The slogan aims to turn a common jab against women’s sports on its head. “It’s a play on people saying, ‘Nobody watches women’s sports’ — like, John590 from Twitter with no profile pic,” Ms. Bird told Mr. Fallon. “Now the numbers show it, which is amazing, so now we actually have data to it. Actually, everyone watches women’s sports.”

More than 18 million people watched the 2024 N.C.A.A. women’s basketball championship game, which outperformed the men’s final. A rookie class that includes Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese led the W.N.B.A. draft to record viewership, and established stars like A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart are contributing to swelling ticket sales for W.N.B.A. games.

The team at Togethxr hopes that the black-and-white shirt can appeal to fans of all the players, no matter the team. “Not putting it in certain colorways, or not making them athlete-specific or team-specific was intentional because we wanted it to feel universal,” said Jessica Robertson, the company’s chief content officer and a co-founder.

The company said it sold $3 million worth of shirts, hoodies and tote bags with the slogan so far this year, including 20,000 of the products during a three-day stretch at the end of this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament.

A similar situation played out in 2020, when a bright orange W.N.B.A. hoodie became a fixture among N.B.A. players (and Mr. Sudeikis). But Ms. Robertson said that companies sometimes still assume that the return on investment for women’s sports merchandise will be low.

“The truth is, women’s sports fans have been here,” she said. “You just have to make it available.”

Jackie Johnston, who makes videos about women’s sports on TikTok under the name Coach Jackie, said she had seen the shirts at women’s soccer games, gay bars and a recent concert for the drummer G Flip.

Ms. Johnston, 22, said part of the shirt’s popularity can be attributed to a built-in camaraderie within a community that has long fought to be recognized. “When a female athlete that I love is wearing something, I’m like, Yes, I want to wear that,” she said. “You want to be like Dawn. You want to be like Caitlin. You want to be like Alex Morgan.”

The shirt seems designed to bridge the gap between longtime women’s basketball fans and newer ones who have been hopping on the Caitlin Clark bandwagon. Other merchandise is a little more pointed.

“If you are just now tuning in to women’s basketball, we told you so,” reads an orange-and-white hoodie by Playa Society, a streetwear brand that makes women’s sports apparel. Playa Society’s website describes the piece as “a statement for those who knew that women’s basketball was dope, before 2024.”

Ms. Ramos, who counts herself among the newer group of fans, said she is happy to exchange a knowing smile with other people wearing the shirt when she sees them in the wild. She is already thinking about ordering one of the Togethxr hoodies.

And the company has new items on the way, including a shirt to be released before the Paris Olympics with a phrase in French: “Tout le monde regarde le sport féminin.” You can probably guess what it means.

Forming gyemoim groups can help friends or families split travel costs equally so everyone can participate, regardless of his or her personal budget.

“Honestly, if we didn’t make the gyemoim, then it would have been too difficult for us to arrange that kind of trip,” Ms. Kim said. “It would have cost too much, and we didn’t want other members to feel pressured by that.”

Maintaining Relationships Through Saving

Collective financial planning has had a long history in many parts of the world.

“It’s actually not unique to South Korea,” said Euncheol Shin, an associate professor of economics at KAIST College of Business in Seoul. “This practice first developed because there was no financial market out there, and if you wanted to borrow some money, you had to do some self-financing.”

Dr. Shin gave an example of a village 200 years ago that needed to buy seeds to grow rice. The financial structures to take out loans didn’t yet exist in many places, so villages pooled their money, bought supplies and split what they reaped.

Over time, this practice evolved into a way for people to keep friendships strong and communities united.

Each member of a gyemoim contributes what are essentially “club dues” — often between $10 and $50 each month, with the amount decided by the group. As the balance increases, the members discuss how to spend it together.

Ms. Kim first formed a gyemoim with two friends after they met at a social club in 2014. The three were attending different colleges and believed the gyemoim would allow them to regularly meet up.

Initially, they each agreed to contribute 15,000 won, or about $13, every month. Over the next decade, they saved more than 3,000,000 won, or about $2,200, before deciding to spend the money on a trip to the Ananti, the resort. By then, the three friends had become busy with their own careers and families, but they remained close, in part, because of the gyemoim.

“It allowed us to keep in touch and have a good time together without worrying about the cost,” Ms. Kim said.

Young-hoon Lee, 35, said his mother headed the gyemoim for her apartment building.

Mr. Lee, a teaching assistant at an English language academy, is part of a gyemoim that consists of two women and four men, all of whom contribute 50,000 Korean won, or about $36, each month.

“We became close friends during high school, and we’ve remained friends into adulthood,” he said. “Initially, we got together just to have fun, but as everyone started working, we began thinking more about the future. So, while maintaining our friendship is important, we also decided to support each other through significant life events, such as weddings or funerals.”

Mr. Lee’s gyemoim typically uses its shared funds to reconnect a handful of times a year, usually to enjoy a meal of Korean barbecue or fried chicken and beer.

Ms. Kim also traveled with a different gyemoim to Vietnam at the end of April. The trip cost much less than her stay at the Ananti, though she said her group of three women still stayed in a nice hotel and had a great time together.

Why Gyemoims Work in South Korea

Gyemoim groups can work in South Korea because of the nature of the country’s social interactions and culture of trust.

For example, in South Korea you could walk into a coffee shop in Seoul and leave your bag, laptop and wallet full of credit cards and cash at your seat unattended and go to the bathroom without needing to worry if it would all be there when you got back. (Though, to be sure, scams and fraud occur just like anywhere else.)

“Let’s say that you and I are friends,” Dr. Shin said. “We have grown up in a small town for a very long time. We know everything about each other. If I borrow some money and I don’t pay it back, then you’re going to say, ‘Hey, everyone, Euncheol borrowed some money from me, and he never paid me back.’” Because of the collective nature of social groups, Dr. Shin explained, he would be ostracized by people in his community.

Forming a group to save is so common in South Korea that one bank is adapting to the custom. KakaoBank, an arm of the country’s most popular communication app, KakaoTalk, now offers a gyemoim group account product where friends can share a bank account managed by one designated account holder.

Mr. Lee and Ms. Kim started their gyemoim groups before KakaoBank existed, so they entrusted their funds to one member of their saving circles. Some groups, like Mr. Lee’s, still prefer this “old-fashioned” method of collecting money. Mr. Lee said one of his groups had decided who would be entrusted with the money by majority vote.

Both of Ms. Kim’s gyemoim groups now use the KakaoBank option because it allows all members to see how their pooled money is moved in their account, which earns up to 2 percent interest. The account manager is the sole person with control over how the funds are used, but everyone pays in. Users can set reminders to send their monthly dues to the account and communicate through the app’s chat feature.

Gyemoim groups don’t last forever. Circumstances change, friends may have a falling-out, someone may no longer want to participate or a new person may want to join. When that happens, it’s up to the collective to decide how to handle it.

“There are no particular rules to run a group, although in some groups, other people have created their own rules,” Ms. Kim said. “But my groups never really had rules.”

Ms. Kim’s gyemoim that visited Busan used to include another friend, who decided to bow out a few years ago for financial reasons.

“In our case,” she said, “we asked her what she wanted to do with her part of the money. She decided to have her part refunded instead of using it. ”

While there was a peaceful parting of ways in Ms. Kim’s gyemoim, disagreements aren’t unheard-of, either. Ms. Kim said she had a friend who was part of a gyemoim that disbanded when its members couldn’t agree on how to plan a trip. For a group to be successful, she added, members need to share similar interests and values.

Could Gyemoim Groups Work in the U.S.?

No American bank offers a product quite like what South Korea’s KakaoBank offers for gyemoim groups. To ensure full transparency for all members of your group, the closest option is to open a joint checking or savings account so those involved can have equal access.

This could be difficult depending on the size of your group and your proximity to one another. Banks that don’t have traditional brick-and-mortar locations are most likely going to have the best options. For example, a representative from Ally Bank, which operates online, said the bank allowed up to four co-owners on a spending account.

If you open an account with a bank that includes fees, factor the cost into everyone’s shared contribution.

Opening a joint account has drawbacks, too, such as what might happen if a friend wants to leave the group. Depending on the bank, removing someone from a joint account can be tough or impossible without closing the account.

In addition, unlike an individual account, a joint account gives every person equal legal ownership of the funds in it whether the person contributed all of the money or not. Despite shared ownership, you can’t force anyone to pay dues into the account, either.

Still, if you wanted to form a gyemoim, you could do it the old-fashioned way by selecting one trusted person to be in charge of pooled funds in an individual savings account.

The cultural traditions that allow gyemoims to work well in Korean society aren’t as present in Western culture, so collective funding can be a bit of a gamble if you don’t know your members well.

When forming a group, Mr. Lee suggested, include at least “one or two trustworthy people.” He also recommended the group stay open to new members, as circumstances can change unexpectedly, and new friends can energize a group that has grown stale.

Mr. Lee also recommended forming groups around a specific purpose, such as getting together regularly to pursue a hobby. Friends who have known one another a long time, such as Ms. Kim and her friends, may easily save money with no concrete purpose in mind. But new friends or acquaintances will thrive if they have mutual interests.

“As a Korean who values a sense of community, I think the culture of community is good, and I hope more people will pursue a culture where everyone gets along well,” Mr. Lee said.

Fisker is looking to sell its assets, which its bankruptcy filing listed as worth $500 million to $1 billion. The company listed liabilities of $100 million to $500 million, with Adobe and Google among its largest creditors.

“Like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently,” Fisker said in a statement announcing its Chapter 11 petition, filed in Delaware.

Demand for electric vehicles, while brisk, has disappointed auto executives, raising questions about heavy investments in new models and factories, even at market leaders like Tesla. Intensifying competition from Chinese automakers is also a worry for Western executives.

Fisker was among the E.V. start-ups that raised billions of dollars on the promise of rapid growth, making their market debuts by merging with special purpose acquisition companies in 2020 and 2021. Some of those firms, including Lordstown Motors, Arrival and Proterra have also filed for bankruptcy. Others, like Canoo and Nikola, have struggled financially.

Fisker’s filing is the second time its founder, Henrik Fisker, has overseen a car company that has gone bankrupt. His previous venture, Fisker Automotive, filed for Chapter 11 protection in 2013.

Sarah Foss, the global head of legal and restructuring at the financial services company Debtwire, said that although Lordstown and Proterra became “much leaner companies” after selling assets through Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the road ahead for Fisker might be rocky. That’s because the company appears to be entering bankruptcy while still searching for a buyer for its assets and negotiating with financial stakeholders, she said.

John Paul MacDuffie, a professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said that software and design problems contributed to the start-up’s setbacks.

“It was failing to master some of these crucial aspects of being a car company,” he said.

Retailers have personalized online shopping for customers with things like predictive technology, which suggests items to buy. Shoppers also see e-commerce as more convenient than having to walk in a store and track down workers. The Target app is meant to help workers assist shoppers with their questions faster.

Mr. Craig is often asked if these sorts of tools will replace workers, he said. “I believe the relationship between people and technology is so very important,” he said. “We’re here to make sure that they get the right tools to do their work.”

Walmart recently expanded access to the A.I. tool it had started using in its corporate offices last summer for use in its retail stores, rolling it out to 13,000 managers of its Sam’s Club stores.

While there is significant investment and hype around generative A.I., some retailers have also rolled back experiments with the technology that have failed.

“We are still in that growth curve — learning, failing and relearning — and trying to get through adoption at scale,” said Duleep Rodrigo, who leads the U.S. consumer and retail sector for KPMG.

Oceana, the ocean conservancy group that has long sparred with Amazon over its plastic use, called the move “welcome news for the oceans and the company’s customers.” But it called for further reductions in single-use packaging, like the padded plastic envelopes that Amazon continues to use.

The pillows are made from plastic film, which scientists have found is the most common form of plastic litter in the sea and seabed close to the shore. Plastic film can be deadly to wildlife including sea turtles and sea birds. And unlike paper alternatives, plastic film generally can’t be composted or recycled in curbside programs.

A recent report by Oceana found that protective packaging like air pillows made up more than one-third of global e-commerce packaging by weight.

Thursday’s announcement covers the United States, Amazon’s largest market, as well as Canada, and Mexico, which together account for more than 70 percent of the retailer’s global sales. Amazon has already replaced about 95 percent of its plastic pillows with paper in those markets, it said, and is working toward fully removing them from use by the end of the year.

Amazon says it has already been phasing out its use of plastic air pillows in Australia, as well as nearly all single-use-plastic packaging in India and throughout Europe. But those changes have been slower to come in the rest of the world. In 2022, Amazon reported using almost 12 percent less plastic packaging around the world compared with the previous year.

Environmental and consumer groups have been working on many fronts to stem the tide of plastic packaging waste. Earlier this year, groups pushed for a New York State bill that aims to reduce the use of plastic packaging by 50 percent over 12 years by requiring the manufacturers to either find more sustainable options or pay a fee.

The bill, which would also ban some toxic chemicals currently used in packaging, such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, vinyl chloride and formaldehyde, cleared the State Senate but wasn’t brought up to a vote in the Assembly. California, Oregon, Maine and Colorado have passed similar legislation.

Of course, there’s the tricky question: What about all the extra paper Amazon will use?

Paper is recyclable and biodegradable, an improvement over plastic. Still, the climate impact of paper can vary greatly, depending on what’s used in the pulp, according to a 2021 United Nations report that compared single-use plastic with other forms of packaging.

And if paper bags end up in landfill, they can contribute to planet-warming methane pollution as they biodegrade. On the other hand, paper is more likely to actually be recycled. And if plastic bags end up being incinerated, they release toxic chemicals.

Amazon, for its part, says it is moving ahead on a multiyear effort to remove all plastic delivery packaging from its North America shipment centers. One center, in Ohio, has already moved away from plastic entirely, according to the company.

And some extra good news for shoppers? Amazon said its engineers tested how effective paper is at protecting products during transit and found that paper was just as good, if not better than, plastic pillows.