JohnWallStreet

After several years of declining search traffic, Condé Nast CEO @rogerlynch has directed all the company's brands to operate as if search traffic to their properties will be zero. He says the era of turning search and social media traffic into profitable businesses is gone. And that if you run a media business that doesn't have an authoritative brand, a very strong niche, or a direct audience, you're going to be fighting hostile algo changes all the way down. He describes a recent board meeting: "We took a snapshot of search results from seven or eight years ago. And what you saw were a few sponsored links, then the ten blue links." "Do the same search today, you get an AI overview, then you get rows and rows and rows of commerce links, then you get sponsored stuff." "Each of the last three years, we would do our budgets, and we'd put forecasts in of search traffic declining. Because we'd seen the pattern of algorithm changes. And generally those algorithm changes were negative." "Every year, our search traffic was down more than we had forecast. So last year I told our teams, 'Assume there's no search.' You have to have your businesses planned as if search is zero. We don't expect it to be zero, we expect it to be a single-digit percentage of our traffic."

On the latest episode of JohnWallStreet's Big Business on Campus podcast, Vice President and Director of Athletics @StJohnsU, @EdKullStJohnsAD, talks to @HowieLongShort & @maschreiber about, "Manhattan & @TheGarden as almost an extension of our campus." MSG is working to make @StJohnsBBall the 3rd franchise behind the Knicks & Rangers. Ed is leaning into this "big city model", because the St. John's community loves NYC. "Our older demographic, they wanna go to Del Frisco's, or they wanna go to Wolfgang's for a steak dinner. [And] I see our students more excited about an MSG game than playing on campus."

New Episode of JohnWallStreet's Big Business on Campus is out now! Phenomenal conversation with @StJohnsU Vice President and Director of Athletics @EdKullStJohnsAD. Kull breaks down how the Red Storm are leveraging MSG & NYC as an extension of the Queens campus, @RepoleStable deeply impactful involvement beyond dollars, and partnerships & activations including working with @cllctMedia & @darrenrovell, and a @OnePieceAnime collaboration to reach young fans (potential future St John's students 👀) youtu.be/OvxpGsy95EI?si…

BREAKING: @GothamFC are in advanced talks to move to @NYCFC's new stadium in Queens in 2028, sources tell @Sportico. The @NWSL club is playing a game next door, at Citi Field, in July. More w/ @soshnick 👇 sportico.com/leagues/soccer…

JohnWallStreet Advisory AI advisor @shrip1220 questions if LIV Golf should go full tilt on AI. "I look at what's going on in the AI category, right? Google Gemini paid $32 million to the IPL. The Women's Cricket League got the equivalent of $5 million. News Corp got a quarter billion dollars to train models. What if you go all in on the data and literally say, 'We're gonna get an AI provider and we're gonna let them train on everything, the audience, the players.' If you're not gonna be there next year, who cares what you did to your database?" Your move @WHOOP @ouraring @livgolf_league. @HowieLongShort

Teams are being hit hard by the RSN collapse as seen from Atlanta Braves financial numbers. awfulannouncing.com/mlb/atlanta-br…

Good news: Ahead of NJ TRANSIT World Cup train tickets going on sale tonight, @NJTRANSIT is lowering ticket prices to $98 without New Jersey taxpayer money. Thank you to our partners – DoorDash, Audible, FanDuel, DraftKings, PSE&G, South Jersey Industries, and American Water – for helping make this possible. We’re excited to host a world-class event this summer and showcase New Jersey on the global stage.

The FAST environment is an extremely effective way for up-and-coming leagues to break through. Pam Duckworth walks through how a late-night experiment with @bareknucklefc led to @fuboTV investing into the emerging league.