Mattel nabs SpaceX license, Kanye West launches Yeezy x Gap, Springsteen fans slam Ticketmaster
Yahoo Finance anchors discuss three other business news stories, including Mattel's SpaceX licensing deal, Kanye West's Yeezy Gap line now being available, and Bruce Springsteen fans becoming furious over concert ticket prices.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
BRAD SMITH: It's time for Cut for Time. Three stories, one minute apiece. We start with this. Toymaker Mattel scoring a deal with SpaceX to produce licensed toys. This is a big deal. I mean, ticker symbol MAT. You're seeing Mattel shares up fractionally here on the day. But I think notably, you think about some of the deals that have taken place in the past. LEGO has done well with a lot of their space collaborations.
I mean, I know I personally own one of the LEGO ideas, inventions that have come about from their community of creators. And so for Mattel, I think this could work extremely well going forward from here, given the amount of fascination and the different types of spacecrafts that SpaceX has to bring to their toy category.
BRIAN SOZZI: No--
JULIE HYMAN: And also the rabid following that Elon Musk has, right?
BRAD SMITH: That, too, yes.
JULIE HYMAN: That feeds into it, too.
BRIAN SOZZI: This is a home run deal. Look, Mattel worked with Tesla to make Hot Wheels cars. This is Ynon Kreiz, the CEO of Mattel, just another home run. He's out there producing or making this Barbie movie with photos essentially going viral. They'll report earnings tomorrow-- actually, tonight, after the close. We'll talk to Ynon tomorrow. But still, he's doing a lot right at this company. This another example of it.
JULIE HYMAN: I'm curious to see these toys when they come out. That'll be interesting to see how they actually materialize.
[BUZZER]
BRIAN SOZZI: Good stuff. All right, easy does it. I like that. Fans of rapper and entrepreneur Ye, also known as Kanye West, flocking to Gap's Times Square store in New York City. And the market showing what it could really thinks about this effort here. What I find interesting, it is now just past the two-year mark before-- when Kanye signed this deal with now former Gap CEO Sonia Syngal. And it took over two years to bring clothes inside a Gap retail store.
I would-- I've talked to a lot of folks on this deal, and I don't think Kanye has been happy with how this deal has been handled. He's been getting paid handsomely for it, but still, it has not been executed well. It should not have taken two plus years to get these items into the store for the first time. Mainly, you've been seeing just online drops here and there. Bad job by Gap. But again, I'm not surprised.
BRAD SMITH: Well, Sonia is also on the way out as well.
JULIE HYMAN: Right.
BRIAN SOZZI: She's out.
BRAD SMITH: So, now, for Yeezy, that's largely been priced in to this point in time in terms of a partnership. Now, it's, we know it's going to sell. It's just a matter of, how do they kind of build on that type of momentum and the customer--
[BUZZER]
--profile that Kanye has been able to bring in?
JULIE HYMAN: All right, I got nothing to say, I guess, because I got buzzed. Also the boss is taking to-- Ticketmaster to task after the company raised 2023 arena tour ticket prices up to $4,000 and even $5,000. Let me take a step back. I don't know that Springsteen himself-- has Springsteen himself said something about it? I thought it was the fans who were upset about this issue. So Live Nation has introduced-- through Ticketmaster-- has introduced dynamic pricing.
So that means it's more of a supply-demand issue. There are different seats within the arena that will fluctuate in pricing. And apparently, there's high demand for some of these seats because fans went on and found that it was 4 to 5 grand a ticket. We're not talking secondary market, where that can happen. And of course, the irony is, is that Springsteen has a whole working man persona. And that's the subject of a lot of songs, too.
BRAD SMITH: It's so unfair. I mean, if you're going to go see a concert in a major metropolitan area, that just means the price of your ticket just skyrocketed because of the affluence of that market and how much people are going to be able to pay, and that dynamic pricing reflecting just that.
BRIAN SOZZI: No disrespect to the boss. 5 Gs, I'm putting that in my retirement account, especially in this bear market. Maybe make some longer term strategic moves, or I'm buying a Breitling watch.
JULIE HYMAN: Well, you can get a cheaper ticket, but he'll be like a tiny speck--
[BUZZER]
--I think.
BRIAN SOZZI: I'll watch it on YouTube or something.
JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, all right.
