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What polling data is leading Nate Silver to call this presidential race the closest he’s ever seen? What exactly was happening in the final days of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto company, FTX? And what should you know about Netflix’s new contingency compensation model? Puck founding partner Baratunde Thurston walks you through three Puck stories he can’t get enough of this week. Read them in full here: https://lnkd.in/eiDdNZi3 Video: Ryan Jones Credits: Getty Images (Dimitrios Kambouris/Netflix; Franco Origlia/WireImage), Bloomberg Originals, Kamala Harris/YouTube. #Legal #Finance #Crypto #Hollywood 

After Megalopolis tanked, Lionsgate chairman Adam Fogelson praised Francis Ford Coppola and insisted that, “like all true art,” Megalopolis “will be viewed and judged by movie audiences over time.” Left unsaid, of course, was not just that Coppola’s passion project had bombed, but also that its paltry $4 million debut was par for the course for recent Lionsgate films… Since early August, Lionsgate has released a remarkable string of six theatrical flops in a row—beginning with Borderlands and continuing through the remake of The Crow, action-comedy The Killer’s Game, the Halle Berry postapocalyptic drama Never Let Go, and now Megalopolis. Can Lionsgate recover? Puck’s Scott Mendelson explores: https://lnkd.in/e-ruwAyy Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate #Hollywood #Movies 

In conversation with Puck sports business correspondent John Ourand, National Hockey League (NHL) commissioner Gary Bettman went deep on the NHL’s media strategy—from the Rogers deal and the new Amazon package to the league’s broader R.S.N. journey. Read, or listen, to their full chat here: https://lnkd.in/eaDN-G24 Photo: Jeff Bottari/NHLI/Getty Images #Sports #Media 

“While I gorged myself on football over the weekend, I had the misfortune of experiencing what life is like for a battleground state television viewer in an election year,” Puck’s Peter Hamby writes of his recent trip to North Carolina. “More specifically, what life is like for a very specific political target in these final five weeks of the campaign: a man in a swing state between the ages of 18 and 44 who watches a lot of live sports on YouTube TV.” Read Peter’s observations, and how they stack up against polling data, here: https://lnkd.in/ec2EdyfB Photos: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images; Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images

While the second installment of FTX examiner Robert Cleary’s analysis of the internal dysfunction at Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire reinforces the notion that it was a freewheeling operation, run by a group of kids who had no idea what they were doing, it also offers a new level of salacious detail about the bedlam that enveloped the company during the three days leading up to its November 11 bankruptcy. Puck’s Wall Street correspondent William D. Cohan analyzes Cleary’s latest tome: https://lnkd.in/eNqcvt-T Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images #Finance #Crypto 

The endless, anxiety-filled game of designer musical chairs took a back seat during Paris Fashion Week to a series of fashion-for-fashion’s sake shows at Rick Owens, Jonathan Anderson’s Loewe, Nadège Vanhée’s Hermès, Seán McGirr’s Alexander McQueen, and Alessandro Michele’s Valentino debut. And, yes, there was gossip, too… Read Lauren Sherman’s full dispatch from Paris Fashion Week here: https://lnkd.in/eq_7PFWn Photos: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images; Courtesy of Valentino, Khy, Schiaparelli. #Fashion

Polling guru and election forecaster Nate Silver says this year’s presidential election is the closest he’s ever seen In conversation with Puck’s chief political columnist, John Heilemann, Nate shares his ranking of the swing states from most to least likely of Harris winning, his take on whether the G.O.P.’s Electoral College advantage might be vanishing before our eyes, and his thoughts on which VP pick, Vance or Walz, was a bigger mistake (and yes, he indeed thinks both were mistakes). Read, or listen, to the full conversation here: https://lnkd.in/eP5Mzkkx Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for AWXII #Polling #Data 

For three years, Puck has been covering the inside story at the nexus of Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington, and Silicon Valley. In celebration of our third anniversary, we’re offering 20 percent off your first year of Puck. Start reading here: https://lnkd.in/etFEcS8c #Media 

If you know, you know. Start reading Puck here: https://lnkd.in/eTHmJfSj

TPG leveraged its investment in an agency into a $7 billion sale and $2.4 billion return. Can it run the same playbook in the talent management space? Puck’s Matthew Belloni explores: https://lnkd.in/eiXXTP6r Photo: Bess Adler/Bloomberg/Getty Images #Hollywood #Talent #Agent #TPG #CAA