Posted by Rob Minton
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I am not much of a sports fan. I don't really follow sports closely, but living where I live -- Northeast Ohio -- it's hard to open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing LeBron James. So it's not like it's easy to ignore the Cleveland NBA team, the Cavaliers.
Their season just ended when they lost in the playoffs before reaching the finals. Recently, the local newspaper had a question-and-answer interview with the team's owner, Dan Gilbert, after the season.
Gilbert founded Quicken Loans, kind of pioneering the area of home financing online. He bought the Cavaliers a few years ago, and the general feeling around here is that he has spared no expense to build a winner. His team has the third-largest payroll in the league, and he was quoted in the article as saying he will do whatever it takes to win a championship.
The Cavs had the best record in the league this year and the 10th-best in league history, but the owner's comments weren't about what they accomplished. It's about what they didn't accomplish. Their goal was a championship, and after they fell short, it's interesting to see the owner basically come out and say, "We have to do better."
I remember when the league had its trading deadline over the winter, and there was this opinion and that opinion about why would the Cavs try to get another player in a trade with another team. People were saying "They have the best record in the league, why mess with that?"
Well, the answer is that you can always try to get better. In fact, in business, you MUST always try to get better. You can't rest on past success -- if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. In business, in your career, in your investing, anything.
Anyway, I give Gilbert credit for coming out and saying they have to get better. I think it was smart of them to look at trying to get better with a trade even when they were on top of the league during the season. Even when things are going good, you have to look for ways to get better. If you wait until things turn rough, it's often too late. That is good business.
Also good business, I learned in the article, was that the team is selling a 15-percent share in ownership to a group in China. Why? Because basketball is big in China, it sounds like. There's over a billion people there, and the article said that one game this year, between NBA teams that both had a Chinese player, drew something like 300 million TV viewers in China. Gilbert said in the article that's five times more than the most-watched Super Bowl drew.
So he has the biggest star in the world, the most marketable player, and he is tapping into the world's biggest market by becoming the first team with Chinese ownership involved. Smart, if you ask me. He is investing into demand.
Sports is big business here in the States, and people complain about that sometimes. But sometimes, it reminds us of big business lessons, too. Even if you're not a sports fan!
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