An innovator: William Hulbert

Aquí su entrada en la Wikipedia. La anterior, la imagen de la placa que se le otorgó en 1995 a su incorporación al National Baseball Hall of Fame

¿Qué hace a mister Hulbert merecedor del título de innovador, qué hizo él en este ámbito? R/ Diseñar y sacar adelante un exitoso (exitosísimo) modelo de negocios... A continuación extracto del libro Playbooks and Checkbooks de Stefan Szymanski:

"The progenitor of all modern sports leagues was the National League of baseball created by William Hulbert en 1876. Freed from the interference of the amateur gentlemen, Hulbert created a business model that essentially survives today in the American major leagues. The model relies on cooperation between independent franchises, each of which is granted a local monopoly, an incentive to promote the game in the locality. Franchise owners agree collectively on policies that promote league interests so long as they also promote the franchise´s interests -these policies revolve around ways to hold down players´wages and limit competition for the acquisitios of new talent. Operating as a closed system, the league forces each team to recognize its dependence on the commercial well-being of the other teams. The National League brought credibility to baseball at a time when it was in danger of losing popularity because of gambling, match fixing, and frequent cancellation of games. By creating an stable business enterprise, in which every team owner possessed a significant stake, Hulbert invented a sporting organization that became synonymous with the American way of life and survives today in the form of Major League Baseball. Hulbert´s ideas and principles were largely copied by other successful sports leagues such as the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA)." (p.21)

1. El PRODUCTO no son los equipos, sino que es la liga que comprende al total de equipos en competencia cada temporada por el campeonato

2. La liga es la "línea de producción" que garantiza un producto valioso para los consumidores (los fans que asisten al estadio a "presenciar" los partidos en cada localidad cada domingo por ejemplo)

3. Como tal -cualquier liga- compite con todas las otras ligas de los otros deportes y con todos los demás entretenimientos que existen o puedan existir al nivel de fascinación que tiene el encuentro deportivo (nótese que no hay ningún monopolio en lo que respecta a los intereses del consumidor: éste tiene opciones; también, como siempre, la de abstenerse)