Moneyballin' it

This posting is a shout-out to some former teammates for Moneyballin it. I'll share with you why after explaining the term "Moneyballin it". Perhaps one of the most influential books in professional sports, Moneyball ¹ brought to light how the Oakland A’s, one of the most resource-thirsty teams in the MLB, could compete with the perennial heavy-hitters like the New York Yankees. Oakland’s GM Billy Beane looked for unorthodox ways to evaluate players to lift his team to prominence with a relatively
small cashbox. He went beyond the best practices that were the sport's status quo and created the next practices of his industry.

In many ways, the brand my team is working to revitalize is like the Oakland A’s only we're not competing in the MLB but in the sports apparel world - competing against many for the coveted third-spot behind the two behemoth brands in the soccer world. Every day we look to Moneyball our situation, to find ways to maximize the relatively small pool of resources we have to accomplish the goal we’ve set out to do. The challenge is exciting and I am lucky enough to have uber energetic, brilliant + driven team members to go to bat with day in and day out.

This video here is someone else’s Moneyball play. Created by a squad of amateur athletes, who are currently fighting for their country’s spot in the upcoming 2011 Women’s World Cup of Soccer, they took time out of their training camp in Rome to film this ad, with no marketing team and no production team to support them. They found a way to tell a story that spreads with the resources they’ve got. Huge high five!

Please share this post if you liked it, loved it, found it inspiring, or funny (that's unlikely, I'm not that funny) or your eyes were zapped open by amazement - thanks! 

¹ Written by my favourite sports-writer Michael Lewis - he also wrote Blindside, the book turned film, starring Sandra Bullock, who won her first Academy Award for her role as a no-nonsense football mom.


Edit (9.20.11): Look out for the Hollywood movie "Moneyball" with Brad Pitt - in theaters 9/23/11