Business
Ocean technology hub AltaSea blooms on San Pedro waterfront
![Ocean technology hub AltaSea blooms on San Pedro waterfront Ocean technology hub AltaSea blooms on San Pedro waterfront](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/589c634/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5280x2772+0+592/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F78%2Fe3%2F323b039541afb7367aa047e6e6be%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-32-ajs.jpg)
A moon shot to make Southern California an international leader in the “blue economy” is taking shape in San Pedro as a $30-million renovation of three historic waterfront warehouses nears completion.
AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles, as the complex is known, is home to sea-centered businesses such as the headquarters of explorer Robert Ballard, who located the wrecks of the Titanic and the German battleship Bismarck. His research vessel the Nautilus docks there, as does Pacific Alliance, a vessel for farming mussels far out at sea.
On barges docked on AltaSea’s wharf, scientists from USC, UCLA and Caltech are developing methods of reducing ocean carbon dioxide and technology to scrub ships’ exhaust stacks. Other tenants in the former warehouses include startup firms that are building a new generation of remote undersea cameras and 3-D printers to build parts for offshore wind, wave and solar farms.
Jenny Cornuelle Krusoe, executive vice president and COO of AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
![An aerial view of the Captura barge, where crews monitor equipment used for pulling carbon dioxide from seawater.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/33cf1b0/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5280x3956+0+0/resize/2000x1498!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe5%2F7a%2Fdd097aa543f2a1fdaa0e4193e3b7%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-28-ajs.jpg)
An aerial view of the Captura, a barge at AltaSea where crews monitor equipment used for pulling carbon dioxide from seawater.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
“AltaSea is education, research and business all working together,” said Jenny Krusoe, executive vice president and chief operating officer. The size and waterfront location, she added, make AltaSea “a unicorn piece of property that is basically made to be the mother ship for the blue economy.”
Mayor Karen Bass and others who played a part in AltaSea, including City Councilman Tim McOsker and Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, are expected to officially open the facilities at a ceremony Wednesday.
AltaSea is bringing new purpose to a previously moribund wharf that once played a rich part in the evolution of Southern California.
In the early 20th century, Los Angeles merchants and city leaders set out to capture a share of the increased global shipping trade expected to pass through the Panama Canal, a link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that opened in 1914. They created a municipal wharf on the waterfront of what has become the sprawling Port of Los Angeles, with a long stretch of warehouses where ships were loaded and unloaded into trains, carts and trucks by burly longshoremen.
The growth of containerized shipping after World War II gradually rendered City Dock No. 1 obsolete for moving goods, and the wharf was little used for decades. By 2011, advocates, including port officials, saw it for what it was: a choice 35-acre site for a research center and tech companies focused on sustainable uses of the world’s oceans.
A key part of the mission of the nonprofit enterprise is to create jobs with pioneering companies. Among them is the nonprofit AltaSeads Conservancy, the largest aquaculture seed bank in the United States. Like their terrestrial counterparts, aquaculture seed banks are meant to preserve genetic diversity in plant life for the future. AltaSeads is also advancing the use of kelp as an easily grown resource.
“It’s a super versatile crop,” said scientist Emily Aguirre of AltaSeads, that can provide food for humans and livestock while removing carbon from the atmosphere. “It can be also be used to fertilize terrestrial agriculture, and it’s fantastic because if you grow it out in the ocean, you’re not taking up any land.”
![Michael Marty Rivera and Emily Aguirre monitor varieties of kelp in storage tanks at AltaSeads](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/c03aae3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3900x2600+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F33%2Fa3%2F4c4c38a2493484fddc25ddd02266%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-09-ajs.jpg)
Michael Marty Rivera and Emily Aguirre of AltaSeads Conservancy monitor varieties of kelp in storage tanks.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Kelp is also a source of algae that cuts methane emissions from cows, Aguirre said, and has many other food applications, including reducing freezer burn in ice cream.
Eco Wave Power, an Israel-based company, is set to install the first U.S. onshore wave energy pilot station in the coming months on the port’s Main Channel, next to AltaSea. The system of floaters attaches directly to preexisting structures — like breakwaters, wharfs and jetties — and produces energy from the constant motion of the waves. Another AltaSea business, CorPower Ocean, uses buoys and hydraulic pressure for energy production.
![Rustom Jehangir, founder and CEO at Blue Robotics, demonstrates his BlueROV2](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/8698129/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3900x2600+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fca%2Ffc%2F4c132f91450d9963f604a1db6353%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-03-ajs.jpg)
Rustom Jehangir, founder and CEO at Blue Robotics, demonstrates his BlueROV2, a high-performance remotely operated vehicle that can be used for inspections, research and adventuring.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
The figurative whale for AltaSea so far is Ballard, who set up shop at the aged docks several years ago and has captured public interest as a deep-sea explorer and scientific researcher. It’s his headquarters and home to his research and development.
AltaSea has an array of solar panels on the roof bigger than three football fields that generates 2.2 megawatts, enough to power 700 homes annually and more energy than the entire campus will need when it reaches full capacity.
![BlueROV2, a high-performance remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that can be used for inspections, research, and adventuring,](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/a7a4ae2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3900x2960+0+0/resize/2000x1518!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F85%2Fe7%2F26bfe0164d20aab7c782d3254584%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-04-ajs.jpg)
The BlueROV2 vehicle.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
To fund the wharf’s redevelopment, AltaSea received $29 million from the state, Port of Los Angeles and private donors. The funds paid for construction, installation of the solar panels and the future creation of a park.
AltaSea is one of multiple projects that are part of a two-decade process to clean up the air and water at the port and turn unused docks, wharves and warehouses into places where more people will want to work or visit, port officials said.
“Bringing people to our waterfront has been a hallmark of the Port of Los Angeles for decades,” Seroka said in 2020, and recent investments “will really bring us to the next level.”
Before the pandemic, about 3 million people came to L.A.’s waterfront annually for recreation, a tally port leaders hope to see double in the years ahead. To smooth the path of new development catering to visitors, the Port of Los Angeles is investing about $1 billion in infrastructure improvements over 10 years, Seroka said. Private developers building AltaSea and other projects will invest an estimated $500 million.
![Taylor Marchment shows off 3D concrete printing for offshore renewable energy](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/b94c91d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3900x2600+0+0/resize/2000x1333!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F6f%2F62%2F0026036a4723861a6f4732e51290%2F1450251-fi-altasea-san-pedro-07-ajs.jpg)
Taylor Marchment, the manufacturing R&D lead at RCAM Technologies, shows off 3-D concrete printing for offshore renewable energy.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
One of those projects, West Harbor, is a long-planned redevelopment of a 42-acre site that used to be home to Ports O’ Call, a kitschy imitation of a New England fishing village, built in the 1960s, that fell out of favor years ago and was razed in 2018.
Restaurants anchoring the dining, shopping and entertainment center will include Yamashiro, the second branch of a Japanese-themed Hollywood destination for locals and tourists. Another large restaurant will be Mexican-themed, with an over-water bar. There will also be a food hall and Bark Social, a membership off-leash dog park, bar and cafe. The complex is slated to open next year.
The waterfront developments represent improvements that San Pedro residents have been waiting decades to see, said Dustin Trani, whose family has been in the local restaurant business for nearly a century. Last year the chef opened Trani’s Dockside Station, a seafood restaurant situated between AltaSea and West Harbor, in part to capitalize on the expected influx of visitors.
“We’re on the cusp of a very big economic boom in this area that has not yet been seen,” Trani said.
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Business
In College Sports’ Big Money Era, Here’s Where the Dollars Go
![In College Sports’ Big Money Era, Here’s Where the Dollars Go In College Sports’ Big Money Era, Here’s Where the Dollars Go](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/08/22/multimedia/2024-05-15-nil-compensation-index/2024-05-15-nil-compensation-index-facebookJumbo.png)
What wins college football championships? A potent defense? An explosive offense? In the era of name, image and likeness, it is money.
Lots of it.
It can cost as much as $10.5 million for a title-contending starting offense and defense in the new Power Four conferences. The big-ticket item, of course, lines up behind the center.
A blue-chip quarterback in a Power Four conference — schools like Alabama, Michigan and Washington — can expect to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars annually through name, image and likeness, or N.I.L., deals. A quarterback in the Southeastern Conference can bring in more than $1 million, on average.
Expected annual compensation for starting players in the Power Four conferences by position Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations players’ earnings must rank in the top 25 at their position. Specialist ($60,000) and Tight End ($140,000) positions are not labeled.
How much top-earning football players make in a year
And that is merely an average. Ask the Texas Longhorns.
Quinn Ewers
$1.7 million
Texas
Their starter, Quinn Ewers, has N.I.L. deals worth nearly $2 million annually, according to the website On3, which tracks deals for college athletes.
Arch Manning
$3.1 million
Texas
Arch Manning, his backup who hails from one of football’s royal families, has deals worth more than $3 million.
Carson Beck
$1.4 million
Georgia
Georgia’s quarterback, Carson Beck, brings in enough that he recently bought a Lamborghini that retails for $270,000.
Between the cash pouring into athletic programs via collectives — a fancy name for boosters who funnel much of the N.I.L. money to players — and more lenient transfer rules, a sort of eBay to buy athletes has been created, transforming how powerhouse teams are built.
“It’s whoever wants to pay, the most money raised, the most money to buy the most players, is going to have the best opportunity to win,” Nick Saban, the recently retired football coach at the University of Alabama, told Congress in March.
But how do athletes, coaches and administrators determine the going rates? Many consult the Black Book, a kind of Zillow for college sports, which details an athlete’s expected annual earnings, and, in the case of sports like football and men’s and women’s basketball, even breaking them down by position and conference.
A series of three proportional area charts related to the N.I.L market. The first square shows the overall size of the N.I.L. market, the second shows that 80 percent of the market is made up by donor groups known as collectives and the third shows that only 30 percent of the market is publicly disclosed.
Opendorse, the company behind the Black Book, projects around $1.7 billion in transactions in the N.I.L. market this year.
Of that, 80 percent will come through collectives like Texas’ Team One Foundation and the Classic City Collective at the University of Georgia. But even that is an incomplete picture of a rapidly changing N.I.L. frontier awash with money.
There is no universal requirement for athletes to disclose how much they are being paid. Less than a third of the money that student athletes are making is publicly known, according to Opendorse.
Still, the Black Book is a must have for university collectives and collegiate athletic officials, as well as the lawyers involved in House v. N.C.A.A., an antitrust case in which the Black Book and all Opendorse data from 2016 through 2022 were subpoenaed. The sides recently agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement.
If a federal judge approves it, schools will be allowed to set aside around $20 million per year, beginning in the fall of 2025, to pay athletes. (The proposal also calls for a program by which athletes’ N.I.L. deals could be reviewed.)
The Black Book, copies of which were obtained by The New York Times, shows that, even as football remains the dominant sport financially, sports like women’s basketball have become increasingly lucrative. In her final season at the University of Iowa, Caitlin Clark sold out arenas, increased television ratings and had sponsorship deals valued at $3 million.
Clark may have been the sport’s unicorn, but title-contending programs are expected to spend more than $730,000 on their starting five, with guards being the most valued at $225,000.
The N.I.L. era has also created a new generation of entrepreneurs and given them a more concrete sense of their earning potential. For instance, Alex Glover, a star volleyball player who recently concluded her career at Southern Methodist University, made more than $100,000 from sponsors who wanted to be associated with her Instagram video series, called “Day-In-The-Life of a D1 Volleyballer.”
Livvy Dunne
$3.9 million
L.S.U.
Olivia Dunne, a gymnast at Louisiana State University, has become something of a celebrity in recent years. Dunne, who goes by Livvy, has leveraged a large social media following — she has over five million followers on Instagram — to notch deals with major brands like Nautica and Vuori.
Paige Bueckers
$1.4 million
Connecticut
Paige Bueckers, a standout basketball star at the University of Connecticut, similarly has millions of followers on social media and has signed N.I.L. deals with Nike, Gatorade and Verizon.
The top N.I.L. earners in women’s gymnastics usually make around $20,000 annually, about 10 times as much as their male counterparts, according to data from Opendorse. Besides the major men’s sports — football, basketball and baseball — collegiate female athletes typically earn more than male athletes in the same sport.
Expected annual compensation in select Olympic sports
Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations, players’ expected annual earnings must rank in at least the top 50 at their position. The Track/Cross Country category includes athletes in track and field.How men’s and women’s annual earnings compare in smaller sports
“By nature, athletes are disciplined and purpose-driven,” said Blake Lawrence, the co-founder of Opendorse. “What has been really cool to see is how many athletes on our platform, especially the women, lean into the opportunities to be creative and build a brand. They don’t want to get paid just for going to practice and games.”
Lawrence, a former starting linebacker at the University of Nebraska, began Opendorse in 2012 to help his former teammate Prince Amukamara monetize his brand after he entered the N.F.L. as a first-round draft pick with the New York Giants. Lawrence understood the commitment required of college athletes and anticipated that the pay-to-play model was coming sooner rather than later. More than a decade on, some 150,000 athletes have used his platform to grow their name, image and likeness revenues.
The company compiles its numbers based on previous N.I.L. marketing deals signed by a large cross section of football and basketball players and competitors in the so-called nonrevenue Olympic sports. Clients that pay for the information include university athletic departments, their collectives and athlete agencies.
“I know what it takes to be an athlete and wanted to create something like Expedia or Zillow that took the mystery out of getting good value and putting that power in the hands of athletes,” said Lawrence, who offers tutorials on topics like marketing and pay benchmarks on his Instagram feed. “This is all new to them. I see six contracts a second and want them armed with information to make what could be life-changing decisions.”
Like the American economy, college sports have a hierarchy, and its “1 percenters” are the so-called Power conferences like the SEC and the Big Ten.
Expected annual compensation for starting players in each conference by position
Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations players’ earnings must rank in the top 10 at their position.How the Power Four conferences compare
The expected annual N.I.L. compensation for a top-10-earning football player at any position is $216,000 for the Big Ten and $565,000 in the SEC, which is more than three times the annual earnings of $159,000 in the Big 12.
The SEC’s stature is even more pronounced this year. The former Big 12 powerhouses Texas and Oklahoma have joined the conference, which is made up of state universities that have long taken football seriously and invested heavily in athletics. The top-10-earning SEC players at every position — except for tight ends and specialists — earn more annually on average than players in any other Power Four conference. A running back in the SEC can now expect to make about half a million dollars, almost as much as a Big 12 quarterback. Offensive and defensive linemen in the SEC do even better, tallying upward of $700,000.
For the smaller, so-called Group of Five conferences, which include Conference USA and the Mountain West, the new N.I.L. environment puts football championships even further out of reach. The average value of top 25 players at any position at schools such as Liberty (part of Conference USA) or Boise State (in the Mountain West) is just under $50,000.
The money is lucrative in the top tier of men’s and women’s basketball, as well: A starting five of top-25-earning men’s basketball players costs about $3.3 million, with forwards on the top of the pay scale making around $750,000. And while women’s basketball earnings are comparatively much lower, top-level women’s players have had substantial growth since last year, with pay across all positions up by $30,000.
How much top-earning basketball players make
Expected annual compensation for players, on average, by position
Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations players’ earnings must rank in the top 25 at their position.
Even better for basketball stars? With their faces and personalities in full view during games, it is easier for them to enhance revenues beyond collective money through sponsorship partnerships with national brands.
This new market allowed Armando Bacot, who played at the University of North Carolina, to remain in college last season and begin work on a master’s degree in business. His partnerships with the Opendorse clients Dunkin and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, as well as others with regional and local companies, have made him a multimillionaire.
Many star players like Bacot are now forgoing the ritual of leaving school after just a year or two to enter the N.B.A. Instead of jumping (ready or not) into the draft in search of riches, more players are choosing the ample N.I.L. pay and more time to work on their games and degrees. (Bacot went undrafted and signed with the Utah Jazz this summer.)
“With more and more veteran guys staying in school longer, it’s going to be harder and harder for freshmen to get big minutes, because coaches would rather have veterans,” said Daniel Hennes, the chief executive of Engage, which represents college basketball stars like Bacot in N.I.L. deals. “So, underclassmen will stay in school longer, and the draft will get older and older. In a lot of ways, that’s good for everyone.”
Mike Boynton is among the many college coaches who are not so sure. He brought the future N.B.A. star Cade Cunningham to Oklahoma State with four years of shoe leather. He outworked more accomplished rivals with national titles on their résumés with the promise of doing right by the young star.
“I can’t work that hard anymore,” said Boynton, now an assistant at the University of Michigan. “Not when you can say, ‘Hey, here’s $500,000 to come spend nine months over here.’”
Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations, players’ expected annual earnings must rank in the top 25 at their position. The Track/Cross Country category includes athletes in track and field.Big sports still pay big money …
… but athletes in the so-called nonrevenue sports are finding increased earnings, too.
For many athletes — those who aren’t top stars in the marquee sports — the N.I.L. era is different, though no less exciting. Zoe Ledet, a 19-year-old sprinter at West Virginia State University, joined TikTok in 2020, at the height of Covid-era teenage boredom. She said she quickly amassed a following for “funny skits, hair care, you know, relatable stuff” and now has 1.7 million followers on the platform and nearly 300,000 on Instagram. Still, Ledet never thought brands would be interested in working with her as an athlete.
“I knew that big track athletes like Sha’Carri could get deals with Nike, but I didn’t know there were smaller deals to be had,” said Ledet, referring to the Olympic sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson.
West Virginia State
Last year, during her freshman season, Ledet was approached by B.E. Collective+, an organization that supports student athletes from historically Black colleges and universities in the N.I.L. market. She signed with the group and had N.I.L. deals worth about $3,500 in her first year.Zoe Ledet
$3,500
For Ledet, those earnings aren’t life-changing money, but she has been able to use platforms like the BE Collective+ and Opendorse to gain a better sense of her value in the new marketplace. Her followers now ask her to post more about track and to share videos from meets, content that she hopes will in turn lead to more N.I.L. deals.
“There are a lot of athletes bigger than me, of course, but N.I.L. has allowed athletes like me to widen our platform and get more recognition, too,” she said.
Source: Opendorse. Data is based on N.I.L. transactions disclosed through or processed by Opendorse between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2024.
Note: To be included in the calculations, players’ expected annual earnings must rank in at least the top 50 at their position. The Track/Cross Country category includes athletes in track and field.
Look up expected annual N.I.L. earnings by sport
Sport
Position
Div.
Expected annual earnings
Football Football
Quarterback
SEC
$1,043,252
Football Football
Quarterback
Power 4
$819,020
Football Football
Offensive line
SEC
$779,288
Football Football
Defensive line
SEC
$756,497
M. Basketball Men’s basketball
Forward
NCAA DI
$749,201
Football Football
Wide receiver
SEC
$705,554
M. Basketball Men’s basketball
Guard
NCAA DI
$636,472
M. Basketball Men’s basketball
All
NCAA DI
$630,796
Football Football
Wide receiver
Power 4
$614,561
Football Football
Linebacker
SEC
$584,629
Business
'My kids go to Costco now,' and other reasons Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS are hurting
!['My kids go to Costco now,' and other reasons Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS are hurting 'My kids go to Costco now,' and other reasons Rite Aid, Walgreens and CVS are hurting](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/3624e1b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3899x2047+0+276/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4d%2Fad%2F0a80891a4077b6c7d49f86040823%2F1473696-la-fi-chain-pharmacies-look-to-cut-costs-close-locations-mdb-03.jpg)
These are tough days for pharmacy chains.
From Gardena to Venice to Koreatown, storefronts that used to be Rite Aid drugstores sit empty. On Lincoln Boulevard, the outline of the Rite Aid logo can still be seen above shuttered doors.
The retail pharmacy chain has closed more than 200 stores since filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023 and announced plans in July to shut down 18 more locations in California as it struggles to deal with creditors and lawsuits over opioid prescriptions.
Competitors CVS and Walgreens are also cutting costs and closing stores, reflecting challenges in the industry that have been brewing for years but have recently begun to accelerate, experts say. In June, Walgreens’ chief executive said about a quarter of the company’s 8,600 U.S. stores were underperforming and that a “significant number” of them could be closed.
Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid are not in identical financial positions, but all three are being forced to examine their footprint and business model as they deal with lowering margins and changing consumer trends.
“Between the pressure on the front of the store plus the pressure on the pharmacy, it’s just getting harder and harder for these guys to operate,” said Brian Tanquilut, an industry analyst at Jefferies.
On the retail side, chain pharmacies are facing heavy competition from giants such as Amazon and Walmart, a drop in consumer spending and an increase in theft that can eat into profits, analysts said. On the pharmaceutical side, they’re seeing lower margins because of lower reimbursement rates for the drugs they provide to customers.
Much of the pharmacy pinch is rooted in the companies’ dependence on intermediaries called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, who have significant control over how much pharmacies get reimbursed for the drugs they sell to customers.
Two of the largest benefit management companies, OptumRX and Caremark, are owned by insurance companies that have been looking to cut costs by pushing down reimbursement rates, which has punished the pharmacies’ bottom lines.
“The PBMs, all of which now are owned by the insurance companies, have been squeezing what they pay for drugs,” Tanquilut said. “As that has continued to come down, the profitability of these pharmacies has also waned,” he said.
Overall, the three pharmacy chains have struggled on Wall Street this year.
Walgreens stock price, which closed Friday at $9.25, has plummeted more than 65% since the start of the year. In June, when it missed earnings expectations for the quarter, the company warned investors it was bracing for more gloomy performance figures and cut its financial forecast for the fiscal year that ended in August.
A man rides his bike by Walgreens on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024 in Venice.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
Rite Aid’s languishing stock, meanwhile, took a nosedive when the company entered bankruptcy late last year and the New York Stock Exchange moved to delist it.
CVS stands on slightly more solid ground, said Raymond James healthcare analyst John Ransom, because it owns insurance company Aetna, as well as Caremark, the pharmacy benefit manager.
“CVS is an integrated company,” Ransom said. “They’ve been able to integrate Caremark into the drug retail business in a way that’s made the drug retail business more healthy.”
But that has not made the company immune to market forces. Its stock, which closed at $57.24 Friday, is down 29% this year. CVS slashed its financial outlook and embarked on a $2-billion cost-cutting plan in early August. The company has also been closing locations since 2021, when it announced a realignment plan that would close 900 stores over three years.
CVS is on track to finish its store closures by the end of this year. After the closures, 85% of U.S. residents will still live within 10 miles of a CVS, said Amy Thibault, lead director of external communications for the company.
![A woman walks by a CVS/Pharmacy.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/4e49a12/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4538x2877+0+0/resize/1200x761!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F05%2F69%2F5ceb2c2047f485473e95c99feafe%2F1473696-la-fi-chain-pharmacies-look-to-cut-costs-close-locations-mdb-06.jpg)
A woman walks by a CVS/Pharmacy on Friday, Aug. 30, 2024 in Venice.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“The store closure decisions are based on population shifts, consumer buying patterns, a community’s store density, maintaining access to pharmacy services, and future health needs to ensure we have the right kinds of stores in the right locations for consumers,” she said.
There is an overcrowding of drugstores in the country partly as a result of a real estate binge in the ‘90s, Ransom said.
“They’re shutting these stores down in urban markets where you go to a street corner and you see four pharmacies,” he said. “I think part of it is they did it to themselves.”
Walgreens external communications manager Samantha Stansberry said the company is being affected by increased regulatory and reimbursement pressures as well as higher levels of inflation, theft and other types of losses.
“Like most retailers, we have been facing a challenging operating environment,” Stansberry said. “These factors have resulted in a growing number of store closures across the country as we invest in our other locations to deliver a consistent customer experience.”
Walgreens was poised to acquire Rite Aid in a merger in 2015, but the deal ultimately fell through.
Koreatown resident Darleen Stoker was recently shopping at a Rite Aid on Larchmont Boulevard in Hancock Park and noticed rows of empty shelves. She wondered if it was a sign that the location was closing, she said.
“My kids go to Costco now,” Stoker said. “Rite Aid is more for when you realize last minute you need nail polish.”
Other customers in the store said the shelves have been empty for at least two months.
Rite Aid did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
“The remaining Rite Aid stores face a lot of the challenges that they were facing when they were trying to bridge with Walgreens,” Tanquilut said. “It’s a lot of pressure from other retailers, whether that’s the dollar stores, the Walmarts, the Targets of the world, or online retail like Amazon.”
Retail pharmacies are also struggling to adapt to a changing consumer more focused than ever on value, Tanquilut said. Customers have started to realize that sodas cost less at a grocery store than a drugstore, he said.
As inflation drives everyday costs up, consumers are tightening their belts and may be limiting impulse purchases on items found at a drugstore such as snacks and beauty products. A significant portion of purchases at drugstores are spontaneous, Tanquilut said, as customers roam around waiting for their prescription.
Tanquilut said the closing of locations could help CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid weather the harsh industry conditions that have prompted cost-cutting measures. The density of pharmacies in the country is higher than it needs to be, he said.
“We are ‘over-pharmacied’ as a society,” Tanquilut said. “From a profitability perspective and from a competition perspective, reducing the number of retail pharmacies is not a bad thing.”
Business
How high are the prices for a Shohei Ohtani, Decoy bobblehead? A seller wants it to fetch $69,420
![How high are the prices for a Shohei Ohtani, Decoy bobblehead? A seller wants it to fetch ,420 How high are the prices for a Shohei Ohtani, Decoy bobblehead? A seller wants it to fetch ,420](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/91b2c56/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5282x2773+0+450/resize/1200x630!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5a%2F4d%2Ff79d730b49eead3aa6450d263e42%2F1472838-sp-0828-dodgers-orioles-wjs004.jpg)
The Shohei Ohtani bobblehead doll, with the Japanese star holding his dog, Dekopin, was free when the Dodgers handed it out to fans with tickets — and those persistent enough to line up for hours outside Dodger Stadium before Wednesday night’s game.
Now, if you want to get one, you better get ready to dig deep into your wallet.
The sought-after bobblehead dolls are currently selling for hundreds of dollars online, just two days after the Dodgers’ giveaway.
“I kind of cringe, as a dealer, at how much some of this stuff is going to cost,” said Matt Federgreen, owner of Beverly Hills Card Shop, who has dealt with sports collectibles since 1983.
A total of 40,000 bobbleheads were given away before the game against the Baltimore Orioles, but more than 53,000 tickets were sold. Unless fans arrived at the stadium early, they were out of luck.
The Shohei Ohtani and Decoy bobblehead doll is listed online from $150 to $69,420.
(Los Angeles Dodgers)
Fans did get to see Ohtani’s dog, whose nickname is “Decoy,” throw out the first pitch.
To get the in-demand collector’s item now, people are paying anywhere between $150 to more than $1,500, according to listings and bids found on eBay and Facebook’s Marketplace.
The Dodgers also gave away a limited gold-colored Ohtani bobblehead, which is selling for hundreds of dollars more.
One listing for the gold-colored Ohtani on eBay asked for a tongue-in-cheek amount of $69,420, but it had no bids as of Friday afternoon.
Ohtani’s international popularity has sent prices soaring for some of his memorabilia. Some of the gold-colored bobbleheads have already sold online for $1,500 or more.
“Everything Ohtani that comes out right now, there’s profit to be made and people are going to jump on that,” Federgreen said.
One listing on eBay was selling the Ohtani and Decoy bobblehead for $169.50 on Friday afternoon, while another asked for $227.77. One seller has sold more than 30 dolls.
Another posting, on Facebook’s Marketplace, asked for $150 for the doll, but noted the box had been opened.
But listings for the gold doll, or for both of them, were found for more than $1,000.
One person in Anaheim, in a Facebook post, asked for $1,600 for the gold doll. Another, for both dolls, asked for $1,000, and included a picture of the dolls with Dodger Stadium in the background to add a bit more authenticity.
The Times reached out to several people who were selling the dolls online but did not immediately hear back from sellers.
Some postings asked for more than $2,000 but, as Federgreen noted, showed no signs that someone had bid or paid that price.
The Dodgers gave away another Ohtani bobblehead in May, five months after he signed a 10-year, $500-million deal. Fans also stood in line a good three hours before that game to make sure they got one.
For Federgreen, he said Ohtani is one of the reasons why his business has been doing so well recently.
Trading cards and memorabilia have seen increased popularity in recent years, he said, and stars such as Ohtani have helped.
On Thursday Topps, which is owned by Fanatics Collectibles, announced it was partnering with Ohtani in an exclusive trading card deal that will include cards, autographs and game memorabilia.
Details of how much the deal is worth weren’t released, Fanatics said it was a long-term agreement.
For Federgreen, he understands the demand for the Ohtani doll, but issues a mild warning for people willing to drop a few hundred bucks for it.
“There’s a lot of profiteering going on,” he said. “I don’t mess with stuff with things that are maybe short-term value.”
He notes that some collecting items that suddenly spike up in price will often dip down just as fast.
“It’s a cute bobblehead,” he said. “But you can buy something vintage for the same amount of money that retains value.”
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