What Can George Steinbrenner and the Yankees Teach Us About Economies and Diseconomies of scale?
From 1972-1976 the Oakland A's and Cincinnati Reds won all five of baseball's World Series Championships. Despite this amazing success, only 5 of those players went on to the baseball Hall of Fame. That is a total of 500 possible players with only 1% of them making it to the Hall of Fame as part of baseball's elite.
When George Steinbrenner took over the Yankees in the early 1970's he wanted to have the best players at every position. In 1977-1978 it worked - they won 2 straight World Series titles - only two of players on that team (both former Oakland A's) made it to the baseball Hall of Fame. Most of the other players on the team came through the Yankees minor league farm system or were received in trades. In the 1980's George pushed for better players and he got them - he also got the Yankees to perform as one of the worst teams in baseball from 1982-1991....What happened? What did George S. not understand about Economies of Scale?