I had thought the movie ‘Moneyball’ was based on baseball teams, their rivalry and a mere story of games won and lost, when I had started watching it. One thing that I missed missed out was the lesson that the movie intended to teach. I got a keen understanding of how the road not taken can actually lead to the path of success. In this case, the idea of the film was “The goal should be to buy wins, not players”. A completely different perspective from what traditional baseball was all about.
‘Moneyball’, starring Brad Pitt as the protagonist, started off as a generic sports-related film that was about to show the audience the challenges faced by Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) while trying to make his team, Oakland A, win the league. Back in 1980, most of the players were chosen on the basis of how they looked and how they carried themselves, Runs Batted In and Key Performance Indicators. They did not think in terms of winning runs but portraying a glittery picture of their team. This is exactly where they had gone wrong. Oakland A had a 46 million dollar budget which was quite less than what the Red Sox and the Yankees were offering (a whooping 120 million dollars). Beane’s main challenge was to heighten the level of the game within the meager budget. Peter Brand’s character made Beane realize this problematic area and they began to recruit players who were highly undervalued. These players had the potential of putting up a tough competition with the help of a little bit of assistance. From then onwards, Brand, using the formula of sabermetrics (it is a statistical analysis of data used especially in baseball to evaluate the performances of individual players), studied the entire scenario of baseball in America. Finally, they gathered a team of underrated sportsmen who could work on a lower pay, yet put in as much effort. In the meantime, he had to take certain tough decisions like letting go of a player for his disability, trading of a teammate, Pena, to another team and face the loss of Giambi, Damon and Isringhausen to other teams who offered them higher payrolls. Pertaining to their strategies and their ability to stand strong against all odds, Oakland A won 20 matches in a row in the Major Baseball League 2002 which broke the previous record and set a new milestone for the future generations. However, they were unable to win the finale and since then it had had been a conscious effort from the side of Beane to actually win at least one finale.
Billy Beane was a student when the scouts had selected him to play for Oakland A, on seeing his brilliant performance back in school. He was young and inquisitive, so he had given into it. After his game deteriorated, he retired as a player and took up the role of a General Manager. It was him who had understood that a different perspective was required in order to turn around the course of events. In spite of him not being a coach himself, he could decipher the sheer requirement of the hour that, only replacing the players would not work in favour of the team. As the movie flew forth, Billy’s character build up could be seen prominently. He had refused to become a scout for the Red Sox when given the offer for it, he rather chose to stick to his team and work on them.
The basic lessons that I learnt from the movie is that, for any sort of marketing which includes online marketing, going through data and analyzing them is the key criteria to actually convert the ‘clicks’ into ‘customers’. A new and fresh idea, a different angle and unique method of approaching things can make all the difference and push one further towards their success.
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