On Topic: Goalscoring and its business lessons

In “Moneyball,” the book and movie, Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane and statistician Bill James stop thinking about recruiting baseball players based on time-honored gut instinct and instead begin looking at numbers.

Simon Kuper, a Financial Times columnist, and Stefan Szymanski, a University of Michigan kinesiology professor, have taken a similar statistical microscope to soccer, a globally popular sport that in parts of the world that are not America rakes in massive amounts of money.

How big? Deloitte reports collective revenue for just the top 20 European clubs for their 2011-2012 season at 4.8 billion euros - more than $6.2 billion.

This business-of-sports book has more than a few take-aways for non-sports businesses - even for decision-makers who aren't followers of the so-called beautiful game. (Note to readers: I confess that I've scheduled vacations around the World Cup and other significant soccer tournaments.)

For one thing, the authors' stats demonstrate that whenever new owners take over a club with the vow to “run it like a business,” they fail miserably. Oh, they can balance the books and swear not to spend insane amounts of money on shiny 20-year-old Brazilian goal scorers - but they win no trophies.

And when teams don't collect trophies, fans stop showing up. Ticket sales plummet, as do revenues for parking, food, alcoholic beverages, souvenir team shirts and bobble heads.

So panicked teams chuck large amounts of cash at star players - Barcelona, for example, pays Lionel Messi $21.2 million a year, and that doesn't include product endorsements, according to Forbes. And the fans flock to see them.

“The point of a soccer club is to win trophies,” Kuper and Szymanski conclude, not to make money.

The key message for the rest of us? Remember your real mission - to process ethanol, develop web strategies, sell shoes - and structure everything else your organization does to support that.

“Soccernomics” also examines recruiting. It notes that success doesn't always lie in bringing in the latest hot, young prospect.

Sometimes long-term experience is what might serve better on the field. (Again: What's your mission?)

They also discuss onboarding: Many teams, after paying high fees, spend little time helping new hires settle in. Not surprisingly, those players frequently underperform and take a long time to adjust.

But some teams have become smarter at relocation as they add language lessons for foreign players and help them secure day care for their children, for example.

While most companies, unlike soccer teams, are about the bottom line rather than winning trophies, the message for us is clear. The more employees feel comfortable in their new situation, the more productive they tend to be and the longer they stick around.

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Now, here's where I can use your help, dear reader: I've asked the head of sports coverage for this fine news-gathering company to send me to next summer's World Cup in Brazil.

He has said no. Twice.

Now I'm trying to convince him to consider the women's World Cup in 2015. Expenses will be a lot less as the games will be in Canada.

So if you'd like to read about the U.S. women's team - they always do well - plus help me improve my French, please tell Nick Pugliese at nick.pugliese@sourcemedia.net or by mail in care of The Gazette.

I promise to include lots of numbers, colorful player anecdotes and maybe even squeeze in stories about the games, too.

Your assistance in this endeavor will be much appreciated.