Tune in to the Olympics to watch men tell women what to do

Put me in, Mr. Coach. [Bloomberg]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a unique configuration of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - [Olympic coaches]( are mostly men. - [New Jersey Transit]( fails again. - One [concert](? How about 10? - FedEx enters the [M&A den](. Gender Balance This has to be the coolest party trick on the planet: An [old video]( of Katie Ledecky swimming with a glass of chocolate milk on her head recently [went viral]( again in the lead-up to the 2024 Olympics. I’m not surprised she can do this — she can do [anything](, including [swim]( an entire football field in a little over a minute and do it 15 times — the fastest a woman has ever done such a thing. Even more impressive: Ledecky holds the 19 fastest times in the 1,500-meter race. A cup of Yoo-hoo on the noggin? That’s nothing. Needless to say, we’re all excited to watch Ledecky compete this July. She will be one of 5,250 women participating in the Paris Olympic Games, marking the first time in history that Olympic athletes will have reached gender parity: The organizers of the Olympics are very, very [proud]( of this statistic. But the Games’ focus on gender this year also includes [sex testing](, a blunt instrument that’s [dashed]( some athletes’ dreams. Moreover, Adam Minter [says]( the milestone glosses over the fact that Olympic coaches are still overwhelmingly male. “True gender equality at the event can only be achieved when women have an equal chance to lead,” he argues. Three years ago at the Tokyo Summer Games, women held just [13%]( of all coaching positions. Although The Guardian expects that figure to nearly double this year — to [25%]( — it’s an embarrassingly low percentage. Yet it’s easy to see why the coaching profession skews male: “If a country doesn’t prioritize girls’ sports and fitness, it probably doesn’t send many women to the games,” he writes. “The challenges for women who aspire to coach at the Olympics can be equally daunting, even in countries like the US where women’s sports are encouraged.” Take youth sports: In 2022, [26%]( of coaches were women. At the college level, it’s only marginally better: As of 2020, less than 45% of the head coaches for NCAA women’s teams were women. For men’s teams, it’s less than 5%. “When NCAA college sports programs — which serve as [critical training grounds]( for US Olympians — send their best athletes to compete, many of their coaches follow behind them. Tagging right along is the glaring gender disparity,” Adam writes. And, of course, the glaring [pay disparity](. Read [the whole thing]( (with a glass of chocolate milk balanced on your head, if you dare). We Broke New Jersey Photo: Bloomberg If I had a dollar for every push notification I’ve received about Penn Station rail service being suspended, I’d be able to buy pork roll egg and cheeses for all my Bloomberg Opinion colleagues. Last week alone, Mark Gongloff [says]( train traffic between New Jersey and New York was either temporarily halted or significantly delayed on four out of five days because of heat-induced mechanical nightmares. Not helping matters is the fact that “one of NJT’s busiest rail routes, the Northeast Corridor, relies heavily on a unique configuration of [catenary and signal wires]( installed roughly around the time of World War II,” he writes. Three years back, Amtrak’s favorite customer (President Joe Biden) gave the company $6 billion to fix the Northeast Corridor, but a complete overhaul isn’t gonna happen until around 2037. By that point, [higher temperatures]( will have air-fried [Newark]( to a crisp. “While climate change makes natural disasters more intense, social weaknesses, including shoddy infrastructure, make them more destructive,” Mark writes. Hellish [commutes]( are by no means as catastrophic as, say, the drought-fueled civil wars in Sudan and Syria, but they are a major drag on the economy. Consider Mark — a disgruntled NJT commuter himself. His desk was empty today. If the train had been working properly this week, maybe he’d be in the office! Maybe he’d have purchased a coffee in the morning and a burrito at lunch. If he spilled some salsa on his shirt (so clumsy, that Mark), maybe he’d buy a Tide to Go pen at the CVS. After work, maybe there’d be a happy hour. Or a book he bought to read on the train. You get where I’m going with this. Climate change will have many consequences, and New Jersey’s unreliable transit system is just the start. Bonus Climate Reading: - Mexico City’s water scare should be [a wake-up call]( for cities around the world approaching “Day Zero.” — Bloomberg’s editorial board - Governments must collect [high-quality climate data]( à la unemployment or inflation to guide our response. — Mihir Sharma Doomers Don’t Listen to Sabrina Carpenter Photo: Nina Westervelt/Billboard via Getty Images I saw a [tweet]( the other day that said “my 2024 vibe is ‘compulsive concert ticket buying,’” which is so me, to the utter dismay of my bank account. The thing is, everyone is on tour right now. By the end of this year, I will have [seen]( Olivia Rodrigo, Madison Beer, Niall Horan, Chappell Roan, Reneé Rapp, Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Gracie Abrams AND Maggie Rogers perform live. Am I a delusional spender? Perhaps. Do I lose total control of my mind, body and soul every time I’m in the Ticketmaster queue? Absolutely. But I cannot deny the vibe of the year. It’s CONCERTS. And Live Nation loves that for me. On its last earnings call, the ticket seller said it is “seeing no weakness” among fans compared to last summer. That demand stands in sharp contrast to the pool industry. Households aren’t installing backyard swimming pools as they once did: “With the peak selling season almost complete, we now believe that new pool construction activity could be down 15% to 20% for the year,” Pool Corp. said on Monday. The doomers say the consumer is “finally cracking” under a mountain of credit-card debt, but the execs of sold-out concert venues say otherwise. So who is right? Perhaps both. “The reality is more nuanced and reflects how consumer spending habits have shifted,” Robert Burgess [writes](. “Whereas the period of 2020-2022 was largely marked by spending on goods, whether it be backyard pools, appliances, cars or clothes, the period since has been marked by an increasing percentage of dollars spent on services. In other words, the things that make life enjoyable — travel, leisure, dining out and other experiences.” My conclusion? The economy is [me espresso](. Telltale Charts Big news in the packaging world: Thomas Black [says]( FedEx is doing an “assessment” of its freight unit, which means it might end up selling it or spinning it off in the near future. The announcement “comes a bit out of left field,” Thomas writes, but it could result in a huge windfall since the freight unit’s operating margins hover around 20% — considerably higher than the company’s ground package unit. If a deal materializes, FedEx would look a lot like its main competition, UPS, which sold its trucking business in 2021. Elsewhere in M&A, you have Bernard Arnault, who revealed he owns a personal equity stake in Richemont in [Bloomberg Businessweek](. “It’s unclear exactly how many shares the LVMH chairman and chief executive officer has acquired,” Andrea Felsted [writes](, but it’s enough to make people wonder whether the “wolf in cashmere” has a plan to snatch up the conglomerate. “Acquiring Richemont would catapult LVMH into a completely different stratosphere,” she writes. “In jewelry, it would combine Richemont’s Cartier and Van Cleef with LVMH’s Tiffany and Bulgari … Add in Louis Vuitton, the world’s biggest luxury brand, and sister Dior, and Arnault would be even more dominant.” Our SCOTUS writers were busy today… - Moyle v. United States: “For the second time in two years, an abortion-related decision from the Supreme Court has [appeared]( before its due date,” Noah Feldman [writes](. A copy of the opinion briefly posted on the court's website shows the justices are poised to kick the can down the road. - Murthy v. Missouri: Noah also [says]( the Supreme Court just made it way harder to claim social media censorship. If Trump wins, Stephen L. Carter [predicts]( liberals might have some regrets about it. - Snyder v. United States: According to the justices, a $13,000 gift is [not a bribe](. Stephen [says]( that’s right. Further Reading No, illegal migrants [aren’t fueling]( a violent crime wave. — Justin Fox Don’t count China out of [the AI race]( just yet. — Catherine Thorbecke The real reason to fear the [US deficit](? Bond vigilantes. — Bill Dudley So far, Meta’s [mixed-reality headsets]( make more sense than Apple’s. — Dave Lee Since when did Gavin Newsom and Ron DeSantis share [a common cause](? — Erika D. Smith Blackstone sees billions in [Japan’s manga](. You should, too. — Gearoid Reidy ICYMI Sunak and Starmer go [head-to-head](. Thrive Capital is [investing]( in A24. There are [fewer women]( in the C-suite. Celine Dion had [a seizure]( in her documentary. Kickers The [meme-ification]( of Anthony Bourdain. You think your office is [cold](? At least it’s not [this](. All tuxedos should be made with [duck tape](. [Drug sniffer dogs]( aren’t so good at their job. Notes: Please send chocolate milk and feedback to Jessica Karl at jkarl9@bloomberg.net. [Sign up here]( and follow us on [Threads](, [TikTok](, [Twitter](, [Instagram]( and [Facebook](. Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](. Want to sponsor this newsletter? [Get in touch here](. 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