter now than it was 20 years ago,” Nielsen said.
She remembers when Jeffrey Saad opened a fast-casual Mexican restaurant in San Francisco called Sweet Heat in 1993, before he became a celebrity chef and Food Network star.

Fudio | Istock | Getty Images

The second coming of the sweet heat trend started when Mike’s Hot Honey started blowing up around 2010, according to Nielsen. Korean cuisine, especially its sweet and spicy gochujang sauces have become more popular, too, helping to drive more people to the flavor combination.
The pandemic also led more consumers to return to classic comfort foods: burgers, fried chicken sandwiches and pizza. But the desire for familiar favorites has faded, and now diners are once again seeking novelty — or at least a twist.
“Now, four years on, we’re moving out of this and adding more spicy flavors,” Nielsen said.
Experts at McCormick first called out the reemerging trend in its 2022 flavor forecast report, according to Hadar Cohen Aviram, executive chef for the spice and flavoring company’s U.S. consumer division.
McCormick highlighted “plus sweet,” when sweetness acts as a flavor enhancer rather than being the star of the show. The forecasters were even considering naming the trend “swicy” in their report but went with “plus sweet” because it was broader, she said.
The following year, McCormick, which owns Frank’s RedHot and Cholula, called out “beyond heat,” or using other flavors to bring out more flavor in addition to the spiciness.
“We see lots of different people wanting to add some heat to their plates, but they do want to make sure that there’s something for everyone,” Cohen Aviram said.

Gen Zwicy?

One reason why so many U.S. consumers are seeking out spicy foods and drinks? Increasing diversity.
“The reason that sweet heat or swicy is sort of everlasting is that it’s a key component of traditional global cuisines like Mexican, like Thai, like Korean, that a lot of people of those ancestries and heritages are familiar with it. Then it gets introduced and repackaged,” Nielsen said.
For example, Shake Shack’s culinary team was inspired to make Korean-inspired items for a limited-time menu, according to John Karangis, the company’s executive chef and vice president of culinary innovation.
One of the menu items was a Korean fried chicken sandwich, coated in a sweet and spicy gochujang glaze. After it created the limited-time menu, Shake Shack’s marketing team pitted the chicken sandwich against the Korean BBQ burger, with savory and salty flavors. It told customers to pick a side: team swicy or team umami.
The swicy trend also appeals to Gen Z, the cohort born between 1997 and 2012.
“We have a new generation, Generation Z, that’s really excited about complex flavor profiles — but there’s only so many you can taste: sweet, salty, bitter, umami,” Nielsen said.
Here’s one example of the generation’s heat-seeking behavior: over half of Gen Z consumers identify as “hot sauce connoisseurs,” according to a survey conducted by NCSolutions.
And with swicy, achieving the perfect ratio can be tough because it’s so personal, McCormick’s Cohen Aviram said.
Feedback from Shake Shack’s customers reflects that, too.
“Of course, we hear a lot of great feedback from guests, and we also heard other feedback like ‘Hey, you could have punched it up a little bit,'” Karangis said.
Cohen Aviram prefers about 40% sweet, 60% spicy when she’s creating swicy concoctions, like a Frank’s RedHot ice cream bar.
“The thing with sweetness if that it kind of hijacks your palate, so if you use too much of it, you’re just not going to sense the nuance,” she said.
When Burger King released its Fiery menu this summer, it ranked the items on a scale of spiciness. At one – meaning the least spicy – was its Fiery Strawberry & Sprite drink. The swicy menu item was inspired by another trend: “dirty sodas,” the combination of soda, creamers and syrups started in Utah, according to Pat O’Toole, Burger King North America’s chief marketing officer.
The drink marked the first time that Burger King tweaked a classic fountain beverage, but it previously introduced a Frozen Fanta Kickin’ Mango, with a similar swicy flavor profile.
“Guests can easily and accessibly try a ‘swicy’ beverage offering and work their way up the spice scale with other food items, if they so choose,” O’Toole said, adding that the chain saw strong interest across its focus groups for a spicy take on Sprite.
Of course, not all swicy profiles resonate with customers. For example, Coca-Cola in September discontinued its spiced Coke just six months after it hit shelves, after it initially intended it as a permanent offering.
But despite some missteps, the swicy pairing is likely here to stay – at least for a while.
“The flavors will stick around, for sure. I think the name will get tiresome. … It probably still has a couple of years to go,” Nielsen said.

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Lucid Group announced a public offering last week to raise roughly $1.75 billion.
CEO Peter Rawlinson said the raise was a timely, strategic business decision to ensure the EV maker has enough capital for its ongoing operations and growth plans.
He told CNBC that investors should have expected the move, saying it was “misinterpreted and misreported” after the company’s stock fell.

Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson poses at the Nasdaq MarketSite as Lucid Motors (Nasdaq: LCID) begins trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange after completing its business combination with Churchill Capital Corp IV in New York City, New York, July 26, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters

DETROIT — Investors misinterpreted a public offering on Wednesday by Lucid Group that raised roughly $1.75 billion — and led to the stock’s worst daily performance in nearly three years, CEO Peter Rawlinson told CNBC.
Rawlinson said the raise, which included a public offering of nearly 262.5 million shares of its common stock, was a timely, strategic business decision to ensure the electric vehicle company has enough capital for its ongoing operations and growth plans. It also should alleviate any potential worries that the company would need to issue a “going concern” disclosure regarding its operations, he said.

“We’d signaled that we had a cash runway to Q4 next year. As a Nasdaq company, we have to avoid a going concern. And a going concern is issued within 12 months of your financial runway,” Rawlinson said Monday from the company’s newly opened offices in suburban Detroit. “So, it should have been no surprise to anybody.”
But Wall Street analysts largely took a negative view of the move due to its timing. Several said the raise was unnecessary or came earlier than expected for the company, which had $5.16 billion of total liquidity to end the third quarter. That included more than $4 billion in cash, cash equivalents and investment balances.
The announced transactions also come two months after Lucid said Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund had agreed to supply the company with $1.5 billion in cash, as the EV maker looks to add new models to its product line.
“A cap raise was slightly larger and earlier than we had expected,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas wrote following the raise being announced Wednesday after markets closed.

Stock chart icon

Lucid’s stock

RBC Capital Markets analyst Tom Narayan shared similar thoughts: “We suspect that investors will wonder why LCID is raising more capital just after it secured the PIF capital in August, and at currently depressed share price levels. We expect Lucid shares to trade sharply lower as a result,” he wrote in an investor note Wednesday night.

Rawlinson on Monday reiterated that the company would raise capital “opportunistically.” He said the company’s current funds now secure its capital into 2026, ahead of it launching a new midsize platform later that year.
“This is exactly as expected. It is exactly to the playbook. It should have come as zero surprise to anyone,” he said. “And why did I choose this moment? Because I didn’t want to string it out to the end, because I didn’t have to.”
Shares of Lucid declined about 18% on Thursday after the announcement — marking the worst daily decline for the company since December 2021.
Rawlinson said Lucid is currently in a highly capital-intensive investment period as it expands its sole U.S. factory in Arizona; builds a second plant in Saudi Arabia; prepares to launch its second product, an SUV called Gravity; develops its next-generation powertrain; and builds out its retail and service network.
“Those five categories are the long-term investment for the future that we’re making now,” Rawlinson said. “Have we got to cut costs with every car we’re making? Absolutely.”

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Wednesday’s announcement was made in conjunction with plans for Lucid’s majority stockholder and affiliate of PIF, Ayar Third Investment Co., to purchase more than 374.7 million shares of common stock from Lucid to maintain its roughly 59% ownership of the company.
Such a transaction is called pro rata, which allows an investor such as PIF to participate in future rounds of financing and retain its ownership stake. It’s something the PIF has routinely done with Lucid.
Individual investors were likely concerned by share dilution following the action, but Rawlinson said the continued support of the PIF should be viewed as a positive.
“I think it’s been misinterpreted and misreported,” Rawlinson said. “The norm is to go pro rata. If we didn’t go pro rata, it surely would be a signal that the PIF were losing faith in us.”
Lucid last week said the public offering was expected to raise about $1.67 billion, with a 30-day option for underwriter BofA Securities to purchase up to nearly 39.37 million additional shares of Lucid’s common stock as well.
Lucid has reported record deliveries in 2024 of its current model, an all-electric sedan called Air. The company expects to produce 9,000 vehicles this year. Production of its Gravity SUV is expected to start by the end of this year.
However, Lucid’s sales and financial performance have not scaled as quickly as expected following higher costs, slower-than-expected demand for EVs, and marketing and awareness problems for the company. More