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Back in 2015, the Chicago Bears told Brandon Marshall no. The personable All-Pro receiver had been appearing as an analyst on Showtime’s Inside The NFL on his days off during the previous season, but new Bears management werent going to allow it. Right then, I knew I wouldn’t be a Bear anymore, Marshall told CBS in 2016. Because I think that the business of the NFL is growing every single day, and players are being told to stay in a box and just play football, and we’re missing out on a lot of opportunities, not only to grow as men and businessmen but to experience different things. A lot can change in a decade. This week, the NFL is announcing a new initiative with YouTube called Access Pass for Legends. The new program builds on the success of the original Access Pass, launched in 2023, which garnered over 200 million views by partnering with YouTube Creators. Now the league is using it to empower NFL Legends, starting with Marshall, to help build their YouTube presence using official NFL footage. Other former NFL players like Cam Newton, J.T. OSullivan, and Kurt Benkert are also joining the initiative, in what the league sees as a transformative step in athlete-driven content creation. Marshall says that its an important step to allow NFLers access to official footage and be able to tell their stories around it. Now, the same guys that helped build the game are now in position to have this access, go on YouTube and build a business, Marshall tells Fast Company. That is the biggest win, being able to tell stories from a different perspective. It’s going to be exciting to see how some of our legends take advantage of this program. Ian Trombetta, the NFLs senior vice president of social, influencer, and creator marketing, says Marshall was the obvious choice to kick off the YouTube Access Pass for Legends. His deep understanding of how to create engaging content along with his unique ability to connect with new audiences has helped set a standard of what athletes can achieve off the field, says Trombetta. Brandon is a pioneer in the space and his success celebrates the legacy of the game while also building a bridge to future generations. Next Evolution When the NFL first launched its Access Pass program in 2023, it invited a select group of content creators and influencers to craft original content using the NFLs officially approved footage. Since then, the league has evolved its approach to the creator economy, which Goldman Sachs has speculated will hit about $480 billion by 2027. In its first year, the Access Pass program generated more than 153 million total impressions, and more than 46.5 million views for the NFL, according to Whalar. At the same time, the growth of NFL playerscurrent and retiredstarting podcasts has gained significant momentum over the past few years. Taylor Lewan, cohost of the popular Bussin’ with the Boys podcast, started his while still playing with the Tennessee Titans back in 2019. Marshall started his I Am Athlete podcast soon after retiring that same year. As podcasts become more video oriented, and the level of content created more complex, Marshall says former players deserve more access and opportunity to use footage and partner with the league. Were talking about guys who played the game, who worked their tail off to help build an organization, to add more value to a team or the league, he says. Why wouldn’t our teams and our leagues embrace us to tell those stories? Trombetta says this new program is a natural evolution of the leagues work with creators. NFL players and legends are no longer just seen as athletes but as creators and storytellers with valuable perspectives on the game that increasingly have a home on YouTube, says Tomrbetta. Access Pass for Legends reflects this evolution by giving NFL icons additional tools to build their own media businesses. Angela Courtin, YouTubes vice president of connected TV and creative studios, also sees this as a step in further elevating this new genre of sports media. She says this is about empowering these athletes to take control of their narratives, build powerful brands, and transition into successful media moguls in their post-playing careers. For us, it’s about equipping them with the tools and platform to connect with fans on a whole new level and forge their own paths in a new era of entertainment. This is Marshalls ultimate goal. When it’s all said and done, people are going to say, Man, I know I love the company you built, not necessarily the legacy you left on the field. Just remember that these are former pro athletes, and the competitive fire doesnt go away, if just shifts to a different playing field. Cam Newton is my brother, and we have a great relationship, says Marshall. But I do not want to give Cam Newton all of my secrets, because I want to kick his butt on YouTube.
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Yesterday, shockwaves rippled across the American tech industry after news spread over the weekend about a powerful new large language model (LLM) from China called DeepSeek. News of DeepSeeks capabilitiesnot to mention the fact that it is open source and free for anyone to use and modifysent U.S. markets reeling, including the tech-heavy Nasdaq, which saw $1 trillion evaporate from its market cap as AI-adjacent stocks such as Nvidia and Broadcom were hit hard. U.S.-listed shares of TSMC, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), also took a dive. But today, some of those stocks are recovering, at least to a degree. Heres what you need to know about DeepSeek and its latest market impact. ‘DeepSeek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment.’ Investor and engineer Marc Andreessen posted on X yesterday that ‘Deepseek R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment.’ DeepSeek R1 is the Chinese firm’s latest reasoning mode. “AI’s Sputnik moment” refers to the time when the Soviets leapfrogged the U.S. in the space race with the launch of the world’s first satellite, a milestone that caught America off guard. https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1883640142591853011 Andreessen and many other tech experts seem to believe that DeepSeek is a similar milestoneand for several reasons. First, not only did DeepSeeks AI model outperform reigning U.S. champions like OpenAIs ChatGPT and Metas Llama, but it was made at a fraction of the cost that U.S. tech giants spent developing their homegrown LLMs. DeepSeek reportedly cost less than $6 million to train, while U.S. tech giants have spent hundreds of millions or billions to develop theirs. Second, DeepSeek was reportedly trained on mid-range AI hardwareNvidias H800 chips. It was previously thought that a model with such industry-defining capabilities couldnt be trained on anything but the latest high-end chipsets. Third, DeepSeeks LLM is also more energy efficient, making it more environmentally friendlynot to mention cheaper to run. These three factors made it appear that Americas tech giants vastly overspent on training their LLMs, which now appear to be inferior to DeepSeek. This also suggests that Americas major tech giants operating in the AI space, including OpenAI, Meta, and Google, arent as impenetrable to competition as once thought. When the financial barrier to entry into creating an LLM that could compete with Americas best models was thought to be relatively higha company would need hundreds of millions or billions in capital to enter the raceit gave Americas tech giants a competition buffer. Not many other tech companies, and certainly not upstarts, would have the financial resources to compete. But now, if they can compete for just a few million dollars, Americas AI tech giants might have a lot more competition in the months ahead, threatening their AI dominance. Why did DeepSeek knock $1 trillion off U.S. markets? After news of DeepSeeks achievements spread, U.S. markets sank yesterday, especially the tech-heavy Nasdaq. By the end of the day, the Nasdaq had lost $1 trillion. The majority of that loss came from a sell-off of Nvidia shares. As noted by CNBC, Nvidias stock (Nasdaq: NVDA) plummeted nearly 17% yesterday, which wiped almost $600 billion from its market cap. Other AI-adjacent stocks like chipmaker Broadcom Inc. (Nasdaq: AVGO) fell over 17%, and OpenAIs largest investor, Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT), fell over 2%. These and falls in other AI-related tech stocks helped account for that $1 trillion loss. As for why DeepSeek sent shares tumbling, it’s because its existenceincluding how little it cost to train and the inferior hardware it was trained onis a threat to the interests of some of the reigning American AI giants. If advanced AI models can now be trained on lower-spec hardware, why should companies keep shoveling money to Nvidia for their latest, most costly chips? And if any company can create a high-performance LLM for a fraction of the cost that was once thought to be required, Americas AI giants are about to have much more competition than ever imagined. That kind of news scares investors who have invested heavily in Americas AI tech giants over the last few years. How are U.S. tech stocks reacting this morning? The good news for tech-heavy investors is that in premarket trading this morning, many U.S. tech stocks that plummeted yesterday are recovering today, albeit slightly. As of the time of this writing, Nvidia shares are up about 5% over yesterdays close. Broadcom shares are up about 3.4%. TSMC shares are up about 3.2%. However, shares in Microsoft and in chip-tooling maker ASML are relatively flat. This doesnt necessarily mean DeepSeeks effect on U.S. stock markets is over. Todays slight recovery of yesterdays biggest losers likely suggests that some investors are seemingly catching their collective breaths as they wait to see how Americas AI leaders respond to “AI’s Sputnik moment” as the week continues.
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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Speaking on D.R. Horton’s earnings call last week, CEO Paul Romanowski was asked about geographic housing demand trends and if rising inventory in Florida and Texas was impacting the sales of Americas largest homebuilder. Some of the [recent] buildup we’ve seen in inventory has had some impact on [our] sales when you look at portions of the Florida market and as well isolated to some of the Texas markets where they saw a significant run-up in valuations,” Romanowski responded. “We’ve seen some moderation there. But generally, as we enter into the spring, [we] have been pleased with what we’ve seen in these first few weeks in our sales offices across our footprint. The regional variation described by D.R. Horton is supported by the data. According to John Burns Research and Consultings Burns Homebuilder Survey for December, which was published this month, homebuilders in Florida and Texas are spending the most on sales incentives, while homebuilders in the Northeast and Southern California are spending the least. Broadly speaking, homebuilders have been more willing in recent years to compress marginswhich reached historic levels during the pandemic housing boomand allocate them toward incentives or affordability adjustments to “meet the market” when and where needed, rather than making significant cutbacks in production. Indeed, just last month Lennar CEO Stuart Miller told analysts: We’re going to adjust to market [when and where needed]. We’re going to maintain [sales] volume. In Florida, homebuilders are spending 10% of the sales price on incentives to help move unsold inventory. On a $500,000 home, that would come out to spending $50,000 on incentives. In the Northeast, homebuilders are spending 3% of the sales price on incentives for unsold inventory. On a $500,000 home, that would come out to spending $15,000 on incentives. Often those new construction incentives are baked into the price; however, if a particular community or market shifts quickly, and a builder needs to rapidly increase incentives to keep selling homes, its essentially a net effective home price cut. And although both new and existing home inventories have increased from historically low levels, the supply of homes at affordable price points is generally still limited,” Romanowski told analysts. “To help spur demand and address affordability, we are continuing to use incentives such as mortgage rate buy-downs, and we have continued to start and sell [more] of our smaller floor plans.” !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r
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