Reality bites

Good morning. Norway’s Erling Haaland has been one of the biggest stars at this year’s FIFA World Cup, both for his tremendous on-pitch performance and memeable personality. Also gaining attention is his reported diet, which totals around a staggering 6,000 calories per day and includes cow hearts, raw honey, sea bass, asparagus, fried rice, and raw milk.

It should go without saying: unless you’re a 6-foot-5 elite athlete, don’t try this at home.

Today’s reading time is 5½ minutes.

MARKETS

▲	TSX	35,200.45	+0.76%
▲	S&P 500	7,543.64	+0.81%
▲	DOW JONES	52,487.41	+0.27%
▲	NASDAQ	26,206.89	+1.30%
▲	GOLD	4,132.6	+1.23%
▼	OIL	71.81	-2.33%
▲	CAD/USD	0.706	+0.06%
▲	BTC/USD	63,260.12	+1.82%

Markets: After a rough outing Wednesday, Canada’s main stock index rebounded strongly yesterday as gold prices rose. Investors now await new national jobs data arriving today.

ENTERTAINMENT

Reality TV is taking over Canadian screens

Source: Hayu.

One of the world's most popular reality shows has found a new catalyst for on-screen drama: a Friday rush hour drive from Toronto to cottage country.

What happened: The hit Bravo reality TV show Summer House is getting a Canadian spinoff set in Muskoka. Summer House Canada, just like its NYC-Hamptons counterpart, will follow a group of young friends as they escape the city to share a weekend lakehouse for the summer.

Meanwhile, Canada Shore — a show that also follows dramatic people trying to find love while living almost entirely in a bathing suit — was recently renewed for a second season at Paramount.

Why it matters: At a time when networks and streamers are struggling to get people to sit through a 45-minute episode of TV, marquee reality shows have managed to keep viewers glued to their couches, in some cases, six days a week.

The current season of Love Island USA (which drops an episode almost every day) raked in an absurd 824 million minutes of stream time for its first three episodes.
The last season of Summer House averaged 2.2 million viewers, while its reunion episode brought in a network record of 3.1 million people.

Zoom out: The appointment viewing habit that these reality shows have built is similar to live sports — by far the most popular entertainment segment in the world. Not only are people tuning in at home, they’re betting on it (US$32 million in Love Island wagers have been made on Kalshi so far this season), and bars are filling up with hundreds of patrons coming together to watch on a near-nightly basis.—LA

BIG PICTURE

Source: @MarkJCarney / X.

Carney courts Saudi business in Jeddah. Prime Minister Carney met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman yesterday in Saudi Arabia to talk trade and investment, the first time in 26 years that a Canadian PM has visited the country. The previous Liberal government had clashed with the Saudis over human rights issues (exacerbated by the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018), but Carney has made the case that Canada doesn’t have to agree with the principles of another country to do business with it. (CBC News)

Health Canada says Grifols allowed dangerous plasma donations. A report from the federal health agency found that the private blood plasma company Grifols let some ineligible donors give plasma, despite their links to a fatal brain disease that could have made the donated blood unsafe. Barcelona-based Grifols has come under fire in Canada after the recent deaths of two donors in Winnipeg, though Health Canada has said there is no connection between those deaths and the plasma donation issues. (Globe and Mail)

The path is clear for Andy Burnham to become U.K. prime minister. After securing votes from 322 of his fellow 403 Labour MPs yesterday, Burnham is all but certain to take over as PM on July 20. While he technically came up one vote short of securing the nomination without any possibility of a challenger, some Labour MPs said they were simply unable to vote yesterday and would back Burnham when they returned to Parliament. (BBC News)

📡 What else is on our radar:

The U.S. launched a new wave of airstrikes in Iran, the largest attack since the ceasefire extension was reached last month.
Canada’s MDA Space is buying a majority stake in French satellite company Collecte Localisation Satellites for $920 million.
Montreal apparel brand Ssense reportedly laid off most of its visuals department in favour of AI tools, according to a former photographer at the company.
The New York Times has accused OpenAI of hiding evidence in its landmark copyright trial over the AI company’s alleged use of its material to train ChatGPT.

DEAL OF THE WEEK

Source: Henry Möllers / Unsplash.

French private equity firm InfraVia is buying high-end yacht marina group D-Marin for between €1 billion and €1.5 billion. Athens-based D-Marin, which was bought by CVC in 2020, owns 28 marinas, mostly in the Mediterranean, with a total of 14,300 berths (that’s sailor-speak for ‘yacht parking spots’).

Why it matters: There’s been a rush of PE firms snapping up marinas over the past few years thanks to the rise of dock-hogging superyachts. This might be a plus for some ritzy boaters, but smaller sailors could eventually get priced out of marinas, especially as firms make it clear that they’re planning to cater to those aforementioned superyachts.

TECH

Three (new AI models) is a crowd

Source: Meta.

What a coincidence: three AI power players released new models to the public on the same day.

What happened: OpenAI released GPT 5.6, its latest highly advanced model (reportedly after getting White House approval); Meta dropped Muse Spark 1.1, marking the first time the company has offered a paid tier; and SpaceXAI (formerly xAI) unveiled Grok 4.5. Each company has said something along the lines of ‘it’s our strongest one yet’ about their model.

While GPT 5.6 is a general-purpose model, the others are focused on coding and other agentic tasks. Meta and SpaceXAI are both looking to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic on that front.

Zoom in: Meta and SpaceXAI are betting they can win over customers with lower costs and comparable performance. Meta said Muse Spark 1.1 will have “very aggressive and attractive” pricing — part of a long-term wager by CEO Mark Zuckerberg that all enterprise models will eventually do basically the same thing and perform with negligible differences.

Meanwhile, Grok 4.5 is priced at US$2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens. For comparison, Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 — a very popular enterprise AI model — is priced at $5 per million input tokens and $25 per million output tokens.

Why it matters: More companies are getting fed up with how much it costs to use enterprise models, going from tokenmaxxing to tokenminning, and could soon feel pressured to cut AI budgets — especially if they aren’t seeing a marked improvement in productivity. With a potential price war looming, being the cheapest option might be a solid strategy.—QH

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🌎 Hint: This modern metropolis went through a dramatic transformation from small fishing town to one of the world’s fastest-growing cities after being designated its country’s first-ever Special Economic Zone. Home to just 30,000 people in 1980, it now has over 17 million. It's known as a global hub for electronics, with several major tech companies headquartered in the city.

Have an idea where this might be? Lock in your guess here.

ONE BIG NUMBER

⚽️ 6. Players on Team Canada’s men's World Cup roster who played at the Brampton Soccer Club, though the organization recently lost its license that allows its players to feed into the national team, according to Reuters. Former members have voiced concerns that the uncertainty surrounding the club's future could cut off Canada’s pipeline of professionals.

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