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La Liga has agreed an exclusive, long-term partnership with French start-up Sorare to launch NFT fantasy football cards.
Sorare lets users trade digital player cards and manage teams of five in fantasy football tournaments.
La Liga, Spain’s top soccer league, is one of many sports associations jumping into the world of cryptocurrencies.

LONDON — Spain’s top soccer league La Liga said on Thursday that it will offer NFTs for all its players, marking the latest foray into cryptocurrencies from a major sports organization.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets that are designed to certify ownership of a virtual item, such as rare art or trading cards, on the blockchain. They can’t be exchanged like-for-like with one another, unlike bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

La Liga is teaming up with French start-up Sorare to launch its NFTs. Sorare’s platform lets users trade digital player cards and manage teams of five in a number of fantasy football tournaments.
Sorare said it had agreed a long-term, exclusive licensing agreement with La Liga that will see top players including Atlético Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann, Real Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior and FC Barcelona’s Pedri added to its platform.
“Today is a huge milestone for us because it’s the first top five league joining the platform,” Nicolas Julia, Sorare’s CEO and co-founder, told CNBC.
La Liga clubs will receive a royalty on sales, and Sorare has paid a minimum guarantee to ensure exclusivity, the company said.

Sports industry explores crypto

La Liga is one of many sports associations jumping into the world of crypto. The National Basketball Association, for example, licenses game highlights for a collectibles platform called NBA Top Shot, which was developed by blockhain start-up Dapper Labs.

In the world of soccer, Manchester City has dropped two collections of NFTs. Meanwhile, a number of clubs have launched so-called fan tokens that allow holders to vote on mostly minor club decisions and receive certain perks.
Last month, it was revealed that part of Lionel Messi’s welcome package at Paris Saint-Germain included the French club’s fan token, which was developed with cryptocurrency firm Socios.com.
Sales of NFTs have boomed this year. A piece by the digital artist Beeple sold for nearly $70 million in March, while Visa recently purchased a crypto collectible called a CryptoPunk for nearly $150,000 in ethereum.
Proponents of NFTs say they’re a way of achieving verifiable scarcity and ownership of digital media, which can be reproduced and distributed on a mass scale thanks to the free availability of content on the internet.
However, critics view the trend as a potential bubble in a market known for highly speculative investing. NFTs have also given rise to a number of scams, with a fake Banksy collectible being sold for more than $300,000 through an apparent hack on the artist’s website.
Sorare says it has processed more than $130 million in sales through its platform since the beginning of 2021, and expects to process over $200 million by year-end. The platform has more than 500,000 registered users in total.
Sorare hopes to sign each of the world’s top 20 soccer leagues by the end of 2022.
Founded in 2018, the start-up is reportedly gearing up for a $530 million funding round that would give it a valuation of at least $3.8 billion, according to Insider. Sorare declined to comment on the report.

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U.S. stock futures were steady in overnight trading Wednesday as investors remained cautious on the remaining months of trading.
Dow futures fell just 9 points. S&P 500 futures were flat and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.07%.

Shares of athletic retailer Lululemon surged 10% and furniture retailer RH rose 3% in after-hours trading on the back of better-than-expected earnings. Lululemon also offered a stronger-than-forecast outlook for the third quarter and the year.
Meanwhile, Boston Beer tanked 9% after pulling its earnings guidance amid slowing growth in its hard seltzer brand.

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On Wednesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 fell for the third day straight. The Dow shed 68 points, and the S&P 500 slid 0.13%.
The Nasdaq Composite was the relative underperformer, dipping 0.6%, as Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google-parent Alphabet closed lower. The Nasdaq fell for the first session in five, after notching a record close on Tuesday.
Dysfunction in the labor market amid the Covid-19 pandemic was reinforced Wednesday when the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey showed job openings outnumbered the unemployed by more than 2 million in July.

The report — which the Federal Reserve watches closely for signs of slack in employment — showed open positions soared to 10.9 million in July, well above the 9.9 million FactSet estimate and the 10.2 million from June.
“Higher wages and one time bonuses have been the tools used by many businesses to entice those on the sidelines but obviously that has not been enough,” Bleakley Advisory Group chief investment officer Peter Boockvar told clients. “We’ll of course see what September brings with back to school and the end of extra unemployment benefits but what is clear … is a large need for more workers.” 
Investors will be watching for the latest weekly jobless claims data, set to release Thursday morning, for a greater look at the employment picture. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected 335,000 Americans filed for unemployment last week, compared to the previous week’s 340,000.
Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve said in its latest “Beige Book” that U.S. businesses are experiencing rising inflation that is being intensified by a shortage of goods and likely will be passed onto consumers in many areas.
The Fed also reported that growth overall had “downshifted slightly to a moderate pace” amid rising public health concerns during the July through August period that the report covers.
“The deceleration in economic activity was largely attributable to a pullback in dining out, travel, and tourism in most Districts, reflecting safety concerns due to the rise of the Delta variant, and, in a few cases, international travel restrictions,” the report said.
The Beige Book release comes as the Fed debates whether to withdraw some of its easy policies. Specifically, officials are considering tapering monthly bond purchases, probably before the end of the year.
“The lack of market reaction today shows that much of these concerns are priced in, but in a larger market pullback, which may materialize this Fall either as a result of tapering announcements or other, potentially unexpected news, should provide an opportunity to re-enter positions in travel, leisure and hospitality as the recovery is most likely delayed and not cancelled completely,” Independent Advisor Alliance chief investment officer Chris Zaccarelli said.

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Pedestrians wearing protective masks walk past a Lululemon store in San Francisco, California, on Monday, March 29, 2021.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines after the bell:
Lululemon — Shares of the athletic retailer surged more than 10% in after hours trading on Wednesday after reporting fiscal second-quarter profit and revenue that topped analysts’ expectations. The retailer also offered a better-than-expected outlook for the third quarter and for the year.

Boston Beer — Shares of the alcoholic beverage company tanked 9% in after hours trading on Wednesday after pulling its earnings guidance amid slowing growth in its hard seltzer brand. “The Company now expects to incur hard seltzer-related inventory write-offs, shortfall fees payable to 3rd party brewers, and other costs that will be expensed during the remainder of fiscal 2021,” the company said in a press release.
RH — Shares of the furniture retailer rose 3% in extended trading on Wednesday after beating on the top and bottom lines of its quarterly results. RH earned $8.48 per share, topping estimates of $6.48 per share, according to Refinitiv. Revenue came in at $989 million, above expectations of $975.4 million.
GameStop — Shares of the brick-and-mortar video game retailer slumped 2% after the bell on Wednesday after reporting a loss of 76 cents per share. The company said it made $1.8 billion in revenue. EPS and revenue were not comparable to estimates.

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A Minnesota man criminally charged with committing securities fraud by hijacking dormant shell companies has taken a step that suggests he will plead guilty, a new court filing revealed.
The lawyer for Mark Miller told a judge he will waive pretrial motions and will request a change of plea hearing date.
MIller is one of three men charged by federal prosecutors with an alleged scheme that ran from 2017 through 2019 in which they purportedly used fake resignation letters to seize control of four shell companies.

The headquarters of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is seen in Washington, DC, January 28, 2021.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

A Minnesota man criminally charged with committing securities fraud by hijacking dormant shell companies has taken a step that suggests he will plead guilty, a new court filing revealed.
A lawyer for the man, Mark Miller, told a judge in a letter filed Tuesday that Miller will not submit pre-trial motions in his criminal case, and asked to be excused from a scheduled hearing on such motions next week in Minnesota federal court.

Miller’s lawyer said in his letter he would contact Judge Kate Menendez’s chambers “for a change of plea hearing date.” The attorney also said he met with Miller to discuss a “plea offer” from prosecutors in the case.
Pre-trial motions are routinely filed by criminal defendants who plan to go to trial.
Miller, a 43-year-old general contractor who lives in the town of Breezy Point, previously pleaded not guilty in his case.
The fact that his lawyer plans to seek a “change of plea hearing” suggests Miller will change that plea to guilty.
The attorney, Robert Lengeling, did not immediately return requests for comment from CNBC.

Miller is one of three men charged by federal prosecutors in June with an alleged scheme that ran from 2017 through 2019 in which they purportedly used fake resignation letters to seize control of four shell companies. Prosecutors allege that the men then used the Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR public filing system and bogus press releases to fraudulently “pump up” share prices by claiming new business opportunities.
The four shell companies targeted by the alleged conspiracy were Digitiliti, Encompass Holdings, Bell Buckle Holdings and Utilicraft Aerospace Industries.
A civil lawsuit filed against Miller in June by the Securities and Exchange Commission accuses him of a fraudulent scheme targeting “at least seven inactive penny-stock companies … by hijacking five of the companies.”
A lawyer for one of Miller’s co-defendants, Christopher James Rajkaran, on Wednesday notified the judge that Rajkaran also will not submit pre-trial motions.
The judge then cancelled the Sept. 15 motions hearings set for Miller and Rajkaran.
A third defendant, Saeid Jaberian, is still pursuing pre-trial motions in the case.
Jaberian’s lawyer said in a court filing in late August that he wants Jaberian to be tried separately from Miller and Rajkaran.
The lawyer said that “at a future trial, Jaberian’s defense will require asserting that Miller tricked him” into unwittingly participating in a scheme to hijack a dormant shell company.
Prosecutors are opposing that request to have Jaberian tried separately.
Miller, Rajkaran and Jaberian are charged with 15 criminal counts of securities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud.
Lawyers of Rajkaran and Jaberian did not immediately respond to CNBC’s inquiries about whether the defendants will move toward changing their pleas as Miller appears to have done.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
CNBC previously reported that Miller had also attempted to seize control of a Florida penny-stock company, New World Gold, which is not named as having been one of his alleged targets in either the criminal case or a civil case filed by the SEC.
Miller had submitted a new motion in the lawsuit to take New World Gold just one day before being indicted in federal court.
He later dropped the lawsuit less than two weeks after CNBC reported his involvement with New World Gold.

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The Nio EP9 self-driving concept electric vehicle (EV) is displayed during the media day of 17th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition on April 19, 2017 in Shanghai, China.
VCG | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading.
Nio — Shares of the Chinese electric vehicle company tumbled 6% after it announced a $2 billion stock offering. The Tesla rival said it would use the proceeds to strengthen its balance sheet and for general corporate purposes.

Coinbase — Shares of the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange dropped more than 3% after revealing it received a notice of possible enforcement action from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator intends to sue Coinbase over the product, called Coinbase Lend, the company disclosed in a Tuesday night blog post.
Citrix Systems — Shares of the software company rose nearly 3% after the Wall Street Journal reported that activist fund Elliott Management has built a stake of more than 10% in the stock, putting its stake at roughly $1.3 billion or more. Elliott previously held a board seat at Citrix.
PayPal — PayPal shares retreated 2.7%. The digital payments platform said it would acquire Japanese “buy now, pay later” company Paidy in a deal worth $2.7 billion. The move is the latest in a flurry of “buy now, pay later” plays. Square said in August it would buy Australian firm Afterpay, and Amazon announced a partnership with Affirm. Affirm and Square each lost about 4%.
Coupa Software — Shares of the software name dipped more than 4% despite the company beating top- and bottom-line estimates during the second quarter. Coupa earned 26 cents per share excluding items, compared to the 6-cent loss analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting. Revenue came in at $179.2 million, also ahead of the expected $163 million.
Chinese stocks — A slew of Chinese stocks sold off in unison on Wednesday amid the ongoing Beijing crackdown. Didi, the world’s largest ride-hailing company, saw its shares dropping over 7%, while Pinduoduo lost 2.8% and Alibaba slid about 2.5%. The government stepped up its oversight on many industries including tech, education and gaming, while tightening rules for oversea listings. Hedge fund exposure to Chinese equities and indexes listed in the U.S. has dropped to a two-year low.

Chipmakers — Shares of chipmakers were lower Wednesday amid the ongoing global chip shortage, as demand for chips continues to extend beyond cars and computers, outstripping supply. Western Digital shares lost about 3.8%, while Micron Technology fell 1.6% and Nvidia slipped by 1.4%.
 — CNBC’s Jesse Pound, Pippa Stevens, Maggie Fitzgerald, Hannah Miao and Yun Li contributed reporting

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AccuWeather estimates hurricane Ida’s economic impact reaching $95 billion.
The forecasting company’s estimate makes Ida the seventh costliest hurricane to hit the U.S. since 2000.
AccuWeather’s forecast incorporates many variables, including property damages, the impact of lost work, as well as a decrease in tourism.

A stop sign lies damaged at a street corner in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida in Grand Isle, Louisiana, September 2, 2021.
Adrees Latif | Reuters

The economic damages of Hurricane Ida are still being assessed, but the storm that wreaked havoc from New Orleans to New York could wind up becoming one of the costliest hurricanes to hit the U.S. since 2000.
AccuWeather now projects the storm damage totaling about $95 billion, which is up from the agency’s initial forecast of between $70 billion and $80 billion. The damages are expected to have a “notable negative impact” on the U.S. economy during the third and fourth quarter, AccuWeather said.

“It is rare for a hurricane from the Gulf of Mexico to produce this much damage this far north,” said AccuWeather founder and CEO Joel Myers. He noted that the extreme rain in New York City, which got 7.19 inches in Central Park, led to “unprecedented” levels of flash flooding.
To arrive at the $95 billion figure AccuWeather looked at dozens of variables, estimating the impact of each one. Beyond the damage to houses and cars, the estimate incorporates variables like the impact of people unable to get to work, travel disruption and a halt to tourism, as well as the cost of clean-up crews.
AccuWeather’s number is higher than estimates from other agencies since it includes both insured and uninsured losses from a wide range of activities, rather than focusing squarely on things like property.

Arrows pointing outwards

The forecasting agency predicts that Ida will ultimately come in as the seventh most costly hurricane to hit the U.S. since 2000. Katrina tops the list at $320 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars, followed by Maria and Sandy at $215 billion and $210 billion, respectively.
Myers added that the cost for Ida could move higher, at which point the storm could surpass Ivan and Rita to become the fifth most costly hurricane in the last two decades.

“The cleanup in some places will take months…we don’t know exactly what the damage was,” he said.
CoreLogic has also provided forecasts for the economic toll of the storm, focusing on the damage from wind, storm surge and inland flooding to residential and commercial properties. The analytics company estimates that the impact across Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama will total between $27 billion and $40 billion. For the Northeast, the company envisions flood damages totaling between $16 billion and $24 billion.

Floodwater surrounds vehicles following heavy rain on an expressway in Brooklyn, New York.
Ed Jones | AFP | Getty Images

For the oil and gas industry, the lasting effects could be more severe. According to analysis from Bank of America, the storm’s impact could wind up surpassing the toll of Katrina. As of Tuesday afternoon 79.33%, or about 1.44 million barrels per day, of oil production in the Gulf of Mexico remained offline, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
More than 16 million barrels were removed from the market in the first 10 days following Ida, making the storm’s initial impact greater than any storm in history, according to Commerzbank.
“Given the issues that we have, it’ll probably be another week,” Again Capital partner John Kilduff said about when production will return. “I’d say next Monday I would expect things to be fully back and operational.”

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Delivering Alpha virtual summit will take place on September 29, 2021

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Kewsong Lee is closing out one trip around the sun as sole CEO of The Carlyle Group. It was a unique year for the private equity firm — which oversees more than $270 billion in private assets — with the multitude of challenges brought on by the pandemic. However, the market has been rewarding Lee and his stock price, with Carlyle nearly doubling over the last year. 

Here’s Kewsong Lee on the stock’s performance, keeping up with the rapid pace of dealmaking in his industry during his inaugural year, and how he’s shaping Carlyle into a more modern type of private equity firm. 
(The content below has been edited for length & clarity)
Leslie Picker: It has been quite a year for you as CEO. Of course, the pandemic has created its own sorts of challenges, yet Carlyle’s stock price up more than double since its pandemic lows around April 1 or so of 2020. Were you surprised by the recent stock price performance? And what do you attribute that to?
Kewsong Lee: We’ve got our strategic plan, all our priorities, and we’re working hard and the team’s doing a great job. We’re very focused on being the best investment firm we can be. We’re very focused on operating the firm better than we’ve ever managed to before in the past. And, you know, we’re pleased that the results are starting to show. But there’s lots of work to do, a lot more work to do to execute and continue that momentum. And I’m confident with the team that we’ve got and all the hard work, it’s going to continue to accelerate.
Picker: How is it working so far with regard to people being in the office? I know, you made the announcement that employees have to be fully vaccinated, you were quite early on that front. But are you finding that culturally, it’s possible to really work that way, especially as you’re doing diligence, as you’re doing — sourcing deals, as you’re meeting with clients, meeting with LPs? I mean, is private equity possible, in this kind of hybrid fashion?

Lee: Health and safety is the number one priority, so that goes above all else. But we’ve now been managing through a pandemic, globally. We’re in five continents, over 30 offices, and we’ve been seeing how to manage through this in different cultures, different areas, different industries. And we’ve adapted, we pivoted. We’re using the best of virtual, we’re using the best of physical meetings in safe ways and we’re able to move faster. We’re able to pivot because of all of our expertise and we’re able to bring quickly on to situations. And so I think the pandemic has forced us all to be better. 
Picker: On your last earnings call you spoke about how velocity has increased in virtually all areas of your business. You noted that deals are completed on shorter timelines, financings executed more quickly, exits possible much sooner than before. Funds are raised faster and we’ve seen basically a record amount of dry capital right now, dry powder. What do you think is the risk that the industry is moving too fast? And will we look back on this time and say, yes, it moved quickly but returns were sacrificed?
Lee: We’re moving fast in order to compete and invest well but we’re not cutting corners. You got to do the diligence and you have to be very thoughtful, know well ahead of time what it is you want to buy so that you can move quickly and our platform positions us well, to move quickly. But there are some folks, probably, who are reacting or they’re trying to keep up and I think in those instances, mistakes can be made. 
Picker: Your publicly traded peers have opted to branch out into areas such as real estate and credit and insurance, but Carlyle is still probably the closest to maybe a pure play private equity firm, at least in the publicly traded markets at this time. Do you have this sense or do you feel this pressure to branch out into other areas? Or do you think that Carlyle should be sticking to its core competency in private equity?
Lee: We’re a pure play investment firm at global scale and we’re known for private equity, because that’s our origins and our history. But we have a very large private credit business, 60 billion of them and growing. We have a huge influx of solutions business that we’ve developed out, our real estate business here in the United States is thriving, and we’re building out our infrastructure platform. And so we have diversified, and we’re much beyond that of just private equity…the way we’ve been able to adapt the way we’ve been able to invest in ourselves to pivot, we’re a modern day version of what you call private equity. 
Picker: What does that mean a modern player in private equity?
Lee: If you go back and look at how returns are driven, usually private equity would focus on capital structure, cost, buy low, sell high. It’s so competitive, we’re paying high prices. Capital structures now are commodities. Everybody can focus on costs. A modern day firm needs to know how to really drive top line, really create transformational change. It’s digital strategies to drive the top line, it’s redoing your procurement in fundamental ways to capture structural savings, it’s human capital assessment and talent, making companies more diverse, it’s improving sustainability. When you do all these things, you drive fundamental top line value creation. You’re making these companies better. When these companies are better, they perform better, and the returns are there.
Picker: But those things that you’re talking about, those are really hard. Driving the top line driving value creation, all of that takes a lot of time. Costs, on the other hand, can be done, you know, within a matter of years. So how do you square that with this need and pressure to be moving much more quickly in the way that you do things?
Lee: I like that it’s hard to do, because that’s what gives us a competitive edge or differentiation. And that’s why people want to partner with us. It is hard to do. With the long term lens though, our platform and everything we put into investing in it, partners want to work with us. Entrepreneurs want to work with us because they know when we work together, we’re growing. We’re focused on growth. If we can keep driving and making these companies better, the value comes and that’s why we’re seeing so many partners wanting to work with us.
Picker: I have to ask you about Washington because you are now CEO and you come into this role at a time where there certainly has been some critical voices in Washington where Carlyle is based. Does that concern you at all? Are you worried about additional regulation facing the private equity industry? Is additional regulation warranted?
Lee: There are always a lot of issues, right? Whether it’s geopolitics, whether it’s domestic policies, regulatory issues. We’ve been around the block, we’ve been in business for over 30 years, we’ve navigated through all types of environments and it’s really what enables us to continue to pivot. And change creates opportunity. 
If there’s one thing I learned during COVID, it’s our platform enables us to see things in real time and when things change, we can pivot to opportunities. So when the buyout market shut down here in America, we were investing in India, we were investing in China. When mature deals and mature companies were trying to figure out what to do, we pivoted to growth. When bank loans started to stop, in terms of issuance, we pivoted to credit opportunities. So, yes, Washington, the issues of the day, obviously, we’re focused on them. But we’ve navigated this type of stuff in the past, very confident in our ability to do that in the future.
Picker: One that gets a lot of attention, of course, is this idea of taxing carried interest as ordinary income as opposed to capital gains. It does raise a concern for you, especially as it relates to talent retention? It’s become very competitive in the financial services industry so far, obviously, everyone would face the same changes to taxation as you would but in terms of the ability to pay people, is that something that you’re worried about?
Lee: We’re always worried about our human capital, making sure they’re aligned. We have really talented people, they’re working really hard to drive great investments. But we converted to a C Corp and we only have one share of one class of shares. We only have one tax rate I’m worried about and that’s the corporate tax rate. You know, it simplifies things, when really all of us are on the same page and now as a public C Corp, that’s what’s happened. And so for me, the biggest issue is really the corporate tax rate. That’s what we’re focused on. 
Picker: I have to ask you about ESG environmental, social governance, because that has been a very heavily covered topic in the public market, less so I feel like in the private markets, although I know a lot of people in the industry have been pursuing ESG strategies and so forth. What is Carlyle doing in particular, that kind of fits into this world? 
Lee: Diversity and driving diversity of portfolio companies is something we’ve been doing for years. Climate, working on sustainability initiatives with our companies have been something that we’ve been working on with all of our portfolio companies. And the reason it’s so important for us is it’s all about making companies better. Our studies have shown that diversity drives better performance and better earnings growth.
We’ve studied our portfolio companies, those portfolio companies with diverse boards within the Carlyle ecosystem, grow their earnings 12% faster than those that are less diverse.So, there’s nothing more important to us than making sure ESG initiatives are pushed throughout all our portfolio companies, but also at Carlyle because it makes us better. It makes better decisions and when we can make companies better, our investment performance improves. And that’s what you know, that’s ultimately what it’s really all about.
— Ritika Shah contributed to this article
CNBC’s Delivering Alpha investor summit is back for the 11th year. As one of the most influential investor conferences, Delivering Alpha brings together the biggest asset managers and investors, plus influential political and economic figures for a high-level discussion on the critical issues in today’s global economy. To register for the summit, please visit cnbcevents.com/delivering-alpha. More