How is innovation

used in the movie

Moneyball?

EXTENDED ESSAY
Business & Management

Name: Lara van de Camp

Class: Ms. Baez Business
Date: June 12, 2015
Word Count: 1171
Total: 1350

Contents Page
Title Page
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_Page 1
Contents Page
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e2
Introduction +
body______________________________________________________________Page
3
Body
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_______Page 4
Conclusion
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Page 5
Works Cited
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Page 6
Appendices
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Page 7

If you are a good manager and you can build a good team, with low
salaries and then they become winners, then people will want to see
your team play and they will buy tickets and sponsors will then also get
attracted to be part of that team and theyll pay lots of money. These
are the main reasons why a baseball team is considered a business.
Another reason is that their goal is to make profit, which a normal
businesss is as well. The business model of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) and
Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) for their baseball team Oakland As is that
instead of having one really expensive player, they have four players
who are said to be imperfect but they do have game winning
potentials. In this essay I will be including what innovation is and how
innovation is used in the movie Moneyball.
The movie Moneyball is about Billy Beane, the general manager of the
Oakland As. He is faced with a tight budget and he must change his
team to affordable players, which means taking the best ones out.
Beane hires Ivy League graduate Peter Brand with whom he discusses
what to exactly do about his team and what players to get. They
recruit players who are labeled as imperfect, but they do have gamewinning potentials. (Imdb plotsummary)
Innovation, according to Merriam Webster, is the act or process of
introducing new ideas, devices or methods. These days innovation gets
used everywhere, and in every business because everyone is always
innovating. Imagine your company didnt, then you would eventually
get no more customers because youll still have the old products,
which nobody wants anymore. Remember the company Kodak, their
business failed due to not innovating, because they didnt adapt to the
new technologies and people didnt want the old ones anymore. They
want better and newer versions. Innovation also means getting a

higher profit. A good way to drive innovation is to be clear about what

you want to accomplish and to not get stuck in the rut of doing things
the way theyve always been done. (insightsquared) I think this quote
fits perfectly with the movie Moneyball because Beane knew what he
wanted to accomplish and he changed the business model of how a
baseball team was always done.
Innovation is used a lot in the movie Moneyball, and the main reason
for this is because Beane keeps innovating his team. My favorite
example of how Beane uses innovation is to think differently (Ms. Baez
Packet, page 7). People always follow the same pattern, getting
professional baseball players with high salaries, and instead of that,
even though Beane is short on money, he goes out and gets cheaper
players that are said to be imperfect but they do have game-winning
potentials.
In the beginning of the movie Beane and his men are in a conference
meeting with each other talking about their team. Beane states, There
are rich teams and poor teams, then 50 feet of carp. Then theres us.
(Imdb) He has to use a new innovation strategy in order for them to
win, because of their budget they cant afford the best players. Beane
knew he had to think differently in order to get a good team but he
didnt exactly know how to, so thats when, also during the meeting, he
meets Peter Brand and hires him. Beane asks Peter to find 3 good
players for the team, however Peter finds 51 players instead. He has a
new innovation strategy because instead of having one 7 million
player, they can have 4 players who each have game-winning
potentials. A different example is First job in baseball? Its my first job
anywhere. (Ms. Baez packet, page 7) Even though you want current
stars, you should be looking for future stars. Some people joined a
team and they lacked experience but now they are one of the most
successful in the entire world. One example of this in the movie is
when Brand says the quote from above Its my first job anywhere.
And even though its his first job, Beane hires him and Brand and
Beane work together to change the business model, which they
succeed in doing.
Another example where you can find innovation is that Beane risked
people getting tired of him and not believing that he could do it.
(Calliopelearning)
But instead of listening to them, he went out and did it anyways, and
succeeded. Also, continue to believe you can do it even through failure.
Beane and Brand successfully recruited their players using their new
strategy but they still lost almost all of their games in the first half of
the season. They could have given up but instead of doing that they

kept pushing, and in the end their strategy was a success. Beane kept
moving forward and kept innovating.
Another interesting point they say in the movie is If we try to play like
the Yankees in here, well lose to the Yankees out there (Ms. Baez
Packet, page 10) This shows that you have to use new innovation
strategies in order to win. You cant win using everyones strategies,
you have to go out and change them and even if another team is
successful using them, it might be a losing strategy for you. This is
exactly what Beane does in the movie, he finds new players, changes
the business model and he becomes successful.
Lastly, Beane said, Were going to change the game (Ms. Baez
packet, page 10). And really thats the attitude that its all about. Beane
noticed they werent going to win using the same strategies as
everyone else, and anyways they couldnt because they were low on
money. But Beane went out and changed their business plan by getting
four players instead of one that costs a lot. He got negativity from
people and even some he worked with didnt believe it was going to
work. But he decided not to listen and went out and did it anyways.
And he was successful. The quote that I love that perfectly describes
the movie is If we pull this off, we change the game. We change the
game for good. (Calliopelearning)
Beane changing the whole business plan was a huge success because
now more teams are using his strategy in order to win. One example is
Red Sox, who won in 2004 using his theory. They hired Beane for
$12.5 million, which would have made him the highest paid general
manager in sports history, but he decided to stay with his own team.
(Wikipedia)
As conclusion, innovation is used multiple times during the movie
Moneyball. It is used when they got new players, instead of one seven
million player they got 4 game-winning potential players. Also, even
though they were losing Beane kept pushing through eventually
making his new business plan a success. And teams have copied his
strategy for example the Red Sox who won in 2004 due to using his
theory.

Works Cited Page

"Innovation Lessons from Moneyball." Calliope Learning. N.p., 14 Oct. 2011. Web. 14 June
2015. <http://www.calliopelearning.com/innovation-lessons-frommoneyball/2011/10/14>.
"Innovation Strategy Lessons from Moneyball | The Brainzooming Group." The Brainzooming
Group. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 June 2015. <http://brainzooming.com/innovation-strategylessons-from-moneyball/11189/>.

"Lessons from Moneyball on Innovation, Sales Analytics and Sales Management |

InsightSquared." InsightSquared RSS. N.p., 24 June 2013. Web. 14 June 2015.
<http://www.insightsquared.com/2013/06/lessons-from-moneyball-on-innovationsalesanalytics-and-sales-management/>.
Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015. <http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/innovation>.
"Plot Summary." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/plotsummary>.
"Quotes." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1210166/quotes>.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015. <https://en.wikipedia.org/?
title=Oakland_Athletics>.
Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 14 June 2015.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneyball_(film)>.

Appendices

The records of the Athletics' last ten seasons in Major League Baseball are listed
below.