Michael Lewis on the Hidden Economics of Baseball and Football

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2007

⏱️ 76 minutes

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Summary

Michael Lewis talks about the economics of sports--the financial and decision-making side of baseball and football--using the insights from his bestselling books on baseball and football: Moneyball and The Blind Side. Along the way he discusses the implications of Moneyball for the movie business and other industries, the peculiar ways that Moneyball influenced the strategies of baseball teams, the corruption of college football, and the challenge and tragedy of kids who live on the streets with little education or prospects for success.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:13.6	I'm your host Russ Roberts of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover
0:18.3	Institution.
0:19.7	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast,
0:26.9	find links and other information related to today's conversation.
0:31.0	Our email address is mailaddycontalk.org.
0:34.7	We'd love to hear from you.
0:38.2	My guest today is Michael Lewis, journalist and bestselling author.
0:42.0	His books include Liars Poker, Moneyball, the Art of Winning and Unfair Game, and the blind
0:47.7	side, Evolution of a Game.
0:49.4	Michael, I'm a big fan of your work because you're often writing about economics, the trade-offs,
0:54.2	the decision makers make between different goals, given the cost of achieving those goals.
0:59.2	And perhaps more importantly, you do something economists try to do, illuminate the hidden
1:04.0	and unseen.
1:05.8	I want to start by talking about Moneyball, which is a wonderful read.
1:09.2	In Moneyball, you tell the story of the Oakland Athletics, the Oakland days, and their general
1:12.9	manager, Billy Bean.
1:14.9	At the time you wrote the book, Billy Bean saw some things that other general managers
1:18.6	in baseball had trouble seeing.
1:21.0	Tell us what made him so special.
1:23.0	Well, what he saw then now feels a bit dated, but at the time we were talking, I moved
1:30.1	into his life in the 2002 season.
	...

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