Yeah, but just wait until he plays Jeff Zucker. In
tennis.Photo: Getty Images
• NBC’s Olympic coverage is growing by the millions: After 30 million people tuned in on Monday night to watch the games, 40 million people turned on their tubes Tuesday night to watch Michael Phelps capture two more gold medals. The Peacock Network must be crossing its fingers that Phelps is able to continue his winning streak. [Variety]
• Internet sites aimed at women are up 35 percent from last year — a category that’s growing faster than any other area on the World Wide Web, except for politics. Women’s sites had 84 million visitors in July, 27 percent more than the same month last year. [
• Should news organizations cover the Republican and Democratic national conventions? [Slate]
• L. Rust Hills, one of Esquire’s famed editors from the fifties through the nineties, passed away due to a heart attack. He was 83. [NYT]
FINANCE
• Much to the dismay of its wealthy clients, Goldman Sachs has its lips zipped on this whole auction-rate-securities mess. In fact, unlike Citigroup and UBS, it appears that the bank might not buy back the securities from its customers. [WSJ]
• Recent market optimism may have just been a sugar high: Financial stocks were hit hard yesterday due to rising oil prices and continued subprime woes. Bank of America fell 7 percent, and Lehman Brothers dropped 4 percent, while AIG was down 3.5 percent. [NYP]
• Lehman Brothers is trying to flip $14 billion worth of commercial-real-estate assets as the firm tries to clean up its balance sheet. BlackRock, the U.S.’s largest publicity traded fund manager, is a potential target. “BlackRock is a logical buyer,” one analyst said. “They have experience in managing portfolios of assets like these.” [Bloomberg]
• Alan Greenspan’s stance on the government’s response to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac crisis? “Bad.” [WSJ]
• Is Google the new Berkshire Hathaway? [Deal Journal/WSJ]
REAL ESTATE
• Get out your checkbooks out: “The finest, most complex, and maybe even magical new condominium project” is “currently for sale in New York City.” [NYDN]
• The Bloomberg administration’s Willets Point project, which would remove more than 200 small businesses in Queens to make way for $3 billion in development, met opposition yesterday as protesters took to the streets chanting “Justice for Willets Point!” and “Save Willets Point!” [NYT]
• If you want to skip lunch today (both because you will want to throw up and because you’ll want to start saving every penny you have), check out this floor plan of the Mehiel duplex in the Carhart Mansion, up for $35 million. [Curbed]
LAW
• A new ranking shows that the most prestigious law firms in the U.S. are all based in New York. The firms include Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, followed by Cravath, Swaine & Moore; Sullivan & Cromwell; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; and David Polk & Wardwell. [Legal Blog Watch]
• How did we miss this? Last week, the American Bar Association held a mock hearing — set to Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Yes, that’s right: The testifying and cross-examining all happened in song. Oh, those crazy lawyers! [NYT]
• Pryor Cashman is in negotiations to lease 100,000 square feet of space at 605 Third Avenue. The entertainment-law powerhouse, whose clients include Bob Guccione and numerous American Idol contestants, currently occupies three buildings. “It creates certain inefficiencies, in having three elevator banks, three buildings, three sets of everything,” the firm’s managing partner said. [NYO]
