640. Why Governments Are Betting Big on ...

They say they make companies more efficient through savvy management. Critics say they bend the rules to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers and employees. Can they both be right? (Probably not.) SOURCES:Brendan Ballou, C.E.O. of the Public Integrity Project.Dan Glickbe ... Show More

David Rubenstein, a product of the old bipartisan D.C., made his fortune in private equity. He’s been spending it on “patriotic philanthropy” and institutions like the Kennedy Center, where Trump fired him as chairman. Now he wonders if the center can hold. SOURCES:David Rubenste ... Show More

Podcasting started as a niche-nerd pursuit. Now it’s a $9 billion industry. Is that a lot? The strange economics of this thing we do. SOURCES:Jim Bankoff, chairman and C.E.O. of Vox Media.Ben Davis, head of digital at WME.Will Page, former chief economist at Spotify and author of ... Show More

Sometimes as economists we need to analyse complex decisions to understand what the outcomes might be. On the more baffling end of the scale we have Saudi Arabia spending billions on football, golf and Formula 1 stars who are mostly a little past their prime to come and play in t ... Show More

Arab Gulf leaders have been splashing out on sport. Officials in the Gulf states say the investment is part of their effort to diversify oil-dependent economies, but critics accuse them of using sport to deflect attention from poor human rights records. Arash Massoudi discusses t ... Show More

NFL Football is back this week, should you be keeping an eye on the companies plastered on the side of stadiums?     (00:41) Ricky Mulvey and Dylan Lewis discuss:   - Why stadium sponsors generally don’t outperform their peers or the market. - When major sponsorships do and ... Show More

In our first-ever After Hours sports episode, we ask why sports teams have become so valuable (is it really just the vanity of billionaire owners), debate the merits of paying amateur athletes, and explore why tennis pros receive such a small fraction of the sport’s overall reven ... Show More

<p>The Saudi Question permeates the global sports business conversation from top to bottom. Billions of pounds has been across multiple layers of the industry, including buying players, purchasing foreign clubs, developing domestic clubs and buying or developing tournaments at ho ... Show More

Saudi Arabia has been spending hundreds of millions of dollars snapping up international soccer stars in recent months, including legendary players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema, to boost the rosters of its Saudi Pro League. It's not the first time we've seen a country ... Show More

<p>What does sport look like from the money side of the equation? </p><p>What’s the investment rationale behind buying a football team, cricket franchise, the new sports tech thing or a sports agency? What are assumptions about how the market will develop? Who’s going to win, who ... Show More