Good morning. The WSJ Leadership Institute's Katie Deighton reports:
Publicis Sports is teaming up with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce to tackle the Wild West of college athlete endorsements.
The Publicis Groupe unit today announced Tekta, a name, image and likeness business to help brands select, structure and measure partnerships with student athletes and schools. Kelce will serve as an adviser, while the talent management firm that represents him, 3 Arts Sports, steps in as strategic operating partner.
"We have several brands that have entered into the space that we know have run into so many challenges," Publicis Sports CEO Suzy Deering said. "And then we have several brands that are sitting on the sidelines, that want to enter the space, but don't know how to navigate it."
Corporate spending on NIL marketing has exploded since the NCAA opened the door for student-athletes to profit from their likenesses in 2021. College-level NIL spending will climb to $4.5 billion in the 2026-27 season from $3.6 billion last year, according to projections from NIL technology platform Opendorse. Big talent agencies like WME, whose parent company sold the sports agency 160over90 to Publicis this year, have been building up their rosters of the youngest talent.
But compared to the buttoned-up, institutionalized dealmaking within the NFL and the NBA, the NIL world still looks like a scramble. While many states require NIL agent registration, enforcement is lax and there is no unified certification program, which opens the field to practically anyone. Talent often comes saddled with a high-school temperament and watchful parents. And brands face a challenging multitude of athletes, teams, schools, sports and agents looking for deals, Deering said.
Marketers often select talent based on "whether whatever agent is doing a good job," according to Deering. Brands, she said, "have no way to then really monitor or measure the output, because they've had to go in with a patchwork approach, and it doesn't always ladder to what their ultimate strategy is."
Publicis promises to create a more structured system: Publicis Sports will hone clients' strategies, then hand them over to Tekta to identify promising athletes and schools based on those brand objectives. Kelce, who already balances his NFL career with a podcast, a beer brand, a steakhouse and a sportswear line, will advise at a high level.
"Needless to say, he has his day job right now," Deering said, "but he is very hands-on from an advisor perspective."
Aisle 65+
Costco is gearing up to enter a huge new business as it tries to enhance the allure of its memberships: Medicare.
The warehouse chain and a nonprofit insurer plan a limited rollout of Costco-branded Medicare plans, Anna Wilde Mathews reports for The Wall Street Journal this morning.
The new Medicare products won't come with a Costco membership thrown in-that isn't allowed under federal rules. The plans will be sold in Costco stores, as well as through normal channels such as insurance agents and websites.
But they could provide new revenue for Costco and, crucially, bolster the value of its memberships.
Costco has long had tie-ins with an array of services, including its popular vacation packages.
The Magic Number
The bond Paramount wants 12 states and the Writers Guild of America to post over their challenge to its $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Paramount argues the plaintiffs should be on the hook for financial damages the company incurs while fighting the lawsuit-including a $7-million-a-day ticking fee that kicks in if the deal isn't closed by Oct. 1. Under Paramount's request, it would receive the bond funds if it beats the challengers in court.
Rising Expectations
Uber struck a deal with the drone startup Zipline to begin delivering orders through the air, betting that faster fulfillment will get consumers ordering more often.
The company aims to slash standard 30-minute fulfillment times down to just five to 10 minutes, starting in Dallas and Houston this year.
"Truly quick commerce is proving to be an even bigger market than the original food market was," Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told The Wall Street Journal's Kelly Cloonan. "We think this can be an enormous tailwind for the next leg of growth for Eats."
Zipline, which started out a decade ago delivering blood and medical supplies in Rwanda, already flies food and retail orders in Texas and Arkansas for partners such as Walmart and Chipotle.
"When you make a service really fast, magical, you actually change customers' behavior," Zipline CEO Keller Cliffton said. "We're seeing customers who are ordering every day or multiple times a day because of how convenient it is."
More delivery: Home Depot has expanded its express delivery service nationwide, meaning nearly everything in its store can be delivered in three hours or less, CFO Richard McPhail said as the company reported its latest earnings Tuesday morning. [WSJ]
Quotable
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