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Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.
submitted by jeromeBDpowell to SPACs [link] [comments]

[Predictions Thread] 2020 Giro d'Italia stage 14: Conegliano > Valdobbiadene (34 km, ITT)

Stage info

Route Profile Timings Start: 12.35 CEST
Finale route Finale profile Riders Start times Finish: 16.30 CEST

Weather

Around 13-14°C. Cloudy, with rain predicted for mid-afternoon

Stage breakdown

For the past few years, the Giro has always had a wine-themed stage (often an ITT), to showcase the beautiful landscapes where some of the world’s finest wines are produced. It looks like we’re running thin on such regions, however, and I guess a crit around an Eurospin store to celebrate cheap table wines apparently wasn’t an option… so we’re having a remake of the 2015 Prosecco stage, which hopefully will be as sparkling as the local wine.
The peloton is still in the Veneto region, where today’s stage ended, but we moved very close to the Alps. In 2015, riders were tasked with a 60 kms long behemoth ITT between Treviso and Valdobbiadene; tomorrow’s stage only includes the second half of that course, the first 25 kms (which were pancake flat) have been left out. The 2020 course connects Conegliano- which amongst other things is the birthplace of Italian soccer legend Alessandro Del Piero- and Valdobbiadene, a small town right in the middle of the prosecco production area. In case you’re not familiar with it, prosecco is a white sparkling wine, the Italian equivalent to the French champagne. Winemaking is such a defining feature in this area that it became a UNESCO heritage site last year.
There is a cat 4 climb at the first intermediate point- the Ca’ del Poggio muro, a short but tough climb which is an iconic feature of many junior and U23 races in the area. Apart from that, the course is rolling, with the road rising again on approach to Valdobbiadene; the riders will then enjoy a gradual descent towards the finish line.
The Prosecco stage proved decisive in 2015, with Alberto Contador putting three minutes into his main rival- Fabio Aru- and winning back the pink jersey he had lost on the previous day. Another rider who did very well on that day was Steven Kruijswijk, although he wasn’t challenging for GC anymore at that point.
With that in mind, here are our predictions for tomorrow:
★★★: Ganna
★★: Campenaerts, Dennis
★: Almeida, Bodnar, Bjerg, Dowsett, Kelderman

Stage and riders discussion

This kind of stage should reward strong rouleurs like the INEOS duo of Filippo Ganna and Rohan Dennis. Other good time trialists on the startlist include Victor Campenaerts, Maciej Bodnar and two riders who have featured prominently through the first half of the race- young Dane Mikkel Bjerg and stage 8 winner Alex Dowsett. Among the GC guys, Wilco Kelderman has probably the best creds when it comes to time trialing, but let’s not forget that João Almeida owes most of his GC lead to the opening ITT in Palermo.
That’s it from us, what are your thoughts about tomorrow’s stage?
submitted by PelotonMod to peloton [link] [comments]

A post about my favorite chess movie: Queen of Katwe (2016)

A post about my favorite chess movie: Queen of Katwe (2016)

This will be a movie “review”. I’ll post a comment with mini-reviews of other chess movies in comparison.
Queen of Katwe is a movie about a real life Ugandan chess player, Phiona Mutesi. She goes from being homeless and non-schooled to becoming a small chess name in even Western media and making a good profit from it. It's a Disney movie for all ages so you know what to expect here. It's the most competent chess movie I've seen hence the reason for my post.
While it has a meandering plot and unfocused storytelling it still stands out because of the very unique Uganda movie setting and fun colorful atmosphere. Unfortunately none of the chess movies actually show any chess play you can follow along on. So no chess movie feels like a classic or a quality must-watch film. So even though Queen of Katwe has the best movie chess on screen that's not saying much.

Unique Atmosphere

I was hyped while watching the movie and having a great time. The Disneyfication of Uganda's slum is weird, but somehow works just like the weird fantasy settings Tim Burton creates. It's very interesting to see the poverty, lack of education, very low skilled jobs, prostitution, teen pregnancy, homelessness and dirt in an African nation. There are very few good movies set in a semi-real Africa so this is all fascinating.
At the same time Disney hides away a lot of the real country and replaces it with a very fun, colorful and child-friendly version of Uganda. In this version of Uganda people have what they need to get by, the streets are 10 times cleaner than in real life, people are largely just happy and dancing unless disaster strikes, and clean model looking actresses play vagabonds. It all looks like a slum many Westerners would gladly sell their apartment to move to. And this is both a plus and minus for the movie. It makes the movie much more fun and tolerable, but at the same time it becomes quite misleading.
If you want a more brutal/honest representation of Africa I'd strongly recommend Blood Diamond (2006). It’s also is a better movie overall. Lord of War (2005) also has some great scenes in Africa and is also a great movie.
I'll give an example of how Queen of Katwe balances the real facts and the lighter atmosphere. In Phiona's media interviews her big image selling point is that her dad died of AIDS when she was 3.
Watch the first few seconds of this mini-doc:
https://youtu.be/j7c9Jd5Afkw
Again, 3 minutes into this long interview:
https://youtu.be/3hUDehZV-qo
It's what she really wants people to know about her as it creates a strong and clear from rags to riches story. This is the big event that was the basis for her life story that she could get rich from via a book deal and then a Disney movie about her life. Yet in the movie we don't even hear the word AIDS once, we just know her dad died when she was 3. For Westerners it may not seem like a big deal, but note that Africa has a huge HIV epidemic and this virus is culturally very relevant to understanding life in the region.
So while Uganda is not as badly hit by HIV as many other African nations it's still very much a huge deal there:
HIV prevalence—the percentage of people living with HIV—among adults (15–49 years) was 5.7%.
https://www.unaids.org/en/regionscountries/countries/uganda
This stuff is important as historical movies are the only movies I don't just judge based on what I see on screen. In this genre I also judge the level of fair retelling. AIDS not being mentioned is not really a big deal by itself, but it illustrates how the story is Disneyfied overall. Just like when I notice that no one smokes in a Disney movie set in the past and know something is off.
In a YouTube interview Phiona also mentions that she hates dancing while in the movie she constantly dances. Here again the fun dancing actually improves the movie overall, but does subtract from her real life suffering. On the other hand things like prostitution being somewhat hinted at on screen show that this movie is not completely without teeth. It's enough realism to be a fine representation of the real story.

Phiona Mutesi

All actors in the movie are great. Their accent makes all scenes fun and interesting. The Ugandan atmosphere and energetic acting actually makes the street selling scenes the most interesting scenes in the movie even without dialogue or plot in them as you feel like you are in a real street and not a set.
Phiona's mother seems to have the most proactive role in the movie. Played by, Lupita Nyong'o (Black Panther, Star Wars, 12 Years a Slave). She is really great in the movie and the star of the show by far. Pretty much worth a movie ticket by herself here.
Finally the lead character herself is very interesting because of what she has and hasn't achieved in chess. I know very little about chess so take all of this with a grain of salt.
Phiona is the typical chess prodigy character as she doesn't speak much, but just largely sits and stares at people like the child leads in The Luzhin Defence (2000) and Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993). Basically "the laid back semi-autistic prodigy not doing much besides playing chess and somewhat reacting to negative events". But it's way less extreme here than in the 2 other movies. Her reactivity doesn't really ruin the plot overall because of the fast pace and many other good characters with bigger personalities. And the movie largely tells a story focused on replicating the real events scene by scene instead of being single-plot focused so you don't quite get a chance to dislike the lead for being reactive. Often scenes will have a conflict and then be followed up by a new scene where the conflict seemingly has been largely solved or ignored.
Phiona's real life story is on one hand fascinating and on the other hand perplexing as she is not really a chess prodigy if you compare her to all players in the world.
She was born around the year 1996. Her max Elo rating was 1686 - at least that's what I read on the FIDE site. This turned out to be her talent ceiling which she did end up feeling dissatisfied about as the hype her team and the media had created around her was much greater than her Elo rating. This inner conflict is also somewhat shown in the movie, but not that clearly.
https://ratings.fide.com/profile/10000399/chart
She has the title of, FIDE Woman Candidate Master. The movie makes a huge deal of her wanting to gain this title. This is how she won her title:
In 2012, Mutesi and Ivy Amoko were awarded the title of Woman Candidate Master after scoring the required 50% from nine games at the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phiona_Mutesi
This likely makes this the movie with the least talented chess player presented as a talent/prodigy. She never reached an Elo above 1700 and since we don't even know when she was born it's hard to compare her talent to children the same age no matter if she is older or younger than her assumed age.
It reminds me of Pele's prediction in 1977 of an African nation winning World Cup before the year 2000. This is a typical prediction people make based on Africa's spectacular performances in youth soccer competitions where they often demolish all Western opposition and future superstars. In reality very few of these young African talents amounted to anything even after dominant performances. It was mostly due to many African countries not having good birth registers. So these players were already adults just trying to get profitable European contracts by faking their age. With Phiona we just don't have the concrete info it seems, but there is no reason to be critical of her as she may even be younger than we assume.
Despite all this several things about Phiona made the media overall depict her as a near chess prodigy playing and beating adult players and boys. She is a girl so she doesn't really need to compete directly with the top Elo players if she doesn't want to. Then she is from Uganda which did make her a regional generational talent.
If she still played chess that would make her among the best players in Uganda in 2020. If a woman has a rating over 1200 Elo she is among the 30 best female players in Uganda in 2020. A country with 43m people. I'm not really an expert on Elo ratings so maybe there is something I'm overlooking too?
https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml?tops=1&ina=1&country=UGA
The average rating for the top 10 female players in Uganda is 1592 Elo. Which means that she could do really well in Uganda today and easily win plenty of national titles. In 2020 USA she would sneak into the top 100 best female players group if she regained her max ever rating. Still very impressive!
https://ratings.fide.com/topfed.phtml?ina=1&tops=1&country=USA
Here is an interesting Youtube video presentation of one of her games. You can also look up all her competition games online:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecBRljhgzHU
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=127569
Then there is one last thing that made her a media darling. She is from a one-parent household in the slum. Her coach did create some good hype around her fairly early. There are still old YouTube videos of her that ask for donations at the end. And even a few dollars from Western donors would be a great profit for someone is her initial situation. Of course she since then surpassed that SES level by far and gifted her mother a house in Uganda.
Yearly GDP per capita in Uganda is $823 in 2020. And it used to be much lower just some years ago:
https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2019/02/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=63&pr.y=10&sy=2017&ey=2021&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=746&s=NGDPD%2CPPPGDP%2CNGDPDPC%2CPPPPC%2CPCPIPCH&grp=0&a=
An Uganda survey from 2012 found a median hourly wage of $0.31 an hour:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259470911_Wages_in_Uganda_WageIndicator_survey_2012
So she likely doesn't ever need to work again to remain top 1% in Uganda. The hype machine worked wonders for her and her low skilled chess coach really did a spectacular job in the marketing department. The coach is the hero of the movie and the real life story. And the movie clearly exaggerates her story. In an old YouTube video she plays chess on a laptop. In the movie she complains about not training on a laptop like other players. I haven't read the book, but seems like something is off here. Maybe the timeline is off?
Since her semi-fame she got a scholarship to an American university and has since seemingly given up on chess. I guess chess already played the role it was meant to play in her life. It's pretty much the ideal student for American universities who are eager to attract more black students and more students focused on poverty and suffering among "marginalized" groups. The 1600+ Elo rating also made her a very strong female player in USA.
As you can see from this review I had a great need to look up a ton of info about the real story after seeing the movie. Which by itself should tell you how much I enjoyed it. It's just a weird positive story about using chess to gain huge success in life. It's a feel good chess movie presenting the game as an opportunity in life. Chess is presented as a fun but yet very demanding game that stresses out people who want to be better than what their talent allows for. This movie is pretty much an outlier as most other chess movies mainly focus on how destructive chess can be.
Yet even this movie plays up the stumbling blocks. A character can't grow and win without having something to strive for and something to run away from. Without character growth you don't have a movie. And Queen of Katwe is the story of working hard and winning out. But mainly the untold story is one of great hype marketing that is maybe best left hidden away from the average viewer just wanting to feel good. People want a Disney princess in a magical and happy Uganda slum. And this time I won't even hate on Disney for it as the movie made me feel happy too.
submitted by JurijFedorov to chess [link] [comments]

ZCode System Reddit - Review and Discount

ZCode System Reddit - Review and Discount
Why am I writing this? Well, when I stumbled throughout Zcode System for the first time, there weren’t many real reviews around so I thought I’d write one quickly to assist any of you who are in the same position I was.
But be warned, I’ll be going into each the good and the bad points, so if that’s something you might not desire to hear, then you may as well go away now.
I like to update this post each and every so often to go into any cool updates that Zcode has had over the years and, oh boy, brace yourselves, have there been some updates.
Anyway, let’s get on with the ZCode System Reddit review.
Product type: Sports Gambling Investment
Website: zcodesystem.com

So just what is Zcode System anyway?

https://preview.redd.it/xpedjund5jp51.jpg?width=617&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e66981a7cd799948b596edbc4b37b4e1d58d5368
“Zcode System” is a comprehensive sports investing program that is designed to provide you advice on what sports occasions to bet on and which ones to avoid. It does this by examining a massive database comprised of 13 years’ well worth of sports data and spits out its prediction based totally on this evidence.
Zcode gives predictions on all major U.S. sports activities including the NBA, MLB, NHL, and (starting in a couple of weeks) NFL.
For example, today (March 4nd, 2020 when this is being written) the Houston Rockets are enjoying the New York Knicks. Zcode gave the Rockets a 97% chance of winning the game, however this is only a 3 half star bet in accordance to Zcode. Not the worst, but definitely some thing you’ll want to think twice about. Zcode is all about the VALUE of a bet, now not just purely the odds.
It did, however, provide the Under 230.5 points bet a 63% of hitting. Now this guess is a 5-STAR RATING! This is the highest rating that Zcode offers and means that there is immense cost in this bet.
Analysis like this is given on every game.
Click here for the Official Zcode System Website.
I’ve tried pretty a few “sports investing systems” over the last year or so and don’t get me wrong, I’ve observed some winners and some stinkers. Zcode is the first system I’ve seen that now not only gives you the picks, however also tells you WHY it’s giving you these picks the use of straight-up statistics, not “gut feelings”.

Stop gambling: Zcode system scores predictor

The Zcode system is the contrary of luck and chance. This system is a making a bet robot. The system operates by the usage of math, taking in statistics, and analyzing them to identify patterns.
When putting a bet with your gut, your instinct is usually to place a bet the use of the previous ten head-to-head results.
Using your instinct to wager you just, hope, pray and enjoy the tension. However, this system modifications all of this as it is fully based on the analysis. Because it takes in all of the overall performance history of the teams or components playing. With that, it develops a data-based report that shows a pattern, its repetitions, and the effects based on that analysis.

ZCode System Reddit - Who should use the Zcode system?

In a nutshell, if you are addicted to the thrill and exhilaration of betting, this may not be for you. Now, for these of us who like to bet to make money, regardless of the excitement, this system comes to maximize profit.
So, if you do no longer care much for sports however are a fan of money, look no further than this system. I mean, I don’t desire to discourage those who love the thrill of betting, but this can absolutely reduce that a lot. You do not have to watch heaps of hours of sports or even a single hour to make a winning bet.
Why need to you use the system?
The Zcode system analyzes and summarizes thousands of games.
The product takes into account greater than 80 parameters. This ensures that everything in a single recreation is deeply analyzed.
The team, the game’s location, and even the player are all part of the statistics. All of these years of gathering games’ facts have lead to the discovery of patterns of outcomes. The off-day might come, where a specific team manages to turn its success around, but that rarely happens.
The device helps you make money not via merely giving the losing or triumphing side, but they also will assist you with scores. This is a method that rarely fails, as my cash can attest. The system also gives a rating of one to five stars making it simpler to determine which bet to place.
In this system, income are guaranteed.
>>>Get The Free Picks From Zcode<<<
Even when a team unexpectedly pulls out a surprise, it will now not matter at the end of the month. Since this device was launched, it has not recorded a loss in any of the months it has been active. Your financial institution account is guaranteed to be doubled each single month.
When you come to be a member, the pieces will start to fall in region and it will keep happening and happening. A fats bank account is a possibility for you. The machine does not rely on human emotion, and that is what makes it that tons useful. The system relies on heaps of algorithms and formulas that will give you the end result with ease.
The Zcode system is a perfect world of good judgment where every wager is chosen for a reason.

ZCode System Trial

https://preview.redd.it/7v82l7uk5jp51.png?width=660&format=png&auto=webp&s=369d2f18d65579e947d9cc94674c6d720009d331
Before you purchase anything, the most obvious element is to take it for a test drive. This product offers you a sneak peek of the VIP membership the place you get to optimize your rewards.
This is it!
There is no risk involved on the grounds that your money is refunded if you fail to make any profit.
You risk nothing through testing this product. Maybe it is the key to that dream vacation you have usually wanted or the gateway to a new comfortable life. With no threat of losing anything, it would be wise to take the provide on the table. It is always best to have firsthand trip before buying any product. People say its certainly working for them.
There is no risk involved considering your money is refunded if you fail to make any profit.
What sports activities are included?
This product offers tips on the most famous sports since they have the easiest values. Sports fans like to bet on their favored sports, and now you can bet and watch comfortably.
Sports covered consist of the NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL and there is also soccer. The coolest thing is that you do now not have to like any of the sports at all. You do not even want to know how the game is played.
This is like buying and selling but in sports, a replica of the inventory market but with more assurance.
Start your trial here

ZCode System Review: what are the Benefits

Say goodbye to guessing video games for the remainder of your time together. ZCode is completely laid out for you and holds your hand so to speak. Copy preceding trends and follow predicted ones to make that next successful bet! It’s so simple, ANYONE can actually use it.
Countless satisfied consumers have additionally ranked ZCode System as the number 1 betting software to use and have made millions of dollars in bets.
Research and records is presented and worked out thru decades of previous patterns, having a bet histories, and sports events.
ZCode is constantly up to date on a regular basis to grant cutting edge, front line sports activities news and guarantee that you make the most secure bet with the odds tilted hugely in your favor.
If some thing doesn’t seem to be working, rest certain that an update will fix that proper away. From dumping unproductive strategies, to implementing fresh, new implementation, ZCode is the sports statistics superhighway.
Not just content with being continuously updated, the support staff are there at all times to help you through the process. If there are any issues or something has gone incorrect (other than you losing of course) then you can contact their friendly and handy team members to type it out.
It will be fixed in a speedy trend too! You can also check out the member boards and find a wealth of information, advice, and people round the world just like you ready to make some cash gambling.
ZCode SystemDrawbacks
There can be such a thing as TOO much information. If you are beginning out using this program, you may experience overwhelmed at certain times however the more you read about a positive subject then the more you will learn.
It has pretty a steep cost per month to subscribe and use the program itself. Some human beings may not be capable to afford it, but at the identical time the programmers do need to get paid. As I said earlier, the success charge is unbelievably high so you can make that amount again in no time. It’s all up to you!

My Zcode System Reddit Review verdict

If you haven’t already figured it out, I am a major supporter of the ZCode System so this ZCode System Review is very favorable, and why wouldn’t it be? I can honestly say in the strongest opinion that ZCode is THE exceptional system available out there these days (believe me I tried A LOT of them).
I never experienced any system faults or too many losses to make me begin questioning its worth and when it comes down to it, I’ve made a ton of money and had fun having a bit of a gamble, but with ZCode System it doesn’t sense like gambling.
Visit ZCode System website
submitted by kayakero to reviewsforyou [link] [comments]

chance an ultimate frisbee player for comp sci at ivy leagues

Currently deciding whether I will go through and start the process of applying to US colleges, chance me for ivies pls. My main focus will be applying to the UK, however I’d like to take a shot at ivy leagues, as I would need a full ride and it’s not worth for me applying otherwise. I’m mostly interested in how my ECs stand and to what degree they are competitive enough :)
Demographics:
Gender: Male
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Location: Central Europe
School Type: Private, American-curriculum international high school, really competitive (100 students only, <10% acceptance rate), on a full scholarship
Income: local middle-class, American sub-lower-class (literally lol)
FA required: will definitely need a full-ride

Intended Major:
Computer Science (with AI/ML preferably)
Academics:
4.0 GPA from previous high school
Currently expected to have a 3.9 - 4.0 GPA
APs this year: calc bc (predicted 5) , computer science (predicted 5), seminar (predicted 4)
APs next year: phys C, stats, econ, research
SAT: not done yet, if i decide i wanna go through with applying to US will do them; got 1380 on my first practice test, 800 from maths, will need to get better at reading but i think ~1500+ should be possible with some practice.

ECs/Community Service/Awards:
Essays & LoRs:
No idea about essays, i’m pretty bad at writing but have a lot of talented friends who are really good, so expecting my essays to be at least decent. LoR should be good, i have an amazing relationship with my calc teacher.

Do I have a shot at ivys? What GPA / SAT scores should i aim for? Thanks a lot for your feedback :)
submitted by 4bidden1337 to chanceme [link] [comments]

Weekly Round-Up: January 20th - January 26th

Previous thread: January 13th - January 19th

Here's everything that happened in the /bangtan realm within the past week, compiled for your convenience! If you have suggestions on how to make this compilation more readable, categorised better, etc. please leave a comment or send me a PM.
The latest weekly round-up can be found in the sidebar of the subreddit. The link to the archive of past round-up posts can always be found in the wiki index.

2020 Map of the Soul World Tour Megathread

New Releases

190120 Halsey & SUGA - SUGA's Interlude (Lyric Video) Thread

News & Information

200120 Big Hit will hold another 'Corporate Briefing with the Community' on February 4, similar to the one they held last August.
200120 BTS nominated in 3 categories for NME Awards 2020
200121 Member VLives from Channel+ Now Freely Available
200122 BTS Map of the Soul Tour Dates
200122 Weply: Get your USA & CANADA tour tickets the EARLIEST with the exclusive ARMY MEMBER PRESALE & Ticketmaster Verified Fan registration!
200122 RM and J-Hope of BTS have been promoted to regular members of the Korea Music Copyright Association, following their bandmate SUGA who became a regular member in 2018
200122 BTS has been nominated for 3 categories for the 17th Korean Music Awards including Musician of The Year
200122 BTS to perform at the Grammys along Lil Nas X, Billy Ray Cyrus, and Diplo
200123 Prosecution has decided to not indict Jungkook over his car accident incident in 2019
200123 BTS Fanclub Etiquette Notice
200123 BTS Has Been Added to the Official Performers Line-up for the 2020 GRAMMY Awards
200124 BTS Microphone set raised $83,200 for Musicares charity
200125 Lauv’s new album How I’m Feeling to feature BTS

Official Media

Type Date Title Thread
Bomb 200120 [BANGTAN BOMB] Let's warm up! Thread
Bomb 200123 [BANGTAN BOMB] BTS meets Pengsoo! @ 2020 GDA Thread
Episode 200125 [EPISODE] BTS (방탄소년단) @ 2018 SBS 가요대전 Thread
Photos 200124 Happy New Year 2020 Thread
Run BTS! 200121 Run BTS! 2020 - EP.92 Thread
Teaser 200122 BTS (방탄소년단) MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR SEOUL SPOT Thread
V Live 200122 Taehyung Vlive Thread
Other 200121 [CONNECT, BTS] Interview with Tomás Saraceno @ Buenos Aires Thread

Official SNS

Date SNS Title Thread
200120 Twitter BTS: Thank you so much for all your love! Who else is listening to #BlackSwan with us? 🦢 Thread
200120 Twitter BTS: 😍🤞 #SUGAsInterlude #Halsey #manic Thread
200120 Instagram BTS #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200120 Twitter V and Choi Wooshik 1 Thread
200120 Twitter V and Choi Wooshik 2 Thread
200121 Weverse j-hope WeVerse post discussion
200121 Instagram 2020.01.21 🇺🇸 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200122 Weverse Weverse Discussion Post
200122 Instagram 2020.01.21 🇺🇸 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200122 Weverse Tae Weverse Discussion Thread
200123 Twitter Hoseok Thread
200123 Twitter BTS is now following Ariana Grande on Twitter Thread
200123 Twitter Jungkook and V with Pengsoo Thread
200123 Instagram 2020.01.22 🇺🇸 #실시간방탄 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200124 Twitter “We will be back.” Excited to perform along amazing artists at the #GRAMMYs @RecordingAcad Thread
200124 Instagram 2020.01.23 🇺🇸 #실시간방탄 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200125 Weibo BTS on Weibo Thread
200125 Weibo BTS_official update: Chinese Conversation Thread
200125 Instagram 2020.01.24 🇺🇸 #실시간방탄 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢
200126 Instagram 2020.01.25 🇺🇸 #실시간방탄 #BlackSwan #MAP_OF_THE_SOUL_7 🦢

CF & Partnerships

200120 FILA x BTS (individual member clips) - compilation
200121 FILA x BTS (SUGA and j-hope individual clips)
200121 Starbucks Korea said the ‘Key ring’ has been sold out and the other merchandise are 80% sold
200123 KB Kookmin bank
200123 Formula E Korea Instagram
200124 FILA x BTS (photos)
200125 Fila UK Instagram
200125 FILA x BTS (Happy 2020 photos pt. 2)

Articles

Date Publisher Title Thread
200120 K-media Lee Yikyung mentioned why he doesn’t invite BTS‘s Jin to his screenings Thread
200121 Korea Herald Halsey says working with BTS one of best experiences in life Thread
200121 Metro MN Dance Company – the brains behind BTS’ Black Swan video – on how they brought the stunning film to life Thread
200122 Forbes BTS’s ‘Black Swan’ Can Help Them Break Records Even If It Doesn’t Become A Top 10 Hit Thread
200122 The DP From McKinsey to Kpop: Wharton alum co-writes BTS's new single 'Black Swan' Thread
200122 Forbes BTS Owns Almost Half Of All The Spots On Billboard’s World Albums Chart Thread
200123 K-media According to the survey by K media (24 idol groups, 116 idols) the idol group who they want to collaborate the most was BTS Thread
200123 K-media Kmedia reports BTS will be the first Korean act in history to perform on the Grammy stage(also in 3 major US Award Shows) Thread
200123 Billboard The 2020 Billboard Power List Revealed (includes Bang Si Hyuk) Thread
200124 Billboard BTS, Diplo & More to Join Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus in a 'Grammy Moment' Rendition of 'Old Town Road' Thread
200124 Hello Asia! BTS are the world's most revolutionary artists right now: Here's why it's making people uncomfortable Thread
200124 The Guardian The Guardian’s review of Black Swan: “Bizarre. And, somehow, brilliant.” Thread
200124 EliteDaily Will BTS Perform 'Black Swan' At the Grammys? Fans Think They're Hiding Something Thread
200124 Financial Times BTS and the birth of K-pop art Thread
200125 CentralSauce J-Hope’s Journey: From Teenage B-Boy to BTS’ Rap Star Thread
200126 Inquirer Filipino songwriters share how they helped create BTS’ ‘Black Swan’ Thread
200125 TeenVogue BTS ARMY Help Center Partners With Crisis Text Line for Mental Health Support Thread

SNS Mentions

NOTE: Entries with 💜 have new content directly involving BTS
Date 💜 Title Thread
200119 Instagram: 'Drawings for My Grandchildren' painted Black Swan Thread
200120 Mark Miller gives a shoutout to to BTS and thanks ARMY on his Instagram Thread
200121 MAX posts about 'Black Swan' oh his Instagram Story Thread
200122 💜 Instagram: Choi Wooshik with Taehyung Thread
200123 Stacy Nam's IG Story Thread
200123 💜 Ariana Grande with BTS Thread
200122 💜 Tae on Choi Wooshik’s Instagram TV Thread
200123 World Music Awards tweets about #WHEREISYOONGI Thread
200123 iHeartRadio: We have no choice but to stan these legends, BTS x Ariana Grande Thread
200123 Diplo tweets about BTS "GIVE BTS A SOLO PERFORMANCE, ARMY DEMANDS IT" Thread
200125 💜 CBS Instagram: BTS at Grammy Rehearsal Thread
200125 Instagram: Son Sungdeuk Thread
200125 Zach Sang asking for interview questions! Thread
200126 💜 Instagram: The Lab Studios: BTS rehearsal Thread
200126 BTS Lawyer Debbie White and Big Hit Co-CEO Lenzo Yoon attend Clive Davis / Sony Music pre-Grammy Gala Thread
200126 Connect BTS Seoul Teaser by Artist Yiyun Kang Thread
200126 Famous Director Baz Luhrmann Liked BTS Latest Instagram Post Thread
200126 💜 Suga in Docskim Instagram story Thread

Other media

NOTE: Entries with 💜 have new content directly involving BTS
Type 💜 Date Title Thread
Cover 200122 BTS(방탄소년단) - Not Today / Dokteuk Crew Choreography Thread
Cover 200125 Jun Curry Ahn violin cover of 'Black Swan' Thread
Radio 200122 Ash London Live: HALSEY Shares Her Love For BTS's SUGA Thread
Reaction 200120 BTS - 'Black Swan' (spotify ver. vs art film) reaction by reacttothek Thread
Reaction 200121 Dancer Breaks Down Blood Sweat and Tears Choreography Thread
Video 200119 BTS Choreographers Quick Style Perform To "Ain't No Sunshine" - America's Got Talent: The Champions (BTS mentioned) Thread
Video 200120 BTS in Fantano's Weekly Track Roundup Thread
Video 200120 5SOS' Michael says that Jungkook & Yoongi are his biases Thread
Video 200120 Halsey talks about working with Yoongi for Suga’s Interlude Thread
Video 💜 200121 SBS edit of Dionysus with Jungkook focus Thread
Video 💜 200122 Golden Disc Awards Behind (with BTS) Thread
Video 💜 200122 KBS Gayo Daechukje: The Earth Traveler (All the artists) - Behind the scenes Thread
Video 200122 CBSLA News: BTS Returns To SoCal This May For ‘Map Of The Soul’ Tour Thread
Video 💜 200124 SBS edit of J-Hope in Dionysus - WELCOME HOPEWORLD💜 (2019 Gayo Daejeon) Thread
Video 💜 200124 Grammys "Old Town Road" Rehearsals Lil Nas X, BTS, Billy Ray Cyrus, Diplo, and Mason Ramsey / Mirror Thread
Video 200125 Best of BTS Jimin on Radio Disney Thread
Video 200125 [ENG SUB] 방탄천국-방탄TMI #6. (BTS Choreography Analysis) Thread
Video 200125 [ENG sub] Who knows BTS better than me? The Experts - BTS episode Thread
Other 200124 Grammy seating chart Thread
Other 200126 BTS seated with Ellen, Beyonce and Jay-Z at Grammys Thread

Milestones

Type Date Thread
Charts/Sales 200120 Official Chart: First Look - BTS are heading for their third UK Top 40 single with Black Swan
Charts/Sales 200123 Love Yourself: Answer has been certified RIAA platinum for selling 1M+ Units in the USA
Charts/Sales 200123 'Idol' Has Been Certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA
Charts/Sales 200124 BTS's song Boy With Luv has received a Gold Certification in Colombia
Charts/Sales 200124 "Black Swan" debuts at #77 on the German Singles Chart
Charts/Sales 200125 BTS' Black Swan debuts at #49 on the Official Irish Singles Chart
Charts/Sales 200124 "Black Swan" is BTS’s Milestone 10th charting single in the UK (#46)
Charts/Sales 200125 ‘Black Swan’ debuts at #10 on ARIA Digital Tracks Chart (Australia)
Streams 200120 BTS's 'FAKE LOVE' has surpassed 300 MILLION streams (2nd song to do so)
Streams 200123 'Serendipity (Full Length Edition)' has surpassed 70 MILLION streams on Spotify
Streams 200125 BTS's 'Black Swan' has surpassed 5 Million streams and 600,000 cumulative unique listeners on Genie
Streams 200126 'Winter Bear' surpassed 100 million streams on Soundcloud, making V the first Korean solo artist with 2 songs at over 100 million streams
Other 200122 BTS has now spent 162 weeks at #1 on the Social 50(Only one week from tying the all-time record for most weeks at #1)
Other 200122 "Black Swan" has been added to "Today's Top Hits" on Spotify
Other 200123 Black Swan predicted to debut #60 on Billboard Hot 100

BT21

200120 TATA's elastic embrace in full effect. 👍 📸#StickTogether #Cuddle #Friendship #StretchyArms #PhotoShoot Thread
200122 Winter is where it’s at. 🛷 The cold doesn’t bother UNIVERSTARs! #HowToEnjoy #Winter Thread
200123 We're rooting for you. 💓
200124 Sniff Can you smell that sweetness in the air...?!🍪 #BT21_UNIVERSE #ANIMATION #EP07, Part 1 SHOOKY's story is extended to two episodes! Thread
200126 Happy Lunar New Year! 🎆 Let’s keep up the New Year's resolutions! ​#LunarNewYear Thread
BT21 merchandise news
200126 The streets of old town Seoul is expecting some very plushy guests.😉 #HANBOK #EDITION

Misc

Tour promo sightings and ticketing leaks happened before official announcements
200120 Dates for BTS’ upcoming tour are on VIP Nation
200120 Run BTS! Episode 92 will air January 21 at 9PM KST
200120 BTS MAP OF THE SOUL TOUR on Live Nation
200121 Names of BTS Currently Projected on Rogers Centre Roof in Toronto
200121 A Floridian ARMY passed by a tour promo billboard for BTS
200121 Friends of mine passed by Levi's Stadium and found something amazing!
200121 Spotted on Chicago train platform this morning!

Subreddit

Community posts

Top Discussion Posts

  1. [+486] Some pro tips on getting tickets for the up coming tour.
  2. [+178] What are some of the funniest iconic moments of previous comebacks?
  3. [+127] What trend(s) have you noticed in ARMYs and their biases?
  4. [+94] How Has BTS Inspired you to Speak Yourself?
  5. [+81] Songs from older albums you’d like to see at the upcoming Map of the Soul Tour?

Weekly threads

Fanart

Here are past week's top 5 fanart posts from their new home, /heungtan!
Submitter Thread
yaxgami MOTS:7 SHADOW!!! That's it! I'm late tho...
riiisa My sister loves BTS and puns so I drew some for her 😊
crustydustymusty I painted my calculator to make it look like the Hope World Album. It’s not the best but I hope you like it! :)
wherearetheturnips I'm back at it again. I saw this very cute artwork of V as Snow White done by an artist named hachi (I believe, although, I'm having a hard time finding the right social media accounts to credit), and I converted the image into a cross stitch pattern.
Akira_Aoki00 Yoongi's Fanart by @lil_monster_is_here on instagram
submitted by llaverna to bangtan [link] [comments]

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NEWYOU: What is nano?
ARMSTRONG: “Nano” or nanotechnology is the science, engineering, and technology of making things really really small. Specifically, we’re talking about bringing the size of something down to the nanoscale, which is in the range of about 1 to 100 nanometers. Nanotechnology may sound scary but its used extensively by the food, beverage and pharmaceutical industries for many reasons. By nanoencapsulating active ingredients, companies can help increase the bioavailability and stability of their products and in some cases it can offer a controlled release effect. Ultimately, the goal is to protect active ingredients, make them more bioavailable and get them to the appropriate delivery points quickly and efficiently. Due to the increased bioavailability of nanoencapsulated active ingredients, “nano-emulsions” are considered an advanced delivery system.
NEWYOU: What is nano CBD?
ARMSTRONG: Using proprietary nanoencapsulation technology, we enhance the bioavailability of Cannabidiol (CBD) by reducing the particle size and converting the CBD into a water-soluble delivery form that is more easily assimilated by the body so that we can achieve maximum efficacy and greater health and wellness benefits.
NEWYOU: Why use nano CBD?
ARMSTRONG: Nanoencapsulation is the best way to guarantee maximum bioavailability of any active ingredient and it also opens the door to a range of new formulations by creating a water-soluble ingredient. When it comes to absorption, research has shown that we may lose up to 90% of active ingredient by way of conventional delivery via the GI tract and through the liver where active ingredients are broken down for assimilation. Nano CBD helps the body by offering a direct path to the cell because in a nanoencapsulated form the CBD can cross the blood-brain barrier more quickly bypassing the GI tract entirely. Essentially it gets the CBD to the cell receptor sites as quickly as possible without a lot of loss along the way.
The reason “nano-amplification” is important is because CBD by itself is actually an oily resin, and is made up of large particle clusters of millions of individual CBD molecules. Because these particles are so large, they typically have to follow the usual path of digestion and go from the mouth to the stomach to the liver so they can finally broken down and assimilated by the body. Like any other vitamins or nutrients, this process can result in a lot of waste and in reality is a very inefficient process. Nanotechnology allows us to be much more efficient about how we deliver CBD meaning that it safely breaks down each CBD particle cluster into its smallest particle form first without affecting the molecular structure so that we can achieve higher bioavailability, targeted function, and ultimately a more powerful therapeutic effect.
I like to use an analogy here…Imagine that we are on a soccer field and a CBD particle cluster is the soccer ball and your cell membrane is the net designed to stop the soccer ball. Like the net, our cell membrane is a highly selective barrier designed to stop things from passing through. If we wanted to get the ball through the net, we could try reducing its size first. If we were to replace the soccer ball with a softball we might have a better chance of getting it through the netting. Now how about a golf ball. Better yet..What if instead we could throw handfuls of marbles at the net. If we threw marbles, there’s a good chance most of them would make it through that netting. Well that’s essentially what’s happening with the body when we use a nano CBD product. The CBD is still CBD but we are affecting its size so it has a greater chance of permeating the cell membrane. We know now that bioavailability of nano-emulsified CBD molecules is somewhere around 7-10 times higher than that of traditional CBD and has absorption rates of 80-90% when in the bloodstream compared to about 35% in conventional form, so this is truly where the benefits lie.
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ARMSTRONG: There is a common misconception that nanoprocessing affects the molecular structure of the CBD or impacts its efficacy negatively.” We are not affecting the molecular structure of the CBD molecule at all. The CBD remains CBD and retains all its molecular properties and health benefits; instead, we are making each individual particle cluster of CBD significantly smaller, so it can be broken down very quickly so that the individual CBD molecules can quickly reach the CB receptors, which really is a very good thing. Since we have so many more individual molecules now we also have the added benefit of greater surface area so each molecule can do more work. NEWYOU’s proprietary Nano-Amplified™ technology is really one of the best nano processes in the industry. It’s taken years of R&D to get it right. When your CBD is Nano-Amplified™ you know it’s one of the best.
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ARMSTRONG: Well, without sharing too much of NEWYOU’s “intel” we use concentrated energy waves to break apart the large particles of CBD and reduce their size down to the nanoscale. At this point, we have to prevent the individual molecules and particle clusters from finding their way back to each other. So to keep those CBD molecules from bunching up again we use a proprietary blend of natural encapsulating agents to wrap the oil loving CBD molecules in a bubble like membrane that has an affinity for both water and fat. The process of encapsulation is very critical as it protects and keeps the CBD in its smallest particle form and results is a water soluble solution of CBD that is “nano amplified” and can be used in any liquid based formula. So, with every Nano-Amplified™ CBD product created there’s a certain level of “good vibrations” added so to speak.
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ARMSTRONG: As a manufacturer, we are always looking to create value for our customers and create products that are not only effective, but that won’t break the bank. We started with the end user in mind and knew that we had to create products that were most importantly effective, easy to use, and that tasted great. Using our Nano-Amplified™ Technology allowed us to be incredibly efficient with how we use CBD in our products and opened up so many options for the type of products we could create. When working with traditional CBD you’re really limited to oil based products because as we all know oil and water don’t mix well so using a traditional CBD oil or isolate in a water based product really isn’t a good solution so we knew we had to come up with something better. By increasing the bioavailability of our products and limiting unnecessary waste we were able to bring down our product costs to the end consumer and use less CBD that what would be typically be required to achieve the same results. You’ll see that our nano CBD products contain less mgs of CBD per unit than the standard CBD oil products. This is because we know our nano CBD will be more bioavailable meaning you need less of it to achieve the same results. Nano CBD products on a mg-mg basis can be slightly more expensive than traditional CBD but typically nano CBD products really are are more cost effective in the long haul because you need less CBD to achieve the same results. So there is definitely a cost savings as well.
NEWYOU: What are the benefits of nano CBD like Nano-Amplified™ to the user?
ARMSTRONG: Nano CBD bypasses the blood brain barrier without needing to hit the GI tract before it can be assimilated by the body. This means a more rapid onset and faster relief. Since nano CBD is water-soluble there are many more product options available to consumers now. This new delivery system has really allowed users to find products that fit into their daily routines so they can get all the benefits of daily CBD supplementation from products that are convenient and easy to use. When it comes to health and wellness and making real life changes to become a “NEW YOU” you have to have products that you enjoy using so that you’ll stick with them and really reap the long-term benefits.
NEWYOU: Is there a difference between “water-soluble” and “nano?”
ARMSTRONG: Yes…Definitely. There are many ways to convert CBD isolates and oil extracts into “water-soluble” forms. Nanoencapsulation like our Nano-Amplified™ technology is one of the ways of achieving this, but while nano CBD is water-soluble NOT all water-soluble products have been nanoencapsulated. Concerning absorption and bioavailability, they are very different materials. You won’t get the increased absorption and the benefits of the greater bioavailability with a standard water-soluble CBD.
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ARMSTRONG: Unfortunately, there is a lot of bad science concerning CBD in and of itself and, even more concerning, nano CBD products. There are various processes that can be used to nanoencapsulate active ingredients like CBD but unfortunately many of these processes use questionable chemical encapsulates that are questionable at best. It took NEWYOU a long time and many years of Research and Development to perfect and create, but we were able to stay true to our mission of bringing health and wellness to the world and create our proprietary nanomaterial that utilizes 100% natural encapsulating agents and truly maintains all the health and wellness benefits of CBD without unnecessary loss. Plus, all NEWYOU products including our Nano-Amplified™ CBD products are made from pure hemp oil extracts – from registered US farms. Our hemp oil extracts are naturally processed using CO2 supercritical extraction and tested (and retested) for potency and safety at a third party accredited laboratory.
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ARMSTRONG: No! We utilize a pure CBD isolate to make NEWYOU’s Nano-Amplified™ CBD which means that it is still THC-Free and can really be used by anyone anywhere. To support our quality pledge all of our raw materials undergo rigorous lab testing before being introduced into any product. Once the final product is produced we conduct another round of testing to ensure that the CBD potency on the label matches what’s in the bottle. You can find these results on our COAs.

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Pualani Armstrong started her career in product development working alongside a team of chemists to create a portfolio of efficacious skincare formulas for a contract manufacturer. Since 2015, she has worked exclusively in the CBD industry, analyzing consumer trends to predict the next big thing in product formula, function, and delivery honing her passion for innovation and brand development along the way. Her professional work with CBD has contributed to the growth of some of the most widely recognized brands in the Cannabis industry today and her career achievements include the successful launch of over 30 new topical and oral CBD formulasincluding the first clinically tested CBD skincare line. Pualani’s wealth of industry knowledge, technical skills, and scientific training, make her a valuable asset to NEWYOU as she works to identify new consumer trends and manage product development from creation to distribution.

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submitted by CBDnanoDrops to u/CBDnanoDrops [link] [comments]

[Experiment] What If... There were 26 World XI's based on the alphabet

You might have seen this post on /soccer that made "letter based teams". The concept is that there are 26 teams, one for each of the letters of the alphabet, and each team is made up of the best players with a surname of that letter. It was really well done by Dhaecktia, and a fantastic read, but left me (and plenty others) thinking "but how would those teams actually do?". So I made it.
 
Hi /footballmanagergames it's me again. If you've not seen these experiments before, then you should know you can find the full article, with pictures and formatting, over here. The content is exactly the same though, so don't feel like you're missing out if you choose to stay on reddit!
 
Credit goes to Johhog on Reddit for making the database to start with, found here. I edited quite a few things from the original idea though. Firstly the names were changed to a [City with the biggest stadium] [Common animal] format. So Tehran Tigers for T, or Houston Hedgehogs for H. Kits were pointlessly changed to have their colours representing the letters. A became Auburn and Amber, O became Orange and Onyx. You get the idea. It took a lot of effort, and almost no-one but me will ever see it.
Players were allocated on a 3 per slot basis. A formation in Football Manager has 25 possible slots, giving 75 players per team. From there a couple of players were added in based on ability, as well as the best young players for each letter, resulting in team sizes between 95 and 115 for every team. Plenty of players to chose from. The biggest issue comes from Portuguese, Spanish and East Asian names. For consistencies sake "second" names were used for Portuguese/Spanish, so players like Andre Gomes would go to G. East Asian names went by their family name, so Son Heung-Min would go to S. It may not be technically correct, but it's consistent and easy, so that's how it is.
Now the league is mostly unedited from the base database. A 26 team double fixture league, resulting in everyone playing 50 games per season. To lessen the load, there's just one single-knockout match cup between all 26 teams. The league replaces San Marino in Europe, so after the first season, will enter Europe and have all that to contend with. Reserve and U-21 leagues were added to give the massive squads something to do.
So the stage is set, everyone should be aware of what's going on now. How about we get this thing started and see which letter will dominate on the world stage? Get a T because we're in for an interesting ride...
 
 

2016/17

League Winner: Soweto Spiders
Best Player: Lionel Messi - 8.12
Top Scorer: Alexis Sanchez - 39
Most Assists: James Rodriguez - 21
Cup Winner: Rome Raccoons
From the start, the entire season comes down to a battle between two teams. Ronaldo knocks in 38 goals for Rome, but it's Soweto that come out on top by a clear 9 points. The pairing of Sanchez and Suarez proves to be lethal, as the pair net 70 goals together in their debut season.
Messi can only guide Melbourne to a disappointing 10th, with the Mice being outperformed by the likes of Tehran, Naples and Jakarta. The trio all outperform their pre-season predictions by 10, finishing 5th, 9th and 3rd respectively. At the bottom Xi'an finish 20 points adrift. It's clearly to be expected though, as they don't sack their manager.
The top scorer spot is dominated by Rome and Soweto. Ronaldo runs it close, but in the end Sanchez taking it with 39 goals. James Rodriguez plays his part, putting in 21 assists for his Rome teammates. Messi will feel very unsupported though, winning player of the season despite Melbourne's lowly finish.
Over in the cup, Rome do manage to get some silverware. They face off against lower alphabet rivals Tehran in the final, with their class shining through in a 2-1 victory. A Europa League slot safely cemented.
Melbourne will find some solace in the U21 league win, along with 3rd in the reserves league. Mandzukic, Mata and Mere proved to be the stars of the reserve sides, although the fact they're down there in the first place may be a sign that Mourinho has lost the plot.
 
 

2017/18

League Winner: Soweto Spiders
Best Player: Lionel Messi - 8.04
Top Scorer: Edinson Cavani - 27
Most Assists: Eden Hazard - 15
Cup Winner: Jakarta Jellyfish
Soweto run away with things pretty early, leaving the rest of the field to fight for 2nd. Houston, Rome and Dallas all finish within 2 points of eachother, but its Rome in 2nd, and Houston grabbing the Europa League spot in 3rd.
London improve to take 5th, whilst Tehran drop down to 14th. I wasn't sure it was possible, but Xi'an and Quito get even worse. They drop to the 10's in points, a full 30 off the rest of the pack.
Despite a mediocre year for Columbus, Cavani comes out with top scorer, cementing his place as the elite finisher everyone believes him to be. Messi takes another player of the season, despite Melbourne still doing nothing.
Highlighting their improvement this time round, London make the ABC Cup final. There they find themselves big favourites against Jakarta, but Gabriel Jesus has other ideas. The Brazilian fires the first of 3 goals, to give the Jellyfish some silverware.
With it being the second season, we get our first taste of how things are going to look in Europe. In short, utter domination. Naples fall in Europa League qualifying to Villarreal, but Soweto and Rome really turn up. Ronaldo scores 27 goals on the way to an easy Europa title for Rome, whilst Suarez nets 24 to give Soweto the Champions League. It's almost unfair.
 
 

2018/19

League Winner: Soweto Spiders
Best Player: Leonardi Bonucci - 7.89
Top Scorer: Luis Suarez - 31
Most Assists: Alexis Sanchez/Thiago - 18
Cup Winner: Soweto Spiders
Soweto take yet another title, which is no surprise to anyone. The interesting stuff is still behind, with Rome, Dallas, Alexandria and Columbus fighting it out. All get into Europe, but its Rome in 2nd place yet again. There's a pattern emerging here.
London and Naples have fallen back to mediocrity, whilst Edinburgh take a strong 11th. Vienna are doing far worse than their talent suggests they should be, consistently finishing around 20th.
Bonucci claims the highest average rating of the season but gets snubbed for player of the season. I don't know why, he just did. The award goes to Sanchez, who claims joined most assists with Tiago, setting up Suarez to pip Ronaldo for top scorer again. Name drop.
Soweto become the first team to claim a double. And also the only team that could have so far. Andre Silva leads them to a convincing win over Guangzhou, adding another piece of silverware to the cabinet.
Over in Europe, the coefficient catches up a little, seeing the ABC League rocket up the rankings. Miraculously, ABC teams only get knocked out by other ABC teams. Houston sneak past Jakarta for a Europa League title, whilst Rome get revenge over Soweto on the way to a Champions League win.
 
 

2019/20

League Winner: Melbourne Mice
Best Player: Lionel Messi - 8.26
Top Scorer: Lionel Messi - 29
Most Assists: Dele Alli - 20
Cup Winner: Naples Newts
Soweto, Rome and Dallas have proven to be strong contenders, but finally Messi and his Mice step up. 29 goals from the Argentinian maestro means Melbourne break the Soweto dominance and claim the title. Rome come 2nd, Dallas 3rd, leaving Soweto a disappointing 4th.
Pyongyang and Tehran outperform their expected levels, with a decent 5th and 6th each. Orlando do the opposite, dropping down to a pitiful 21st, despite the best efforts of Ozil.
Thanks to his top scoring antics, Messi also takes player of the season. He doesn't even scrape it, with his 8.26 average blowing 2nd place Pique's 7.73 out of the water. Alli grabs 20 assists in an otherwise unremarkable Alexandria year.
In the ABC Cup, it's Niang's and Nastasic's time to shine. The pair perform well on the way to a Naples Cup final victory over Pyongyang, putting the first trophy in the cabinet.
Another European campaign means two more trophies for the ABC teams. The Europa League sees Dallas squeak past Barcelona 1-0, whilst the Champions League pits rivals Rome and Soweto against each other. It takes penalties to split the two, and Rome walk out with the second CL in a row. The coefficient puts the league in the top 10 now.
 
 

2020/21

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Leonardo Bonucci - 7.97
Top Scorer: Thomas Muller - 27
Most Assists: Jorginho - 19
Cup Winner: Soweto Spiders
The league ends with a tight race for 2nd place, with 5 teams sitting 6 points apart. Rome take second, closely followed by Kuala Lumpur and a fallen Melbourne. But in 1st? Dybala leads Dallas to an impressive title, ending the season 6 points clear.
So what about Soweto? A poor start sees Simeone sacked, and his replacement Mourinho can only guide to Spiders to a lowly 9th place. Not even Europe for the strong favourites. Guangzhou enjoy a resurgence to earn 5th, whilst Pyongyang sink back down to 17th.
There's a new mixture of players competing for awards, as Muller takes top scorer and Jorginho finishes with most assists. Kane, Hummels and Neymar also have strong seasons, although with reward.
Despite their poor league performance, Soweto fans do get a little to cheer about in the cup. Knockout specialist Andre Silva once again impresses, as the Spiders beat Melbourne 2-1 in the final to lift the trophy.
In the Europa League, Soweto clear Pyongyang and Naples on the way to the title, claiming a Champions League spot. The Champions League proves far less successful, as Athletic put down Rome and Melbourne on the way to the title. They're not an ABC team so it's all wrong.
 
 

2021/22

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Kevin De Bruyne - 7.75
Top Scorer: Marcus Rashford - 31
Most Assists: Juan Mata - 20
Cup Winner: Melbourne Mice
Melbourne take the fight back to Dallas, as Muller and Morata pair up for an almost 50 goal partnership. It's not enough though, as the Dogs just about win it, with the De Bruyne, De Gea, Dybala trio setting up a second title in a row.
Soweto have risen back to Europe, claiming a Europa slot with 6th. Pyongyang, Rome and Kuala Lumpur all finish on identical points, but goal difference pushes Kuala Lumpur out of the Champions League, and more impressive puts the Pandas 3rd.
A good season for Dallas means their players crop up all over the stats, including De Bruyne as best player. Rashford's individual performance of 31 goals helps him edge out the Melbourne twins for top scorer.
In a rematch of last year's final, Soweto and Melbourne clash for the ABC Cup. Things are exactly reversed this time round though, as Melbourne walk out with their first ever Cup title.
In the Champions League, 3 of the 4 semi-finalists are ABC teams, demonstrating why they've reached 1st in the coefficient. Rome disappoint by losing to OM, but the French side are put in place, as Dallas cap off an incredible season with the title. Sporting claim two more ABC scalps, beating London in the final to win the Europa League. Booooo.
 
 

2022/23

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Paulo Dybala - 7.99
Top Scorer: Marcus Rashford - 35
Most Assists: Paulo Dybala - 20
Cup Winner: Houston Hedgehogs
Dallas once again win it, no build up this time I'm afraid. They do get pushed by a new face, as Tehran do incredibly well to grab 2nd. Rome and Soweto chase up behind to fill the Champions League spots. Further down, Houston do an impressive job to take 6th, only just behind Melbourne.
Rashford has now hit his prime, and aided by an elderly Ronaldo, smashes top scorer. The average age has tipped massively upwards, so it's players like Icardi and Dybala also step to the fore even more. Bonucci on the other hand, shows no signs of stopping. At 36, he's still averaging 7.97 a game.
To further cement their strong European slot, Houston win the ABC Cup. They do so in style, as youngster Havertz runs rings around league champions Dallas in the final.
On the continental level, Soweto add another Europa League trophy thanks to a victory over Kuala Lumpur. Despite having struggled on a domestic level, Pyongyang come good on the European scene. They beat giants like OM and Bayern on the way to a surprising Champions League title.
 
 

2023/24

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Leonardo Bonucci - 7.98
Top Scorer: Marcus Rashford - 31
Most Assists: Bernardo Silva - 27
Cup Winner: Alexandria Ants
Despite the best efforts of Soweto and Rome, Dallas claim their 4th title in a row. Players like Diawara, Dembele, Draxler and Dybala are hitting their stride, so this might go on for a while. Edinburgh somehow sneak in and grab an incredible 4th, whilst Kuala Lumpur and Tehran plummet to 17th and 21st.
Rashford continues his scoring spree, although with little reward for now. Bernardo Silva absolutely smashes the assists record with 27, leaving Veratti (huh?) in 2nd. Every player is now over 23, so the young player of the season award has been cancelled. Kai Havertz will be the last to ever win.
Dallas become the second ever team to claim a cup/league double, as Moussa Dembele (the Celtic one) leads them to a penalty win over Kuala Lumpur.
The Champions League proves hugely disappointing. Despite 5 teams entering, not a single one makes it to the semi-finals. They even all fall to non-ABC teams too. The Europa League still sets up an ABC final, with Houston losing to Melbourne, but are cracks beginning to show?
On the international scene, something a incredibly impressive... Players like Winks and Lascelles have started taking on Sammarinese nationality, meaning they've become quite decent. Despite being in a group with Austria, Serbia and England, San Marino qualify for Euro 2024! From there they even escape their group unbeaten, before falling to their demise against Portugal. Talk about unexpected.
 
 

2024/25

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Leonardo Bonucci - 7.99
Top Scorer: Andre Silva - 28
Most Assists: Christian Eriksen - 16
Cup Winner: Orlando Octopuses
The title race holds very little surprise. As with most seasons, Rome, Melbourne and Soweto push Dallas close, but the Dogs take it. To be honest it's not that close, with Dallas winning by 20 points, but you get the idea. London and Houston buck up their ideas a little to claim 5th and 4th, demoting Soweto to 6th.
Despite their 6th place, Soweto players actually put in a strong showing. Bernardo Silva and Sidibe run Bonucci close for best player, whilst Andre Silva finishes as top scorer. Edinburgh make their first appearance in the awards thanks to 16 assists from Eriksen.
Orlando attempt to make up for their complete anonymity by making a cup final. There they face the Pyongyang Pogbas in a tight match, but it's the Octopuses who come out victorious. They book themselves a European slot for what I'm sure will be a distinctly average performance.
A slightly stronger showing in Europe this year, with Dallas being the ones to knock out Rome and Melbourne on the way to the final. There they lose to OM, who's first 11 has an average value of £48M. Damn... The Europa League is still an ABC affair, although only just. Edinburgh are the only team to make the semi-finals, before scrapping past Chelsea and Barcelona to win it all.
 
 

2025/26

League Winner: Dallas Dogs
Best Player: Paulo Dybala - 7.96
Top Scorer: Paulo Dybala - 33
Most Assists: Kevin De Bruyne - 20
Cup Winner: Alexandria Ants
Not only has the league become predictable, the awards have too. Dallas wins the league, Dybala takes top scorer and best player, whilst De Bruyne wins most assists. Surprise surprise. The usual M, R, S finish behind them, but there are a couple of surprises as Barcelona and Alexandria qualify for Europe.
Houston have yet another solid season. They add a cup win to their 5th place finish, thanks to a 1-0 victory over Soweto.
Dallas have become ABC's best hope in Europe. Unfortunately for them, Real Madrid prove too much in the semi-finals, and the last remaining team falls. London clear bogey team Sporting and local rivals Soweto on their way to a close Europa League victory. I'm expecting that to fall to a non-ABC team too soon.
 
 

Time to speed things up...

Yup. I'm not going to keep this going on for too much longer. It'll be until the last remaining real players have reached a retirement age, so only about 10/15 years longer. It's pretty clear how things are going, so how about we speed it up for the last bit.
 
 

2026-31

Straight off the bat Dallas stop winning titles, with Melbourne getting in the way. It's not thanks to Messi, with the 39-year-old Argentinian barely able to move, leaving it to spritely youngsters like Martial. Kuala Lumpur then step up to take two in a row, before Melbourne reclaim the throne in 2030 and 2031. Rome, Dallas and Soweto are still around, but it's not to the same threatening scale as before. Orlando meanwhile have become a solid top 10 team.
The youngsters of Alli, Odegaard, Dybala, Andre Silva and Bernardo Silva dominate the league, sweeping almost all the awards available. Messi is restricted to the occasional substitute appearance, whilst Ronaldo holds out a bit longer before even his physical godliness degrades. Gorka Iraizoz comes out with the oldest player record, at 48 years, 330 days. Arjen Robben finally finds sweet release, using injury as an excuse to leave the game at 45 years old. He made just 74 appearances in 14 years at Rome.
The cup throws up few surprises, with the likes of Houston, Kuala Lumpur and Rome taking home the silverware.
In Europe, Dallas claims the 2026/27 Europa League, whilst Melbourne makes the Champions League final the same year. Its quiet outside of that though, and the coefficient has slipped to a level where England will overtake in 1 or 2 years. It's all going to hell.
San Marino is still trying to milk the glory days for all its worth. The entire national team is above the age of 30, but it's still just about working as they qualify for Euro 2028. They even claim a win, something that would have been historic but is now the bare minimum. At least until all their players shrivel up and die.
 
 

2031-36

Somehow Melbourne are scraping together a team that's decent and it shows. They take every single title that's on offer except the last. Emre Mor, Martial, Joao Mario and Mere have become fixtures, with the Mice not dropping below 100 points in any of the five seasons. The 5th title goes to Orlando, who spend a few years in the top 5 before taking 1st.
The number of goals is way down, with the highest teams scoring around 70 goals in their 50 games. This does lead to an impressive new record, as Meret manages to earn 37 clean sheets in a season in 2034. We get a new age record, as Wasilewski starts for Washington at 55 years 354 days.
In the cup, things are far more varied. Soweto win twice, whilst Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Pyongyang also get their hands on some silverware. Impressively, the cup manages to go one season with a record high of 5 goals for a team.
The coefficient has finally gone to pot as I expected. ABC teams qualify for the knockout round of the Champions League twice in the 5 seasons and get handily beaten each time. The Europa League is a similar story, with the only second knockout round appearances in 2032. The coefficient is down to 8th, and at its current rate should sink to about 25th.
With almost everyone being above 36, San Marino have sunken back to their realistic dreadful levels. They plummet from 41st to 171st in the rankings within the five years and fail to win at all in several of those years. It doesn't help their star player is a 37-year-old Tom Davies.
 
 

And we're done!

We're going to call it there. The youngest players in every squad are at a reasonable retirement age, and matches have ground to walking bore fests. There's nothing left to learn beyond what we already know, so I think it's about the right time. So what did we actually get out of that...
Well S, M, R and D are by far the best names. Soweto have a good balance now, Dallas have some good young-20's players to keep their challenge alive, whilst Melbourne have the kids to fight once they shed the weight of Messi. Rome are never the best, but always consistent enough to be there.
L, C and K are decent, although not close to the best. P, H and T are also reasonable if not a bit inconsistent. On the flip side X and Q are by far the worst on offer. The most obscure letters barely scrape teams together, let alone wins. Y, Z and I also struggle but are helped by having two utterly useless teams to shine against.
 
 

The state of the world

England

Liverpool take a surprise early few titles before Man City step in and dominate almost every year. Chelsea solidify 2nd, but the biggest surprise is Man United only finishing in the top 3 twice. Even Stoke regularly outperform them.

Spain

Real Madrid win all but two titles, including 16 titles in a row. One of the titles goes to Barcelona, but its Athletic Bilbao who grab the other as the push the Catalan club out as the second best team in Spain. Atletico fall to mediocrity very quickly.

Germany

Bayern take most titles, with Dortmund getting the occasional win and Wolfsburg winning one. Gladbach make a few top 3 appearances, but the biggest surprise is a Freiburg 2nd.

Italy

Following the trend, Juventus dominate. Roma do a good job to keep them on their toes, regularly coming 2nd and taking 3 titles themselves. Torino and Chievo manage a few surprisingly competitive years in the early 20's

France/Portugal

PSG actually don't win everything, conceding two titles to Marseille and Lyon. Porto fall apart early on, leaving Sporting and Benfica to battle for the top spot. Vitoria de Guimaraes prove more competitive than Porto by the end.

Europe

A chunk of the titles go to the ABC teams before Real Madrid take over. The Spanish side make 9 Champions League finals in a row, winning 6 of them. PSG are second best with three titles. Athletic are the biggest surprise to win, whilst Stoke, Lorient and Espanyol all claim Europa League trophies.

International

I ignored the World Cup throughout, mainly because there were no surprises. Argentina make three finals in a row but win just one. Portugal win a couple, whilst England win the 2034 edition in South Korea. Outside that the only international surprise is a 2035 Copa America win for Paraguay.
 
 

An extra test

Don't worry I have one this time round. Let's take things the extra step further. Not only will teams be grouped by letter, but they'll have to play in a formation that looks like that letter. That's right, Orlando are going to player as an O with no-one in the middle. You can see a full album of the formations I used on my site.
It's easy to guess who struggled, but the biggest surprise came from Zhengzhou. Helped by playing a reasonably sensible formation, the Zebras smash the league with 42 wins and 130 GD. Istanbul also do better than expected in 3rd, whilst Soweto break the scoring record with 287 goals on the way to 2nd. Their formation is a little bizarre, but the talent proved good enough to keep them at the top.
At the bottom, Yokohama, Xi'an and Ulsan found no improvement with their formations. Houston and Naples suffered the most, with the pair using two players in the middle of the park resulting in 250 conceded each. Previous titans Rome, Melbourne and Dallas turn into mid-table teams with the lack of strikers or defenders hampering them just enough.
The league itself turned into an utter goal fest. The biggest win record got set at 17-3, with the highest scoring game a 13-8. Suarez and Sanchez took a stab at top scorer, netting 146 between them. But it was not to be, with Gamerio taking the trophy with 86 goals. The lethal partnership with Greizmann and Gotze is enough to take Guangzhou into 7th.
So that was fun. The moral of the story here is no matter the talent, having no defenders, no wingers or no central players is going to screw you in the long run. And also that stupid gimmicky formations are stupid.
 
 

Final thoughts

This one took longer to set the scope than I realised it would. Initially teams had 500+ players, but that breaks the game badly so I had to re-adjust. There's nothing to take away from it but it was a fun little test nonetheless. I guess you can focus on certain letters when browsing for the next superstar? Or not, because that's a terrible idea.
It was nice to do someone elses pre-conceived idea though. I'd hoped to get it out sooner after the original post, but things got in the way. I hope it's still relevant enough to be of interest. If not then maybe it provided an interesting little read by itself. If not then I'm out of ideas and you should find something that you actually like reading. Like Harry Potter or something. Anyway I digress, feedback, comments and payments towards a Lamborghini for me are always welcome, so do as you please. This experiment did open some interesting methods of making players really old, so expect to see something on that soon...
I want to try more of other's ideas in the future. I had a backlog of them from other posts so expect to see more of this style. Most of the ideas are better than mine. But for now...
Thanks for reading. And goodbye.
 
If you want to see my last experiment, where I turned the Premier League in the NFL, then click here.
You can download the database used for this experiment here
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Trip Report: Rio 2016 Olympics

I got started the last week of 2015 after coming across a few blogs and this subreddit, and I've racked up ~750k points so far, but had mostly been sitting on them until I finally pulled the trigger on a trip I'd had my eyes on for a long, long time: the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I'm a huge sports fan, and have very fond memories of watching the Olympics with family/friends over the years, so it was a dream come true to experience it in person. I only decided to make the trip in mid-June after finding award flight tickets that worked perfectly for my schedule. A few of us had considered going for the past couple years, but after our friend just missed making the US Olympic team, the others decided not to go. But Rio was still at the top of my list of cities to visit and it would likely never be safer, and I had the week off work so I was going to go somewhere regardless, so I knew it was something I'd always regret if I didn't go. Being so late in the game, no hotels were really available (and I hadn't accumulated many hotel/flex points anyway), so I found a reasonably priced Airbnb 1 block from Copacabana Beach. My flights cost 115k points (55k AA, 60k Delta) and net of small fees, it was a $5,425 redemption for 115k points..a solid 4.7cents/mile. The panic over Zika/crime in Rio along with a weak economy meant demand for tickets was soft, and a great USD/Real exchange rate and the main Olympic ticket portal opening up to foreigners in June allowed me to get prime tickets to almost all of the 11 events I went to for (relatively) reasonable prices.
Day 1 - Friday Getting to Rio from SFO is a bit of an adventure. I wanted to catch up with some friends in NYC anyway, so I did the SFO → NYC redeye Thursday night, used the lounge at JFK (thanks Prestige) to get cleaned up, spent the day in NYC and then did the NYC → Rio redeye down to GIG getting in Friday morning. After settling into my Airbnb, I grabbed an Uber to make my way down to the Beach Volleyball Arena to pick up my tickets for the next 10 days and to see a Round of 16 beach volleyball match. This was one of the first things I saw after turning onto the beach - Welcome to Rio! These were early round matches so I didn't know who I'd be seeing when I bought them, but I was lucky to be seeing one of the Brazilian women's teams on their home turf, which made for a cool atmosphere. As soon as I got to my seats, I had a sense of giddiness that only comes after finishing a really big project, crossing off a bucket list item, etc. - after much planning, I'd finally made it! Brazil won the match, and I walked along Copacabana Beach on the way back, soaking in the atmosphere and the waves of people from all over the world enjoying themselves.
Later that night I made my way to the Olympic Park for the second to last night of swimming, and Phelps' last individual swim. Swimming has long been a favorite Olympic sport of mine, so this was pretty special. Plus these were the second best tickets I'd have all week - 5th row right at the end of the pool. The first swim of the night was the women's 200m backstroke, and it got things started on a high note, with American Maya DiRado making an incredible comeback to just barely outtouch controversial Katinka Hosszú by .06 of a second - even she couldn't believe it. DiRado was a crowd favorite, and the place went nuts. The coolest part of the night was sitting right where the families of medalists came to greet and congratulate their Olympians right after they got off the medal stand - here's DiRado and her husband celebrating and the medalists right after.
Phelps battled but came up a little short in the 100 fly, much to a loving crowd's disappointment, but the 3 way tie for silver made for a pretty funny medal ceremony.
Soon after, we got to see Katie Ledecky absolutely demolish the field in the 800m en route to breaking her own world record. Here's what it looked like at 750m - she's already made the turn while the rest of the field is roughly half of the pool away. Then it was time for another medal ceremony.
Last up was the Men's 50m free. Americans took 1st and 3rd, with Anthony Ervin getting the gold. He has a pretty remarkable story - he won gold in 2000 and then dealt with addiction issues before beginning to train again in 2011. Needless to say, his crew was ecstatic to see him back on top, and it was so awesome watching them celebrate - one of them came back several minutes later to make sure he exchanged numbers with a Brazilian guy sitting nearby so he could get the pictures the guy had taken of their family/friends celebrating with Anthony. They had probably the biggest smiles I saw in a trip filled with them.
Day 2 - Saturday The next day I woke up early (for someone still on PST) to head down to the Lagoa for rowing finals in the single (1 person rowing their own boat) and the eights (eight rowers, 1 coxswain steering/coaching). The course was beautiful - a far cry from the condom and trash infested river I rowed on in high school. The men's single final was unbelievable - perhaps the closest race of all time, as 2000m came down to less than a hundredth of a second. Unlike many sports where that's considered a tie, rowing discerns between the slightest margin on photo finishes, not just times to the hundredth of second. After decades of training, this was the difference between gold and silver medals. I'd probably never recover from getting second in that race. The US men struggled which was expected but still disappointing, but the women continued their dominance with another gold medal, keeping a streak of 12+ years without a loss alive.
At night, it was back to the Aquatic Center for the last night of swimming. The men's 1500m was a feat of endurance, and unlike other events where swimmers would congratulate 1-2 others after finishing, almost everyone acknowledged each other after the race. Much to my delight, the American medal parade in the pool continued: Simone Manuel anchored the 100m medley relay for the women, bringing home the gold yet again. I again had a great vantage point to see the swimmers celebrate with their families who helped them get there - you could see the tears in their eyes as they processed everything and it definitely gave me goosebumps realizing it was one of the best moments of their lives.
Simone Manual also swam the 50m free, and after a fast and furious race took home silver.
The men's 100m medley relay was the last event of the program, with Ryan Murphy's world record backstroke starting things off strong for the Americans. They lost the lead on the second leg due to Great Britain's star breaststroker, but then Phelps came into the pool and closed in, took the lead, and outtouched GB to give the Americans the lead going into the final leg. They wouldn't give it up, sending Phelps off into the sunset with a win. The crowd showed their appreciation with an extended standing ovation before he left he pool deck. Seeing Phelps before he retired (for good this time?) was one of the big motivations for making it to this particular Olympics, so I was elated that the storybook ending came to fruition and I got to see him atop the podium and hear the Star Spangled Banner one more time in the Aquatic Center.
Day 3 - Sunday The next day I had another 2 event day, traveling back to the Olympic Park for a too close for comfort US-France basketball prelim, and then going to the Olympic Stadium back in the middle of the city for my first ever Track & Field event, where I saw Usain Bolt successfully defend his 100m crown. Track was cool to see in person, but next time around I'd probably only go to 1 track event instead of 2 and definitely wouldn't shell out for the most expensive tickets. It was interesting to walk around Barra, the neighborhood where the Olympic Park was, at it's clearly in transition with tons of luxury skyrises right across the street from bombed out looking buildings.
Days 4-7 - Monday - Thursday After a whirlwind first few days, I had a much more relaxed schedule the next few days, which was nice. It made the trip feel like 3 mini-trips, starting with a 3 day sports trip, a 3 day beach vacation, and then another sports trip. The one event I did have was the midnight beach volleyball semifinal session on Tuesday night, featuring the Kerry Walsh Jennings/April Ross vs. Brazil matchup, which was a real highlight of the trip. It was electric inside the stadium, and the Americans threw everything they had at it, but in the end the home crowd willed their team to victory over the defending champ. I even made the Snapchat story for the match :)
I spent the 3 days drinking out of coconuts on the beach, working out at what has to be one of the coolest and most scenic gyms in the world (Arpoador Gym), going out at night with some new friends I met down there, and other random exploring. Pro-tip: When you party until 6am, you'll be one of the few people on the beach and can easily get a picture at the Olympic rings instead of waiting in 30+ minute lines during the day, and the sunrise is pretty great.
Thursday it was back to the Olympic Stadium for another round of track & field, where I saw a medal ceremony where the American women swept all 3 medals, 2 American men take gold and silver in the shotput and set a new world record, and Usain Bolt start right in front of us en route to a predictably easy win in the 200m.
Day 8 - Friday I'd bought tickets for the women's soccer gold medal match, but with the US eliminated, I wasn't really interested so I skipped it for more time on the beach, etc. I met up with a friend and we tried to go to Christ the Redeemer at the end of the day, but it was really foggy so the workers suggested coming back another day.
One thing I didn't know until a friend told me shortly before I left is that a lot of countries set up hospitality houses, where you can get a taste of their culture (food, drinks, decorations, etc.). Some houses are little more than a gathering place for the families of athletes - others go all out. Holland House and France House (site of Lochte's last stand) are firmly in the latter category. Holland, with sponsorship from Heineken, rented out one of the biggest nightclubs in Rio for the duration of the Olympics. During the day you could lounge in the pool while watching events on the poolside big screen, and at night Holland House turns into a club with Dutch and EDM music. But the coolest part is that each night, they celebrate their athletes who recently won medals. This night, it was their men's beach volleyball team and the women's field hockey team, who were an absolute blast. When they were done dancing, some moved on to crowdsurfing with thousands of their compatriots. Towards the end of the night, I took a quick break outside to soak in the scenery from the pool before heading back in. And then we hit the drop.
Day 9 - Saturday I'd originally bought tickets for the men's soccer semifinal, but a week or so before arriving I sold those and upgraded to tickets for the final. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I made, as the final turned out to be Germany vs. Brazil. Many events had problems with empty seats, but that certainly wasn't the case here, with a packed Maracana. Brazil came into the game with a huge monkey on their back, having not ever won the Olympics tournament and having struggled on the biggest stages in recent years. I had tickets 14 rows up almost right at midfield, which turned out to be perfect positioning to see Neymar nail home a free kick to put Brazil up 1-0 in the first half. Things got a little chippy afterwards. I was sitting next to a Brazilian superfan, which made the game all the more fun. Germany evened it up at 1 in the second half, and the game went to a penalty shootout after no one scored in OT. After 4 successful tries from each side, the Brazilian keeper got a stop and Neymar was up with a chance to bring home the W. You'll never believe what happened next! :) It was awesome to see the Brazilians leave the Maracana happy after they'd been incredible hosts.
Day 10 - Sunday The last day of the Olympics was one of the coolest, as I had 3rd row seats just behind the USA bench for the USA-Serbia gold medal game. I moved up to the front at the end of the game and bro handshake'd with Carmelo Anthony and gave him my American flag right before he gave his interview retiring from international basketball after becoming the most decorated American Olympic basketball player.
I stayed for the medal ceremony to see the team celebrate a bit more and hear the Star Spangled Banner one last time in Rio before briskly making my way across town to the Closing Ceremony. Shoutout to the Rio 2016 volunteers for helping me navigate the public transportation fast enough to arrive at my seat at Maracana literally right before the countdown to the start - they were incredible all week. It was a really cool production, with plenty of odes to Brazilian/Rio culture (Cristo, Carnaval), the Parade of Nations, and the turning over of the Olympic flag to Japan and a preview of Tokyo 2020.
Day 11 - Monday After the closing ceremony Sunday night, I went home and packed, had a friend over for a bit, and then wasted too much time to get a good night's sleep. After our failed attempt to see Christ the Redeemer at the end of the day Friday, I had my heart set on sneaking in a trip before my noon flight on Monday. I knew I wouldn't get myself up if I went to bed, so I pulled an all nighter and went to see Cristo first thing Monday. It didn't open til 8am so I was a bit worried I'd miss my noon flight, but with a long layover ahead I figured it was worth the risk since I'd be able to find another flight to Sao Paolo in time for the second leg if I missed it. Someone somewhere must not have wanted me to see this wonder of the world, because the train to the top was put out of service by a fallen tree from the storm the night before. Luckily we were able to take a van to the top instead, and the conditions cleared up enough for us to get pretty solid views of Copacabana, the Lagoa and Ipanema, and some other parts of the city. It was truly stunning - one of those things that's built up a lot but still doesn't disappoint. It made it even harder to leave, but it was the perfect cap to the trip. I raced to the airport from there, spent an 8 hour layover in the Star Alliance Lounge in Sao Paolo (along with seemingly half of Team Canada - who used up all the hot water in the shower suites before I got a chance to clean up), and then I was on my way back to the USA.
I'm lucky to live in an awesome city and usually have no trouble coming back from vacations, but this one was definitely hard to re-acclimate from. All in all, it was probably the best trip of my life. It was an amazing 10 days and while I met some people down there (some planned, some unplanned), it was a solo trip so I had the flexibility to be selfish and do it exactly how I wanted to do it (best seats to everything, sleep in most days, etc.) and so many things came together in very cool ways (event results, etc). I don't know exactly what I'll be doing in 4 years, but I'll definitely be doing everything in my power to make sure I'm in Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics, and I'm glad that it'll be a lot easier thanks to our hobby.
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