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Acquired

Acquired

Auteur(s): Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
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 Every company has a story. Learn the playbooks that built the world’s greatest companies — and how you can apply them.Copyright 2025 ACQ, LLC Finances personnelles Économie
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  • The NFL (2026 Update)

    The NFL (2026 Update)
    Jan 27 2026

    The NFL is nearly synonymous with America today. Practically nothing is more quintessentially and universally American than tuning in every Sunday (and Monday, and Thursday… and sometimes Saturdays and holidays too) to watch the world’s most beautiful ballet of violence. It generates the most revenue of any sports league globally and sets new records for team valuations each year. But it wasn’t always this way.

    The history of the NFL mirrors America’s own development: scrappy small-town teams rode the successive growth waves of the automobile, TV, the Internet and social media to grow larger than the even the founders’ wildest dreams. Whether you watch football or not, the NFL is one incredible business story, and one that we’ve taken more lessons from over the years for Acquired itself than perhaps any other episode we’ve made.

    Note: This is a remastered release of our original January 2023 episode, updated to today's Acquired production standards. It also features a full hour+ followup section at the end covering the seismic shifts in the NFL’s business since the original episode’s release. Much has happened in those three years: Taylor Swift entered the league (via merger 🙂), streaming went mainstream (and took over Thanksgiving and Christmas), sports gambling exploded from 46 million to 76 million bettors, and — in perhaps the most surprising development — private equity finally stormed the gates of the NFL. Oh, and average franchise valuations grew by 60% from $4.5 billion to over $7 billion. Communist capitalism is alive and well!

    We're also releasing this episode in advance of Super Bowl LX here in San Francisco, where Acquired is hosting the NFL’s inaugural Super Bowl Innovation Summit!

    Sponsors:

    Many thanks to our partners:

    • Vanta
    • Sierra
    • Crusoe
    • Sentry (+ join the list for Sentry & Vercel’s Super Bowl Fan Zone party)

    Links:

    • Innovation Summit details and all Super Bowl LX Week events in San Francisco (note content from the Innovation Summit will be posted publicly the week after the Super Bowl — we’ll update this page with links when available)
    • America’s Game
    • Sports Illustrated’s oral history of the famous Joe Namath “pool photo”
    • All episode sources

    Carve Outs:

    • The Menu
    • Peyton’s Places

    More Acquired:

    • Get email updates and vote on future episodes!
    • Join the Slack
    • Subscribe to ACQ2
    • Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!

    00:00:00 Intro
    00:00:37 Welcome to the Remastered NFL Episode
    00:06:05 Origins of Football & the Forward Pass (1869-1905)
    00:14:34 The Founding of the NFL (1920)
    00:41:52 Bert Bell's "Any Given Sunday" Philosophy (1946)
    01:03:28 Pete Rozelle Transforms the League (1960)
    01:56:34 The Creation of the Super Bowl (1966)
    02:09:47 Monday Night Football Invents Modern Sports TV (1970)
    02:37:19 The NFL's Business Model Explained
    02:39:28 CTE & the Kaepernick Controversy (2016)
    02:48:36 Analysis: Playbook & 7 Powers Analysis
    03:21:04 2026 UPDATE: Netflix, Youtube, Amazon Streaming, T-Swift, Gambling & New TV Deals
    03:57:11 Private Equity Enters the NFL (2024)
    04:14:08 Conclusion & Thank Yous

    ‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
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    4 h et 17 min
  • 10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)

    10 Years of Acquired (with Michael Lewis)
    Dec 15 2025
    Why has Acquired — seemingly against all odds — “worked”? It's a puzzling question: episodes are four hours long, they come out infrequently, and they usually don’t have guests or video. Hardly the standard-issue playbook for podcasting success! And yet well over a million smart, curious and exceedingly busy humans share their (your!) valuable time with us every month. Why? This is the exact paradox that has been rolling around in the head of Michael Lewis (yes, that Michael Lewis) since he found the show earlier this year.So we asked Michael to be our guest "interlocutor" and share what he thinks is going on here, while we share ten lessons we've stolen (graciously) from companies we've studied and brought into Acquired itself. He takes us through the entire Acquired journey: how we started, why we've never hired anyone or raised money, how we pick episodes, what our business model actually is, why we focus on quality and enjoyment over maximizing enterprise value, and ultimately why we’re all — you, him, us — kindred spirits together. Oh, and just for fun, we recorded this episode where another special journey began — the garage where Google was founded.Thank you for an incredible decade together… here's to the next one!Sponsors:Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners:J.P. Morgan Payments (you can watch our full show with them at AWS re:Invent here!)WorkOSSentryShopifyThank-yous:First, to Google for loaning us the garage. The sawhorse table desk, PC and CRT monitor on display in the background were all Google originals courtesy of the Google Founders Collection at the Computer History Museum. So cool!Second, to our friends at Shep Films for helping us seriously up our game on production quality this episode!Our Favorite Michael Lewis Books:Home GameMoneyballLiar’s PokerThe Blind SideThe Undoing Project (as referenced by Michael in the beginning, about Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky)Carve Outs:Books: The Name of the Wind by Patrick RothfussScience, the Endless Frontier by Vannevar BushLast Man Standing: The Ascent of Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase by Duff McDonaldThe Art of Spending Money by Morgan HouselEmperors of Chocolate by Joel Glenn BrennerMorris Chang's AutobiographyPodcasts: Against the RulesRevisionist HistorySmartLessThe DailyThe Bill Simmons PodcastGraham Duncan on Invest Like the BestGlue GuysVideo: Jay KellyThe RehearsalDoug DeMuroTiresF1 The MovieAndorFalloutSeveranceSiloVideo Games: Sea of StarsKirby and the Forgotten LandProducts: ARTEZA Rollerball Pen 0.7mm FineRotring 800 Mechanical PencilFujifilm X100VIUniqlo Socks!On Running ShoesRimowa LuggageParenting: Guided Access on iPadToy StorySlumberPodBluey Experience in NYCMore Acquired:Get email updates and vote on future episodes!Join the SlackSubscribe to ACQ2Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
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    2 h et 48 min
  • Coca-Cola

    Coca-Cola
    Nov 24 2025

    Coca-Cola is… sugar water. And somehow it’s also America, Christmas, summertime, friendship and happiness. Today we tell the story of how The Coca-Cola Company amazingly transmogrified a beverage into emotion in all of our collective psyches, and ALSO built one of the most incredible scale economy businesses of all-time. And oh yeah, there’s also cocaine, WW2, Mad Men, Warren Buffett, James Dean, Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson, Michael Ovitz, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, McDonald’s and Monsanto. So cozy up to the fire with your favorite images of Santa Claus and Polar Bears and enjoy an ice-cold episode of Acquired — always delicious, always refreshing.

    Sponsors:

    Many thanks to our fantastic Fall ‘25 Season partners:

    • J.P. Morgan Payments
    • WorkOS
    • Shopify
    • Sentry — Link to ACQ Cassette Players, use code “audiophile”

    Links:

    • Sign up for email updates and vote on future episodes!
    • The Hilltop ad / Mad Men finale
    • Pepsi Challenge commercials
    • Pepsi’s Michael Jackson commercials
    • Coke’s Bill Cosby commercials
    • Two liter bottles inflating
    • Worldly Partners’ Multi-Decade Coca-Cola Study
    • For God, Country, and Coca-Cola
    • Secret Formula
    • All episode sources

    Carve Outs:

    • SkiErg
    • Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
    • Claude
    • Nike Vomero Plus
    • Hermanos Gutiérrez

    More Acquired:

    • Get email updates and vote on future episodes!
    • Join the Slack
    • Subscribe to ACQ2
    • Check out the latest swag in the ACQ Merch Store!

    ‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.
    Voir plus Voir moins
    4 h et 4 min
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