Good morning. LeBron James, who's apparently a pickleball fan, is buying a Major League Pickleball team along with a couple other NBA players, the league announced yesterday – though no word yet on whether headbands will be a mandatory part of the uniform.

The MLP held its inaugural season in 2021, and plans to expand next year from 12 to 16 teams across six cities nationwide, with $2+ million in prize money. But the true sign you’ve made it as a sports league?

When billionaires start buying teams.

In today’s edition:

• 🌀 Hurricane Ian makes US landfall
• 💰 The largest European IPO in over a decade
• 🤔 What’s going on with plant-based meat?

… and more.

🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: Today’s news takes 3.88 minutes to read.

“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.”

–Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

When plant-based meat manufacturer Beyond Meat IPO’d in May 2019, the market said “nice to meat you.” Its shares jumped 163% on the first day of trading – and had you invested $1,000 into the company at the time, it would’ve been worth ~$4,500 nine months later (a return of ~345%).

But since then, things have changed. And regardless of whether it’s being driven by health concerns, higher prices, taste/texture, macroeconomic conditions, or investor over-optimism – or a combo of all the above – the overall plant-based meat market is on the downswing.

🌱🥩 A deeper dive… Sales of plant-based meat alternatives increased 45% in 2020, per FoodNavigator USA, pushing the category past the billion-dollar mark. But in 2021, sales were flat. And this year has been... challenging.

• Shares of Beyond Meat are down more than 75% (apparently something frustrating enough to make you bite a man’s nose).
• The number of consumers who sometimes buy plant-based meat for themselves or a household member didn’t grow in 2022, per a recent report from Deloitte.
• McDonald’s shelved its US test run of the McPlant burger last month.

👀 Looking ahead… According to Deloitte, “The addressable [plant-based meat] market may be more limited than many thought.” But at the same time – many would disagree.

The industry received a record $1.4 billion in funding last year, per The Good Food Institute, a non-profit that promotes plant-based alternatives.

• Some investors believe plant-based meat can perform similarly to plant-based dairy alternatives, like almond or oat milk, The Guardian reports. Dairy alternatives currently make up 15% of the market and are worth $2.5 billion.

+Flash poll: Have you tried plant-based meat?

Yes

No

Hurricane Ian intensified before making landfall along the southwestern coast of Florida as a high-end Category 4 storm yesterday afternoon, reaching maximum sustained winds of 155 MPH. It's tied for the fifth-most powerful hurricane ever to hit the continental US, per Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach.

As of this morning, Ian had been downgraded to a tropical storm and is expected to weaken as it heads north towards Georgia and South Carolina – though it could still be near hurricane strength.

🌀 More deets… The Hurricane Center warned of storm surges as high as 18 feet across a 50-mile stretch of Floridian coast, a level on par with the highest surge events in US history, per Axios.

• The storm dropped 30 inches of rain in some areas of Florida yesterday, while parts of South Carolina and Georgia are expecting up to a foot of precipitation.
• Over 1.9 million Floridians were without power as of 9:30 ET last night, per PowerOutage.us.
• At least 3,500 flights were canceled across the US yesterday and today due to fallout from the storm, per data-tracker FlightAware.

😬 Zoom out: Early estimates show Hurricane Ian will likely cost the property-insurance industry between $20 billion and $40 billion in claims – though the total economic losses will be much higher, per the WSJ.

🇬🇧 The Bank of England pledged to buy gov’t bonds “on whatever scale is necessary.” Officials said the move is an attempt to slow the selloff of UK gov’t bonds – which began last week in response to new PM Liz Truss’ economic plan – that could lead to severe losses for many domestic pension funds and insurers. The UK’s 30-year government bond yield fell more than one full percentage-point in response to the central bank’s move (from 5+% before the announcement to 4.09%), a level of change that normally takes weeks or months, per the WSJ.

🇷🇺🇺🇦 The EU proposed new sanctions on Russia over its ‘sham’ referendums in Ukraine. The bloc’s executive branch announced the move yesterday, saying the sanctions would place an import ban on ~$7 billion worth of Russian goods, but offering few other specifics. Separately, the Biden administration unveiled $1.1 billion in additional military assistance for Ukraine, bringing the total US commitment to more than $16.2 billion across 22 installments since late February.

🇩🇪 Volkswagen priced Porsche’s IPO at the top end of its targeted range. The German automaker’s move raised ~$9.1 billion at a $73 billion valuation, representing the largest public debut in Europe since 2011. It also immediately ranked Porsche among the top-5 biggest automakers by market cap (Tesla: $886B | Toyota: $226B | BYD: $95B | VW: $83B). Volkswagen still retains a 75% ownership stake in Porsche, which begins trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange today; VW is expected to use the IPO windfall to reward shareholders and fund its EV push.

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Some podcast businesses are buying millions of “downloads” through ads in popular mobile games, per a new report from Bloomberg. So you can tell your mom her cooking podcast is safe, people actually are listening – unless she’s dropping stacks on Subway Surfer or Candy Crush, that is.

📱🎙️ How it works… The ads are typically featured in free-to-play mobile games as a way to earn extra points or other virtual rewards.

Each time a player taps on one of the ads, a podcast episode begins downloading on their device – unbeknownst to them – and the podcast company adds another ‘new unique listener’ to one of their programs.

• The podcast clips are also specifically structured so the pre-roll ad from the show is played during the mobile-gaming ad.

📈 The impact: Since 2018, IHeartRadio’s podcast division – which produces shows from Will Ferrell, Charlamagne tha God, Shonda Rhimes, and more – has reportedly shelled out $10 million per month to advertise in mobile games. And this strategy produces big results: the company gains ~6 million ‘unique listeners’ per month, an internal source told Bloomberg.

Which may have a little something to do with why IHeart podcasts represented more than half of the top-10 trending shows for the last week of August on Chartable – despite one of the listed podcasts not publishing any new content in months. Another hadn’t in over a year.

💬 Quoted…​​ “I just twerked and played James Madison’s crystal flute from the 1800s. We just made history tonight!”

On Tuesday night, Lizzo became the first person to ever play a 200-year-old crystal flute – sent as a gift to President James Madison in 1813 – during the D.C. stop of her ongoing North American tour. ​​

• The Library of Congress had maintained the flute in its vault for decades, before allowing the pop star to play it onstage – under the careful watch of Library staff and Capitol Police.

🍿 Stat of the Day: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story drew an audience of 196.2 million viewers in its first week, making it among the five best opening weeks for any Netflix original series in history.

🤯 Did You Know?... Blind people can process speech up to three times faster than sighted individuals (25 syllables per second vs. 8-10). This is because the part of the brain typically used for sight is instead repurposed to enhance audio capabilities.

📖 Worth a Read: How the false rumor of a Chinese coup went viral → (MIT Technology Review)

📊 Poll results: Yesterday, we asked whether y’all agreed with President Biden’s plan to forgive some federal student loan debt.

• 40% said yes, 52% said no, and 8% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.
• The last time we asked this question (in August), 43% said yes, 46% said no, and 11% were unsure or had a more nuanced opinion.

See the full 360° view here.

• ☝️ Rapper Lil Wayne is selling his waterfront mansion in Miami Beach for $30 million; the 10,600-square-foot home features a movie theater, wine cellar, and direct access to the ocean.

BUSINESS & MARKETS

• 📈 Major US stock indexes closed up across the board yesterday, with the Dow and Nasdaq both snapping a six-day losing streak. (Dow: +1.9% | S&P: +2.0% | Nasdaq: +2.1%)
• 📛 Johnson & Johnson announced that “Kevnue” will be the name of a new stand-alone company that’ll house some of its more famous brand names, including Band-Aid and Tylenol.
• 🚘🔌 Hertz announced a partnership with BP to install thousands of EV chargers at Hertz sites across the US.

SPORTS, MEDIA & ENTERTAINMENT

• 📢 Here’s everything Amazon announced yesterday at its fall gadget event, which featured new Echos, FireTVs, Ring products, and more.
• ⚖️🍿 Three ex-MoviePass execs were sued this week by the SEC over claims they misled the public about its business model.
• 🏀📱 The NBA launched an updated app with a TikTok-like vertical video feed, which includes a “For You” page with personalized highlights.

SCIENCE, SPACE & EMERGING TECH

• 🙅‍♀️ A high-profile 2020 study in which researchers claimed to have observed the first true room-temperature superconductor was recently retracted over concerns about data integrity and reproducibility.
• 🦾 A wearable ‘bionic pancreas’ has been found to help people with Type 1 diabetes better manage their condition, per a new peer-reviewed study published yesterday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• 🌌 Evidence of the asteroid that scientists believe caused the dinosaurs to go extinct has been discovered on the Moon. | China’s Mars rover recently uncovered evidence hinting at two periods of massive flooding on the red planet about 1.6 billion and 3 billion years ago.

EVERYTHING ELSE

• 🍟 McDonald’s is selling Happy Meals for adults in a partnership with streetwear brand Cactus Plant Flea Market.
• 💔 Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott filed for divorce from her husband, Dan Jewett, this week; Scott previously split with then-Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2018, and has donated ~$12 billion to charity since.
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We bring you the most unusual, off-the-wall and occasionally laugh-out-loud headlines from this week…

• North Carolina woman sends cake with edible resume to Nike for job application → (Fox Business)
• A Berlin Museum’s Interactive ‘Nosferatu’ Show Will Give Visitors the Chance to Donate Blood on Site → (Artnet News)
• Taste of kale makes unborn babies grimace, finds research → (The Guardian)
• Zero gravity soccer game breaks world record at 20,230 feet → (UPI)
• 'No decision expected' for EU decision on unanimous decisions → (EU Observer)

CROWDSOURCED

Have you ever encountered a glitch in the matrix, quirky animal behavior, or even just a hilarious first grader? Tell us about it here for a chance to be featured in next Thursday’s newsletter.

👨 Who: Kevin S. from Portland, OR

💬 The experience: I once was changing pants in my room before work and took off my belt. After putting on my other pair of pants, I went to put my belt back on but it was gone. No one else was in the room, and I spent a good 15 minutes looking for it – as I had simply set it on the floor. It’s been 10 years and I’ve never seen that belt again.🤷

P.S. Don’t forget to share your odd or hilarious experience with us here.

When Canadian couple Edith Lemay and Sebastien Pelletier discovered three of their four children would lose their eyesight by mid-adulthood, they made it their mission to see as much of the world while they still could. 

The kids were diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare genetic condition that causes their vision to decline over time.

• So the family packed their bags, leaving their Montreal home and jetting across the globe to check off various destinations on each family member's bucket lists. 
• They've been to Namibia, Zambia, and Tanzania in Africa so far, along with exploring Turkey, Mongloia, and Indonesia.

🌍❤️ Parents of the year... "I thought, 'I'm not going to show her an elephant in a book, I'm going to take her to see a real elephant," said Edith of her daughter "And I'm going to fill her visual memory with the best, most beautiful images I can."

❓ Trivia: What did Abraham-Louis Breguet invent?

🎃 True or False?... 98% of pumpkins are used for decoration and jack-o-lanterns.

🤔 Riddle: What has an ear but no head?

(keep scrolling for the answers)

👆 Check out the referral prizes you can get, all for introducing people you know to little old us. 

What to do: Copy your unique link below, then send it to anyone who you think would like the DONUT. Once you hit each milestone, you'll get an email with a link to claim your prize. (Pro tip: there's no need to ration points, you're entitled to a prize at each tier.)

Start referring.👇

❓ Trivia: The wristwatch

🎃 T/F: True

🤔 Riddle: Corn🌽