Smart Ball
Marketing the Myth and Managing the Reality of Major League Baseball
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Narrated by:
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Scotty Drake
About this listen
Smart Ball follows Major League Baseball's history as a sport, a domestic monopoly, a neocolonial power, and an international business. MLB's challenge has been to market its popular mythology as the national pastime with pastoral, populist roots while addressing the management challenges of competing with other sports and diversions in a burgeoning global economy.
Baseball researcher Robert F. Lewis II argues that MLB for years abused its legal insulation and monopoly status through arrogant treatment of its fans and players and static management of its business. As its privileged position eroded in the face of increased competition from other sports and union resistance, it awakened to its perilous predicament and began aggressively courting athletes and fans at home and abroad.
Using a detailed marketing analysis and applying the principles of a "smart power" model, the author assesses MLB's progression as a global business brand that continues to appeal to a consumer's sense of an idyllic past in the midst of a fast-paced, and often violent, present.
©2010 University Press of Mississippi (P)2012 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Daniel Geey
- Narrated by: Simon Darwen
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether it is a manager being sacked, the signing of a new star player, television rights negotiations, player misconduct or multi-million-pound club takeovers, lawyers remain at the heart of all football business dealings. Written by leading Premier League lawyer Daniel Geey, who has dealt with all these incidents first hand, this highly accessible book explores the issues - from pitch to boardroom - that shape the modern game and how these impact leagues, clubs, players and fans.
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good book for understanding football finances
- By David A. Stadlin on 07-20-24
By: Daniel Geey
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The Extra 2%
- How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First
- By: Jonah Keri
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Extra 2%, financial journalist and sportswriter Jonah Keri chronicles the remarkable story of one team's Cinderella journey from divisional doormat to World Series contender. By quantifying the game's intangibles, they were able to deliver to Tampa Bay an American League pennant. This is an informative and entertaining case study for any organization that wants to go from worst to first.
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No Strategies or Insight
- By Victor Luera on 10-11-12
By: Jonah Keri
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The Future Is Asian
- Commerce, Conflict and Culture in the 21st Century
- By: Parag Khanna
- Narrated by: Nezar Alderazi
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 19th century, the world was Europeanized. In the 20th century, it was Americanized. Now, in the 21st century, the world is being Asianized. The “Asian Century” is even bigger than you think. Far greater than just China, the new Asian system taking shape is a multicivilizational order spanning Saudi Arabia to Japan, Russia to Australia, Turkey to Indonesia - linking five billion people through trade, finance, infrastructure, and diplomatic networks that together represent 40 percent of global GDP.
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Bigoted, jingoistic, ethnocentric
- By SEAN on 03-08-19
By: Parag Khanna
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When China Rules the World
- The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order
- By: Martin Jacques
- Narrated by: Scott Peterson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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According to even the most conservative estimates, China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027 and will ascend to the position of world economic leader by 2050. But the full repercussions of China's ascendancy-for itself and the rest of the globe-have been surprisingly little explained or understood.
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Lucid explanation of global economic trends
- By David Blake on 01-04-10
By: Martin Jacques
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Beeronomics
- How Beer Explains the World
- By: Johan Swinnen, Devin Briski
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 8 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Beeronomics examines key developments that have moved the brewing industry forward. Its most ubiquitous ingredient, hops, was used by the Hanseatic League to establish the export dominance of Hamburg and Bremen in the 16th century. During the late 19th century, bottom-fermentation led to the spread of industrial lager beer. Industrial innovations in bottling, refrigeration, and TV advertising paved the way for the consolidation and market dominance of major macrobreweries during the 20th century.
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Beer is our world.
- By thfiv on 02-04-20
By: Johan Swinnen, and others
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Refuge
- Rethinking Refugee Policy in a Changing World
- By: Paul Collier, Alexander Betts
- Narrated by: Clive Chafer
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Refuge seeks to restore moral purpose and clarity to refugee policy. Rather than assuming indefinite dependency, Collier - author of The Bottom Billion - and his Oxford colleague Betts propose a humanitarian approach integrated with a new economic agenda that begins with jobs, restores autonomy, and rebuilds people's ability to help themselves and their societies.
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Academic
- By Jonah on 09-30-19
By: Paul Collier, and others
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The Origins of Political Order: From Prehuman Times to the French Revolution
- By: Francis Fukuyama
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 22 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Virtually all human societies were once organized tribally, yet over time most developed new political institutions which included a central state that could keep the peace and uniform laws that applied to all citizens. Some went on to create governments that were accountable to their constituents. We take these institutions for granted, but they are absent or are unable to perform in many of today’s developing countries—with often disastrous consequences for the rest of the world.
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Few forests, but lots of trees
- By Steve Pagano on 10-05-15
By: Francis Fukuyama
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Why I Stand
- From Freedom to the Killing Fields of Socialism
- By: Burgess Owens
- Narrated by: Rich Cade
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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American Individualism has been the crown jewel of a nation that has prioritized God, family, and freedom to out-dream its obstacles. It is the freedom of this individual spirit that is under attack by its adversarial ideology, Marxist Socialism. This destructive ideology has resulted in “killing fields” of bodies, souls, and dreams of billions worldwide. Consistent is the destruction of manhood, womanhood, the family, and every pillar that supports love of God and country. Why I Stand documents an ideology that uses trust to divide and betray.
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Eye opening!
- By Susan Nelson on 03-04-19
By: Burgess Owens
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Black Wall Street
- The History of the Greenwood District Before the Tulsa Race Riot
- By: Charles River Editors
- Narrated by: Stephen Platt
- Length: 1 hr and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall, Tulsa in 1921 was considered a modern, vibrant city. What had fueled this remarkable growth was oil, specifically the discovery of the Glenn Pool oil field in 1905. Within five years, Tulsa had grown from a rural crossroads town in the former Indian Territory into a boom town with more than 10,000 citizens, and as word spread of the fortunes that could be made in Tulsa, people of all races poured into the city.
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Bombs dropped on Black Wall St. wasn't mentioned.
- By Anonymous User on 05-03-21
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Strategic Vision
- America and the Crisis of Global Power
- By: Zbigniew Brzezinski
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 6 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1991, the United States was the only global superpower. It seemed that the 21st century, like the 20th, would belong to America. Then came the stock market bubble, the costly foreign unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency, and the financial catastrophe of 2008. Meanwhile, China was rising and the Middle East was awakening politically. Today it is clear that America is vulnerable - to domestic and international decline and unregulated greed.
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Insightfull and imforming
- By Roy on 02-15-12
What listeners say about Smart Ball
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ryan
- 10-30-13
Packed with great baseball business facts, but dry
Packed with great baseball business facts, but technical and dry. I would get another book by this author for informational purposes.
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- Sally Harrison-Pepper
- 02-23-13
Smart Book with an Unfortunate Narrator
Lewis presents a provocative, scholarly argument that takes considerable focus to listen to and fully grasp (I've purchased the book to re-read his argument). And while I very much appreciated his perspectives, the narrator was extremely annoying in his frequently mispronounced words. Dominant among these words, and one that author Lewis uses throughout his book: "Pastoral." Pronounced "pas-TOR-al" by the narrator, every time he said it, I had to keep saying out loud: PAS-tor-al. grrrrr.... I went to online dictionaries to listen to audible pronunciations of this word, just to confirm that some new way of saying it hadn't entered the English language. It hasn't. So, the narrator (and whoever let him continue saying not only this word -- an especially important one when talking about the myth of baseball -- but the names of players as well) made this an even more difficult read. But I pushed on because I found the argument fascinating and, well, SMART.
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- Steven Gerweck
- 04-02-24
Myth Buster
In "Smart Ball," author Robert F. Lewis II uncovers the shady methodology of Major League Baseball becoming a monopoly in the United States, and the economic motivations for signing Jackie Robinson, and finally ending the color barrier in the sport. Lewis sheds light on how the baseball owners were able to maintain the dreaded reserve clause until the 1970's, before the union and courts successfully removed it.
The author outlines the path baseball took to become the national pastime sport, creating its own mythology behind the birth of the game in the U.S. Lewis brilliantly demonstrates how baseball developed its own origins, continued the folklore over the years, and contrived its own history. The book also points out that by the 1960's, football (both professional and college) had passed baseball as the nation's favorite sport.
Lewis makes a compelling comparison between baseball to secular religion. The author points out that baseball players compare to church missionaries, both promoting the product to the masses. Case in point, when baseball organized a world tour during the dead ball era, it was used for marketing purposes. Back in the states, religious organizations maintained no baseball on Sundays until the 1930's, as it was perceived to be the Lord's day.
The author shows the comradery built between the country and baseball through the war years. Often times, players would pause their baseball aspirations to serve in the military. Lewis notes how teams sports grew in popularity after the second world war. "Smart Ball" also shows how Major League Baseball has utilized both soft power and hard power to achieve its many goals through the decades.
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