Zaz's Big Year & Bill Simmons's Empire

Good afternoon and welcome back to the Daily Courant, our daily morsel of Puck's best and most provocative journalism.

Today, Bill Cohan delivers a cogent soliloquy on the latest Wall Street chatter, including his analysis of the best deals of the year, starting with Zaz’s master rollup. And the indefatigable Matt Belloni chats with Bill Simmons about his sports media empire and the future of the streaming wars. 

And below the fold, don't forget to engage with Puck's 1st Annual Guide to Mirth & Merriment, our definitive primer for what to read, watch, and imbibe this holiday season!

The Best Wall Street Deals of 2021

Notes on the next fiscal crisis, Gorman’s return-to-office pivot, meme SPAC mania, and a ‘Succession’ shout-out.

Each week, I receive feedback from readers and sources about Wall Street’s biggest characters and concerns. I’ll be engaging with some of those questions here—in addition to a few observations of my own.

Bill, it now seems certain that Biden’s BBB agenda won’t pass till next year. How is Wall Street evaluating the Biden agenda, and Biden, himself?

This is probably an unpopular take, but Wall Street likes gridlock and that’s basically what we have in Washington yet again. We had gridlock for the last six years of the Obama presidency and for most of the Trump presidency, and now again for the last six months of the first year of the Biden presidency. Gridlock means that for any momentous legislation to pass there has to be somewhere between 50 and 60 votes in the Senate and that is very hard to come by these days. So we really have to sweat the big pieces of legislation before they pass and before they can become law. That’s one way to stop the spiraling national debt and budget deficits from further unbounded expansion, since Congress lacks the spine to do so. 

As for why Joe Manchin persists in opposing his president’s key legislative initiative—the Build Back Better program—I wouldn’t dare hazard a guess, but I’d bet it has more to do with his own re-election concerns in very-red West Virginia than it does with trying to do the right thing for the country. And that is yet another sad indicator of how far into the abyss our political process has fallen.

As far as Biden himself, I hear a lot of complaints on Wall Street about him these days. An increasing number of Wall Streeters are starting to question his competence, his health (despite his recent clean bill) and his judgment, with most of that scrutiny related to the Afghanistan fiasco. (Personally, I think the criticisms are unfair.) But by and large, a growing disappointment with Biden does not mean, in the slightest, that Wall Street is hoping for a return of The Donald. Sorry old pal, you are still persona non grata on Wall Street. What Wall Street really wants is some new voices and new leadership that bring to the country a whole new way of thinking and acting. Who knows where these people are, or where they are hiding, but in a country with a population of 330 million, there ought to be a visionary woman out there somewhere ready to lead this amazing, but deeply troubled, country forward.

Life at Spotify, Ranking the Streamers, and Avoiding “Docu-Mercials”: A Chat with Bill Simmons

Assessing Spidey's mega-success and a revealing conversation with sports media mogul Bill Simmons.

Regular readers know that I sometimes use this space to chat with people doing interesting things. So when I saw that Bill Simmons’ Music Boxdocumentary series was renewed by HBO on Thursday, I asked if he’d talk to me about music docs, which I know are uniquely difficult to make. The ESPN alum doesn’t do much press outside his popular podcast for The Ringer, the media company he sold last year to Spotify for a reported $250 million. (I know it’s popular because when I’ve appeared on his show, I’ve received texts from half my college friends.) We chatted about his success in this tough genre, which streamers need to merge, and the possibility of a Patriots vs Tom Brady Super Bowl. I edited this down.

Matt Belloni: You produced the popular 30 for 30 doc series when you were at ESPN. And Music Box, with films on subjects like Alanis Morrisette, DMX, Woodstock ’99, and Kenny G, feels similar. What’s the approach? 

Bill Simmons: With 30 for 30, we went a little more modern, which I think really helped us. Same with Music Box. We wanted six films that complemented each other, that could be watched by people in their 20s and older, and even someone like my [teenage] daughter, which is why the Alanis pic was such an important idea for us.

Between this series and Ringer shows like The Rewatchables podcast, you’re good at tapping into 90s moments in a way that people who are now of-age can look at with new eyes.

It started with the Eagles doc [in 2013]. I was trying to figure out, Why is this the one that works? So I watched a lot of music docs. A lot of them were too sprawling, the people were too old, the band was always involved, so you could never tell how authentic it was. We try to answer a single question in each one. For instance, Woodstock ‘99 is about: What the fuck happened that weekend? 

Music docs are so tough to make good. The artists and labels have a lot of sway because they control the music. You either work with them or you don’t use the music and go the adversarial route. How did you get this done? I did notice that Mark Cimino and Jody Gerson at Universal Music are credited producers.

They’re more than credited producers. They were huge believers in the project and it doesn’t happen without them. It’s not just dealing with artists, you’re dealing with labels, music publishers, managers and gatekeepers and agents. Most people want editorial control.

Right. Plus, you see people like Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish selling “documentary” projects to streaming services for $20 million.

That wasn’t happening when we started in 2018...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT