Selling the Hours Back
James FD@jamesfoxdavies
−1.0%
since Sep 30
The idea
I believe the next decade brings more free time and steady incomes, and that spending shifts toward experiences over things. This basket owns the tollbooths on that shift: booking platforms that take a cut of every trip without owning the hotels or planes, plus live sports, music, and venues where seat supply barely grows so pricing power builds as demand rises. It is anchored in the largest platform and events names, with smaller stakes in emerging-market travel and more asymmetric plays, and a small cash reserve to add on broad pullbacks.
What it owns
- These sites take a cut of every trip people book, earning fat margins on travel growth without owning planes or hotels. · Booking HoldingsIt collects a fee on trips booked worldwide without owning planes or hotels, so more spending flows through it as free time and disposable income push people toward travel., AirbnbIt's the platform for longer, more flexible trips and is pushing directly into experiences, the exact category this take says spending shifts toward., Expedia GroupIt's the same toll-on-travel idea as the category leader but priced lower, offering the value way to own the platform layer of travel bookings., TripadvisorIts real upside is Viator, the tours and activities arm, which is the purest bet on people spending free time on experiences rather than stuff.30%
- Big-league sports are the scarcest live inventory of all, and team and league owners capture rising ticket and media prices. · TKO Group HoldingsIt owns UFC and WWE, live sports content whose supply can't be copied, so media rights and event prices climb as demand for live entertainment grows., Liberty Media Formula OneFormula One is a fixed calendar of races with global demand, the definition of scarce live inventory whose value rises as more people spend on live sports., Madison Square Garden SportsIt owns the Knicks and Rangers, teams that can't be duplicated in the biggest US market, so their value tracks the scarcity of live sports this take bets on., Atlanta Braves HoldingsIt owns the team plus the Battery, the real estate around the ballpark, so it earns from the game and from everything fans do before and after.29%
- Concert and show tickets command higher prices because venues cannot manufacture additional nights in an arena, making scarcity the driver of pricing power. · Live Nation EntertainmentIt controls promotion, venues and ticketing for much of live music, so when free time and income flow to experiences, it gets paid at every step., Sphere EntertainmentSphere Entertainment operates a one-of-a-kind venue that charges premium prices for experiences unavailable elsewhere, with growth dependent on sustained demand for standout entertainment and calendar utilization., Madison Square Garden EntertainmentIt owns venues that can't be replicated, so as demand for live events grows against a fixed supply of seats, it can keep raising prices., IMAX CorporationIt turns a movie into a premium night out, the affordable end of the experience spending this take expects people to pursue.25%
- Newly affluent travelers in China and India are the fastest-growing source of trips, and each region has a dominant local booking platform. · Trip.com GroupIt's the dominant booking platform for Chinese travelers, a huge population just starting to convert rising income and free time into trips., MakeMyTripIt's the leading travel platform in India, where hundreds of millions of people are gaining the disposable income this take counts on.9%
- Cash8%