Michael Freeman’s book about the birth of ESPN offers many lessons about entrepreneurship and marketing, largely focused on persistence and the benefits of competition. Many people turned down the concept of a 24/7 sports network yet the founder Bill Rasmussen kept pushing because he believed that he had a good idea. The networks at the time were extremely myopic in their vision for the future of television which permitted cable networks like ESPN, CNN, and HBO to steal countless viewers, talent, and advertising revenue. Whilst the new blue-chip brand’s humble beginnings were fascinating, the amount of alcoholism, sexual harassment, gambling, …
Talent Myopia
In 1960, Theodore Levitt published Marketing Myopia, a seminal article for the Harvard Business Review that highlighted how a narrow understanding and a refusal to accept change doomed a number of business empires. Companies ranging from electric street car manufacturers that didn’t understand the effect of the automotive industry to dry cleaners who did not cope with the development of new synthetic fabrics were criticized. The same problems also manifest themselves away from the business world, on the basketball court, where players get caught up with their own abilities and misunderstand their role in the sport. Self-Deceiving Cycle: There is …