A Business News Blog

Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors drives to the basket against the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2021 NBA Play-In Tournament on May 19, 2021 at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California. Adam Pantozzi | National Basketball Association | Getty Images The National Basketball Association made a record $1.46 billion in sponsorship revenue in its 2020-21 regular season, according to estimates by IEG, a sports partnerships consultancy firm. IEG said the figure is up 6% year over year, and up from the $1.2 billion the NBA made from partnerships after its 2018-19 season. IEG tracks sponsorship spending throughout pro leagues, including the National Football League. Its parent company is investment firm Bruin Sports Capital, founded by George Pyne, a well-respected sports executive and former NASCAR chief operating officer. The NBA saw 13 new deals during its 72-game campaign, including from Microsoft. The tech sector helped the league bring in roughly $115 million per...

South Korea is looking to open up its economy and work on travel bubble programs given its relative success in controlling the spread of Covid-19, its deputy prime minister told CNBC in an exclusive interview. The government plans to boost consumption and further stimulate the economy in the second half of this year — and policies will be in place to achieve that goal, said Hong Nam-ki, who is also South Korea's minister of economy and finance. "I would say that the current government has been relatively successful in both the infection control and vaccination," he told CNBC's Chery Kang on Friday, according to a CNBC translation of his Korean remarks. "Based on the achievements, the current government now intends to promote economic growth while maintaining such health measures." He said that South Korea is aiming for herd immunity by November, which would mean the virus can no longer spread rapidly as most of the population will either be fully vaccin...

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday advised investors to wait for Boeing shares to pull back more before buying the dip on the airplane maker's latest regulatory issue. Boeing shares dropped more than 3% to start the week following reports that the Federal Aviation Administration told the company that approval of its 777X jet could take at least another year, calling attention to multiple technical mishaps with the long-range aircraft. But while Monday's decline was Boeing's biggest one-day drop since May, Cramer thinks the stock can be bought at lower levels. "It looks like the Federal Aviation Administration is taking a very hard line with Boeing's new planes," Cramer said on "Mad Money." "If you like Boeing, please keep your powder dry. I think you can get a better chance to buy it at lower levels." With CFO Greg Smith set to retire, Cramer suggested that Boeing could feel the need to issue additional shares in the company, which could ...

CNBC's Jim Cramer on Monday endorsed getting in on the initial public offering for Didi, the Uber-like Chinese company whose shares are set to start trading publicly in the U.S. this week. "I think the valuation seems imminently reasonable," the "Mad Money" host said. "If you want to speculate on a Chinese IPO, you've got my blessing to bet on Didi. I would try to get as many shares as you can." Didi will list Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange with the ticker symbol DIDI. The company expects its stock to be priced between $13 and $14 each, which could give the ride-hailing giant a valuation of more than $60 billion. The IPO could raise more than $4 billion for the company, which would make it one of the biggest of 2021. "There are some antitrust concerns here, but as long as they stay on the Communist Party's good side," Cramer said. "I doubt they'll have much trouble with the regulators." Read more abo...

Etsy, the online crafts marketplace, is banking on Latin America to be a growth catalyst for the e-commerce company with the acquisition of the Brazilian online marketplace Elo7. Etsy shares jumped 7% Monday after it announced the $217 million deal to acquire Elo7, which Etsy CEO Josh Silverman called "the Etsy of Brazil." "This is all about growth potential over the medium and over the long term," he said in a "Mad Money" interview. "The opportunity for Brazil's e-commerce sector to grow faster than the U.S., we think, is very meaningful over time." The e-commerce market in Latin America has a penetration rate of less than 10%. The market could produce about $29 billion of revenue this year and is forecast to grow at a 26% clip annually, according to the market research firm Euromonitor. Similar to Etsy, Elo7 allows merchants to set up an online shop and sell items to buyers. The site, among the largest online marketplaces in Brazil, b...

High earners in high tax states cheered the news last week that Sen. Bernie Sanders included relief from the state and local tax cap in his budget. But the numbers suggest Sanders is only considering a partial reduction in the cap. And the latest proposal being discussed in Congress would do little to help the top earners who account for the largest share of SALT deductions. Sanders' $6 trillion budget included $120 billion for SALT relief over five years. The provision boosted hopes in states like New York, New Jersey and California that the progressive wing of the Democratic party is open to eliminating the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions. The cap was part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and created an effective tax hike for many high-earners in high-tax states. Yet Sanders' $120 billion provision would cover only a partial repeal. The Tax Policy Center estimates a full repeal of the SALT cap would cost about $450 billion over the first five years, while ...

A Starbucks location that was closed midday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. Leslie Josephs | CNBC A worker shortage at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport became so severe last month that one of its top executives sent a message to shops and restaurants: Don't steal each other's employees. "As you know, we are experiencing one of the greatest hiring challenges in the history of DFW Airport," Ken Buchanan, executive vice president of revenue management and customer experience, wrote to concessionaires in a May 27 letter reviewed by CNBC. "As we prepare for a busy summer, please continue to practice DFW Airport's high standards of hiring operations and refrain from soliciting employees from other DFW operations ('poaching')." After more than a year of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, travelers busting out of their homes for vacation have been met with long security lines, hourslong hold times with airlines and fewer optio...

Packages of Juul mint flavored e-cigarettes are displayed at San Rafael Smokeshop on November 07, 2019 in San Rafael, California. Juul, a leading e-cigarette company, announced that it is halting sales of their popular mint flavor e-cigarette after the release of two studies that showed a surge in teen use. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images News | Getty Images Juul Labs has agreed to pay North Carolina $40 million and change its business practices in the state. Regulators and health officials have blamed the company for the surging popularity of e-cigarettes among teens in recent years. In 2019, federal data found that more than 1-in-4 high school students had used an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, up from 11.7% just two years prior. As of 2020, that number fell to 19.6% of high school students amid greater regulatory scrutiny and the coronavirus pandemic. "North Carolina is now the first state in the nation to hold Juul accountable for its instrumental role in creating...

Walgreens healthcare professionals pass to each other the Pfizer-BioNTec vaccine against coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the Victor Walchirk Apartments in Evanston, Illinois, February 22, 2021. Kamil Krzaczynski | Reuters LONDON — Mixing and matching the coronavirus vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford generates a "robust" immune response against the virus, a study led by Oxford University has found. Researchers running the Com-COV study — which is looking into the feasibility of using a different vaccine for the initial "prime" vaccination to the follow-up "booster" vaccination — discovered that alternating doses of the two vaccines generated strong immunity. However, the study found that the immune responses differed according to order of immunization, with the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot followed by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine generating the better immune response out of the two mixed schedules. Doses of the vaccines were g...