Big Tech securing additional broadcast rights for NFL games would be a welcome development, sports “super agent” Drew Rosenhaus told CNBC on Monday. This season, NFL games finished with 47 of the top 50 telecasts. The looming expiration of these deals has ignited questions about whether Big Tech companies will make considerable pushes to secure broadcast rights. In September, Jimmy Pitaro, the president of ESPN, said he expected Silicon Valley firms to make an effort to obtain broadcast rights.

But unlike then, the big tech giants of 2020 are more fairly valued and devote more revenue to keeping their growth going, wrote Goldman Chief U.S. Equity Strategist David Kostin in a note. “Today, the S&P 500 market cap is concentrated in the five largest stocks to a degree not witnessed since the peak of the Tech bubble,” Kostin wrote. Microsoft clinched positive results across every segment, 14% year-over-year revenue growth and reiterated guidance for double-digit growth in 2020. More broadl

Oil fell to its lowest level in more than a year on Monday as the coronavirus outbreak and its potential impact on demand further hammered crude prices. “The oil market has been subject to many supply shocks over recent years, but an acute demand shock has not been felt since the 2008 financial crisis,” RBC’s Michael Tran said in a note to clients Monday, adding that the coronavirus has “roiled the oil market.” U.S. West Texas Intermediate fell 2.8%, or $1.45 per barrel, to settle at $50.11 per

Goldman Sachs is in talks to offer small business loans to merchants on Amazon’s sprawling e-commerce platform, according to a person with knowledge of the plan. The deal, if closed, would mark the second tech giant using Goldman as a back-end provider of bank-regulated services. The move to begin making loans to small businesses in the latter stages of a decade-long U.S. economic expansion may increase the risks Goldman is taking on. Amazon started its small business lending operation in 2011,

Tesla has more short sellers than any other U.S. stock, S3 says, with over 18% of its publicly available shares sold short. The short sellers are investors who borrow shares from a bank and then sell them, hoping the stock will go down. If it does, then the short sellers buy them back at lower prices and return them to the bank, profiting on the difference. If a stock price instead trends higher, short sellers are forced to buy back the equity at a higher price in order to cut their mounting los

If you don’t have a college degree, it won’t hold you back from working for Tesla, Elon Musk tweeted on Sunday. What’s more, to work in Tesla’s artificial intelligence department does not require a specific degree. “A PhD is definitely not required,” Tesla boss Elon Musk said on Twitter on Feb. 2. I “don’t care if you even graduated high school,” Musk said. “There’s no need even to have a college degree at all, or even high school,” Musk said during a 2014 interview with the German automotive pu

Developer Crema Games is taking an aggressive stance on cheaters in its Pokémon-like MMO, Temtem: no second chances. “We’ve made 100% sure that every banned user is either a cheater or has abused exploits intentionally,” Crema wrote on Twitter. — Temtem (@PlayTemtem) February 3, 2020Temtem players were initially upset about the announcement — specifically, the language that it won’t review any ban appeals. Crema is asking players that want to appeal their bans to email its support team with “Ban

My Hero Academia creator Kohei Horikoshi is changing the name of a recently revealed character in response to fan backlash. Dr. Daruma Ujiko’s full name was revealed as Maruta Shiga in Chapter 259 of My Hero Academia, with “maruta” being the Japanese name for victims of human experimentation during World War II. “Many have pointed out that the character name ‘Shiga Maruta’ in this week’s Jump chapter has brought up recollections of acts done in the past. Shonen Jump, the weekly magazine where My

Escape from Tarkov, the hardcore survival shooter from the team at Battlestate Games, is a hit. Many are calling for a reset — a global wipe of every player’s progress to date. Tarkov is an unusual game in that it blends tactical first-person shooter action with light role-playing game elements. For a week or more before a reset, developers usually drop the price of everything in the game’s marketplace. For many hardcore Tarkov players this ironically creates an odd sense of boredom because you

Images of Animal Crossing: New Horizon’s updated villager models have appeared, showcasing the adorable animals not just with textures plastered onto their bodies, but actual clothes. In the video, you can see a random selection of Animal Crossing villagers in their shiny, new glory. Rather than just having a texture of a random shirt pattern on their bodies, shown like a sleeveless shirt, the animals are actually wearing clothes. After all, Nintendo’s been tight-lipped on new details, so player

There’s no doubt that Revenant is the most anticipated part of Apex Legends season 4. The trailer shows off Revenant’s ability to make himself and his teammates turn into smoke, though it isn’t clear what that might do. Another moment shows Revenant shooting what looks like a mortar or grenade from his arm, but we’ll have to wait for his full release for more details on that ability. This will be the first time Respawn Entertainment has made major changes to the game’s World’s Edge map. Apex Leg

Daemon X Machina, the third-person mech shooter from developer Marvelous, is coming to Windows PC later this month. Daemon X Machina was produced by Kenichiro Tsukuda, a veteran of FromSoftware’s Armored Core series, and features mech designs from Shoji Kawamori, also an Armored Core vet. Related Watch 30 minutes of Daemon X Machina gameplay from E3The game features online competitive battles in 1v1 and 2v2 versus modes, as well as four-player co-op. The PC version of Daemon X Machina is priced

Traders work in the gold and silver options pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange. Jin Lee | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesGold prices slipped slightly on Monday after China pumped cash into its economy, but the metal continues to flirt with multi-year highs. Gold price and coronavirusThe coronavirus outbreak has triggered further risk sell-offs, but is not alone in providing a lift to the gold price, according to BullionRock Managing Director Robin Newbould. “In 2019, pre-virus, gold gained circa 2

OPEC and its allies could cut production by more than a million barrels a day at a rescheduled meeting this month, as policymakers work to arrest a double-digit collapse in the price of oil. The Wall Street Journal also reported on Monday, citing OPEC officials, that kingpin Saudi Arabia was considering an option to cut by 1 million barrels a day to jolt markets. While Croft suggested OPEC could cut “potentially in the million plus range,” other analysts have suggested a smaller cut may be more

Sterling fell more than 1% Monday after the U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he wouldn’t accept EU standards as a price to pay in order to secure a free trade deal. The United Kingdom left the EU officially on Friday, but it has yet to agree a new relationship with the EU. During this period, London also aims to develop new trade arrangements with Brussels. Failure to reach a new trade deal would bring higher costs for U.K. and European exporters. “There’s no doubt there is also considerab

Before the meeting, Byron and I read up on Musk’s entire life history. But all that hard work didn’t make much of a difference, because not more than 30 seconds into the meeting, Musk told us, “No. Byron and I were set up to lose, but ‘delight’ was the spark that intrigued Musk and convinced him to let us stay. They were focused on the gift Byron was holding. Byron and I were set up to lose, but delight was the spark that intrigued Musk and convinced him to let us stay.

Bloom ProductionsLawmakers recently upended a tax strategy for wealthy Americans who want their loved ones to inherit sizable retirement accounts. The Secure Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law in December, changed rules around the “stretch IRA.” Prior rules let people who inherited an individual retirement account “stretch” withdrawals from the account over their lifetime. Under this arrangement, a trust — rather than an individual — inherits the retirement account. These trusts o

Top Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in a note Sunday that his firm,TF international Securities is cutting iPhone shipment forecasts for the first quarter of 2020 (Apple’s fiscal Q2) by 10% because of the coronavirus. “Our latest survey indicates that the iPhone supply is being affected by the coronavirus and, therefore, we cut the iPhone shipment forecasts by 10% to 36-40 mn units in 1Q20,” Kuo said in the note. Apple no longer discloses how many iPhones it ships each quarter, but Kuo estimates

The U.K. has pledged £20 million ($26 million) to help fund the development of a vaccine for the new coronavirus, which has so far killed 362 people globally. “Vaccines are our best defense against a host of deadly diseases, including coronavirus,” U.K. Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a press release on Monday. CEPI, an international alliance of public and private organizations, announced on Friday that it had partnered with pharmaceutical firm CureVac to work on a coronavirus vaccine. The

Forever 21 has reached an $81 million deal to sell its retail business to a group that includes Simon Property Group, Brookfield Property Partners and Authentic Brands. Forever 21 said in a bankruptcy court filing it is seeking approval to name the three as the lead, stalking-horse bidders in an auction. Forever 21 is planning to seek approval of the sale by Feb. 11. Authentic Brands in late 2019 bought the rights in bankruptcy court to the Barneys New York brand name. Read the Forever 21 court