American Adventure: My Uncle is Don Quixote

Midtown Manhattan, the Pepsi North America headquarters.

When Richard Wayne, President of Pepsi North America, pushed open the conference room door, two interns in the hallway were so scared they practically flattened themselves against the wall.

You couldn't blame them. For the past six hours, Richard Wayne's roars from inside the conference room had been clearly audible across almost the entire floor.

Fuming, Richard Wayne didn't spare the two nobodies a glance as he strode toward the elevator.

His personal assistant, Sean, had to jog just to keep up.

This post-mortem on Li Wei's LW beverage was supposed to have concluded on the night of the Super Bowl.

But a lack of data, interdepartmental finger-pointing, and the fact that Gatorade was still mired in its own internal audits meant the post-mortem dragged on for three days before a final conclusion could be reached.

Richard Wayne summarized the core of the six-hour joint post-mortem—which involved seven departments including Gatorade, Pepsi Beverages North America, Supply Chain, PR, and Legal—in a single sentence:

"We got fucked by a 19-year-old kid. It's that simple."

It wasn't a misjudgment of his football skills—the whole world could see those. Rather, Gatorade had misjudged its threat assessment of the LW beverage.

Richard Wayne immediately demoted and transferred the Senior Vice President of Pepsi North America's Strategic Investment Department.

This was the SVP who had first proposed targeting Li Wei. He had even sent a man named Mason Reed to explore acquiring the LW beverage, and unbelievably, had done so without reporting it to him. It was an act of utter stupidity.

"Mr. Tucker," Richard Wayne had said, "you need to understand something. The trigger for this whole incident wasn't that you wanted to target him. Your idea was correct. The problem is that you were too damn slow to act."

"You were the first one to get to him. When Mason Reed went to that golf course, LW was still just a concept. What was it worth back then? 500 million? A billion? If you had just offered one billion USD and acquired the whole thing, none of this would be happening."

"So," he said, looking at the former Senior Vice President of Strategic Investment for Pepsi North America, "get out. Go wherever you're supposed to go, clear out your office, and stay out of my sight."

With that, he glanced at the other attendees, all of whom had their heads buried in the sand like ostriches, gave a cold snort, and stormed out of the room.

...

In the underground parking garage, a black Maybach sat waiting in its spot.

Richard Wayne pulled open the rear door and got in. His assistant, Sean, followed close behind, opening an iPad to report on the next item on the schedule.

"Mr. Wayne, your dinner meeting is set for 7:30," he said, checking the schedule. "The location is the Angus Hall on the third floor of the Metropolis Club. The NFL has already had the place cleared."

Richard Wayne nodded without a word, signaling the driver to go.

The Metropolis Club, founded by J.P. Morgan himself in 1891, is located at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 60th Street on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

This Italian Renaissance limestone building had witnessed over a century of the shifting landscape of American commerce, as well as countless melodramas, conspiracies, and betrayals.

Its walls were probably the most in need of therapy in all of New York.

The Maybach pulled onto Sixth Avenue, where the Manhattan traffic snaked and crawled.

As luck would have it, the Maybach got stuck in front of a newsstand.

As Richard Wayne glanced out the window, he saw a life-sized poster plastered on the side of the newsstand. It depicted Li Wei in his dark blue jersey, hoisting the championship Lombardi Trophy with one hand.

He suddenly turned to his assistant, Sean.

"Get out," he said.

"Huh?" Sean faltered. "Now?"

"Go tear down that poster on the newsstand," Richard Wayne ordered, jutting his chin. "Quickly."

"Oh, right. Okay."

Sean was no stranger to Richard Wayne's unreasonable demands; in fact, he was well-practiced at this sort of thing.

He immediately unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of the car, took a few quick strides, and ripped the poster down.

"Hey!" the newsstand owner rushed out. "Are you fucking crazy?"

"Sorry, sorry," Sean immediately pulled out 100 USD and handed it to the owner. "This is to compensate you. My sincere apologies."

"Well, you should have said so," the newsstand owner said with a smile. "I've got a few more. If you want them, I'll sell them to you cheap. 50 USD a piece."

Sean, however, ignored him completely, scrambling back into the Maybach just before the traffic began to move again.

The traffic crawled forward, and as Li Wei's face disappeared from view, Richard Wayne felt his mood improve slightly.

"Alright," he said, finally speaking up. "Tell me who's attending tonight. Anyone I need to pay special attention to?"

Sean scrolled through an encrypted memo on his phone. "Attending today are Howard Payne, Vice Chairman of the NFL Competition Committee, and Allen Donovan, Deputy Director of the League's Business Development Department—"

"Allen's coming?" Richard Wayne paused, then smiled. "Looks like the NFL can't sit still this time."

"Yes, but he was invited by the Competition Committee," Sean said. "Also, the representative for the gaming sector is a special advisor to the Las Vegas Integrated Gaming Commission named Jason."

"Don't know him," Richard shook his head. "Continue."

"Then there are the representatives for the 18 teams involved in this meeting. They've jointly elected three people: Stephen Jones, COO of the Dallas Cowboys; Brett Veach, General Manager of the Kansas Chiefs; and Jed York, owner of the San Francisco 49ers."

The Dallas Cowboys and the Giants are archrivals, making this a grudge match.

The Kansas Chiefs' Mahomes had his title as the world's best quarterback snatched away by the Giants' Li Wei.

As for the 49ers' quarterback, he was practically beaten into retirement by Li Wei at the Super Bowl—though Marcus Anderson himself didn't think so, his boss, Jed York, was notoriously petty.

"What about John Mara?" Richard Wayne asked. "Is his attendance confirmed?"

"Confirmed. But his assistant said he might be a little late. He has a follow-up appointment for speech therapy."

Richard Wayne nodded and closed his eyes to rest.

Sean tactfully put his phone away and did his best not to make a sound.

「About fifteen minutes later.」

The Maybach stopped beside a red carpet, and Richard Wayne opened his eyes.

"Let's go," he said, getting out of the car first.

He walked down the red carpet and passed through the portico with practiced ease. The shadows cast by the stone pillars above flickered across his face, making it flash between light and dark.

Richard Wayne entered the ground-floor lobby and, guided by an attendant, took a members-only wood-paneled elevator to the third floor.

The carpet in the third-floor hallway was so thick it seemed to absorb all sound. Even if someone were murdered here, their screams would never leave the building.

Richard Wayne reached the end of the hallway, completely ignored the "Under Maintenance" sign hanging on the double doors, and pushed his way inside.

He scanned the room upon entering and saw that most of the attendees had already arrived.

At the long table in the center of the room, Howard Payne, Vice Chairman of the NFL Competition Committee, sat at one end with Allen Donovan beside him.

To his left sat the three team executives, representing the will of eighteen league teams.

Richard Wayne took a seat in the middle of the long table, leaving the far end for the special advisor from the Las Vegas gaming commission.

A thick stack of documents sat in front of each person.

They were all waiting for one person to arrive.

After what felt like a long time, the doors were pushed open by an attendant, and John Mara walked in.

He looked even thinner than he had during the Super Bowl, and he was already slightly out of breath just from the walk from the elevator to the door of the room.

John Mara.

He had finally arrived.

His steps seemed a little slow. He walked deliberately to the other end of the long table and sat down opposite Howard Payne.

Then, for a full five minutes, both sides were silent.

No one spoke first.

John Mara was perfectly at ease, seemingly unconcerned with the meeting, like an unrelated old man who had just wandered in to watch a show.

Howard Payne didn't want to be the first to speak, either.

In a negotiation, the moment someone speaks, their tone, movements, and expression can be seized upon by their opponent. Whoever speaks first shows weakness first—a fundamental tactic of negotiation.

In a way, it was the principle of 'the powerful speak last'.

Allen, Richard Wayne, the special advisor from Las Vegas, and the three team representatives all looked toward Howard Payne.

In the end, it was Howard who couldn't hold it in any longer and spoke first.

"John Mara," he said, "do you know why this meeting was called today?"

"I do not," John Mara said with a smile. "I thought you were treating me to dinner."

Howard Payne nearly slammed the table and started cursing.

'What does he mean, treating him to dinner? What game is this old fox playing?'

He took a deep breath, forcing back the curses that were on the tip of his tongue.

"John, since you insist I spell things out," he said, tapping the table, "then I'll spell them out."

He opened the file and began to read, item by item.

"Since the playoffs, over 41% of viewers have stated that if the Giants go undefeated again next season, they will spend less time watching other teams' games," he said, staring at John Mara. "This means viewership numbers for 30 other teams will drop as the Giants' numbers rise. One team, the Giants, is damaging the interests of every other team in the league."

"As for the betting lines," he said, glancing at Jason, the special advisor from Las Vegas, "I won't elaborate. Mr. Jason will explain that to you separately. However, I must point out that because the Giants performed so exceptionally well this season, profits for the entire national gaming industry are down by at least 400 million USD compared to previous years."

"As for the sponsors—"

Richard Wayne coughed and took over the conversation. "Mr. John Mara and I know each other, so I'll be direct."

He looked at John Mara and said eagerly, "As the NFL's sole official beverage sponsor, Pepsi's Gatorade has been subjected to malicious competition from Li Wei's LW beverage. As a result, Pepsi-Cola's stock value has lost nearly ten billion USD. Gatorade's sales during this year's Super Bowl also fell short of expectations. We are now considering partnering with Under Armour and Nike to reduce our sponsorship payments to the NFL next season."

After speaking, he looked as if he wanted to add his personal opinion of Li Wei, but Howard stopped him with a look.

He understood instantly. 'This negotiation is about getting to John Mara, not Li Wei.'

He gave Howard a knowing look and closed his file.

"...Thank you, Mr. Richard Wayne," Howard said, pulling his gaze back to the silent John Mara. "John, I'm not here to argue with you. These are real numbers. You've been in this industry your entire life. You know how it works."

He paused for a moment.

"Your player is a true genius. He might even be the most talented player in NFL history; no one will deny that. But the league cannot sacrifice the interests of the other 31 teams for the glory of one genius or one dominant dynasty. That goes against the core spirit on which the NFL was founded."

"My question is simple—John, what are you going to do about it?"