If you are a sports fan, it is often times to see easier to see business themes in sports  and one of those books where it is evident is Ron Jaworski’s book The Games that Changed the Game, The Evolution of the NFL in Seven Sundays, Random House, NY, 2010. Mr. Jaworski was a quarterback and maybe familiar to people as one of the broadcasters on Monday Night Football with the nickname of Jaws. If you consider the National Football League from a business perspective – the most profitable sports league in North America is the NFL and essentially all the teams are worth a billion or more. Worldwide the most popular game is soccer also called football. In the NFL the object of the game is move the ball down the field and across the goal line to score 7 points or kick it for 3 points. That objective has not changed since the founding but the game has. Similar to most businesses, when the game was introduced, there were minor changes but everyone did very similar things. Often times losing teams needed to do something different to make them winning teams – and this is where the coaches become critically important. How the team prepares and practices for a game will determine the outcome. For example, since most people are creatures of habit – they do something before the action if the opposition can detect the habit, they can have a split second advantage which can be capitalized on or be taken advantage of.

One of the themes of the book is the coach trying to determine if there was a blank slate would we be doing the process the same way? Is there an better way? one coach said the field is 100 yards long and 53 yards wide, I want to use every inch of it and devised his plans to do so. Other teams were not using the whole field and had to adjust or see more losses than wins. Every year the players are faster and stronger and play smarter, trying to find a mismatch of skill set to take advantage of gets harder and harder but it is there to be found.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, Mr. Jaworski picked 7 games or turning points in the NFL, and whatever industry you are in, you should be able to pick a few turning points off the top of your head. Then ask the question, for your dividend paying companies  which thrives on a steady market share and profitability, what would change it? how does the company adapt or be flexible to the market and stay profitable? how good are the coaches in the company? or is the monopoly conditions so strong that even an average year would not make a difference?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to asking questions