Numlock News: July 27, 2026 • Vikings, Packers, Raiders
By Walt Hickey
Welcome back!
Buff Right Out
The Odyssey has made $639.6 million worldwide, of which $284.4 million was made domestically, $353.2 million abroad, and $140 million from IMAX. Still, a controversy has emerged: Universal contracted with the nonprofit Värmlands Vikingcenter in Sweden to borrow their boat Glad av Gillberga as one of the escort vessels in the Ithacan flotilla depicted in the film, paying a rental fee of $41,000. It’s impossible to spoil a 3000-year-old story, but needless to say, the boats in The Odyssey have a rather bad go of it, and according to the nonprofit, the hull was damaged, prompting the company to invoice Universal $6,000 for repairs. Universal says they’ve paid it; the Vikings dispute that charge. That said, from my limited nautical knowledge, any boat repair that cost a mere $6,000 will go down in history as the cheapest possible problem to ever need attention on a boat.
Gareth Harris, The Art Newspaper and Rebecca Rubin, Variety
Packers
The Green Bay Packers are the sole publicly owned team in the NFL, and as a result, provide an unprecedented peek into the finances of the secretive sports juggernaut. Interestingly, the Packers reported a rare operating loss during the 2025 season of $1.1 million, down from an $83.8 million profit; the management had rather good reasons for the loss, and the answer is “Micah Parsons is an expensive gentleman to employ.” National revenue for the team — the NFL socialism — hit $453.2 million, up 4.8 percent, implying gross national revenue of $14.5 billion.
Checks
The usage of checks has declined sharply in the United States, but people are still using them for big purchases. In 2000, there were 42.6 billion checks written, good for 150 checks per American, with a total value of $40.3 trillion, indicating a typical check being for an amount less than $1,000. By 2024, there were only 9.2 billion checks written, only about 27 checks per person on average, but the total value was still rather high at $24.5 trillion, indicating the average check was for about $2,600. There may be change on the horizon, as the Federal Reserve is considering leaving the check processing business, which presents a possible phase-out moment for checks.
Jay L. Zagorsky, The Conversation
Museum
The Van Gogh Museum teamed up with researchers to figure out if visitor behavior should lead them to better layout decisions. The team randomly selected 25,000 out of 1.5 million visits to the museum from 2019 to 2021, and ascertained the visitor’s location and their progression through the museum based on their progression through the audio guide. The data contained some interesting information, not the least of which was that congestion led to engagement; when lots of people were looking at something, that made people passing by want to look at it themselves.
Mureji Fatunde-Iloeje, Ars Technica
Syria
A new study published in Heritage assessed satellite imagery of archaeological sites in Syria to determine the extent of looting and damage over the course of the civil war that gripped the country from 2011 to 2024. From 2011 to 2016, 13 percent of sites were looted, though from 2015 to 2025 fully 59 percent of sites were looted. One issue was the development of mechanized looting; bulldozers would scrape a site, looters would raid what was turned over, and the bulldozers would hit it again and again in order to dredge up valuable artifacts despite annihilating the site. Another issue that emerged was that the same kinds of locations that were advantageous for ancient settlements — accessibility, abundance of nearby resources, a solid view of the surroundings — were also valuable qualities for a military encampment during the war.
Cleaning Robots
Chinese manufacturers account for 70 percent of the global market for household cleaning robots, a milestone cemented at the end of last year when the company that created the Roomba and essentially invented the category, the U.S.-based iRobot, was bought out of bankruptcy by a Chinese firm. Roborock is the biggest player, with a global market share of 27 percent as of late last year.
LeBron James
Basketball superstar LeBron James has decided to take his talents to the Schuylkill, having elected to join the Philadelphia 76ers for their forthcoming season at an astonishing salary of $7.95 million over two years, or $3.88 million this season, 2.4 percent of the salary cap. This meagre pay is unprecedented for a player of LeBron’s talents: His 70.9 weighted wins above replacement over the past three years is the best ever for a player getting 2.4 percent or lower of the cap. The generally understood reason he’s playing so well for so cheap is that James, 42, is pursuing a ring with the kind of tenacity ordinarily only possessed by Sauron, in an attempt to surpass the number of championships won by Michael Jordan to advance his bid to be the greatest of all time.
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Places where one might have used a credit card in the past are wising up, and I think this accounts for part of the rise in large checks written. Off the top of my head, the dentist, a cabinet maker, and my town (taxes) all get checks from me because of the fee associated with using a credit card.
1) Saw The Odyssey this past weekend and it was really, really good.
2) I live hear Philadelphia, and you have no idea of the insanity in the sports world here ever since LeBron James announced that he was coming to the Sixers.