The Wharton School welcomes all kinds of visitors from around the world to its Philadelphia campus — captains of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Industry<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-2" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Video-Glossary-Serguei-Netessine.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20171107-Industry.mp4?_=2" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20171107-Industry.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">Industry is the production of goods and/or services within the economy that are related to each other, and they are usually named after its principal product. <em>Some examples of the largest industries in the USA are the automotive industry, retail industry and financial industry.</em></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/industry/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">industry, celebrities, and serial entrepreneurs. Sometimes, however, big names need only travel a few blocks to Locust Walk to impart their best business wisdom. Such was the case recently when John Middleton, <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="CEO<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-5" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Grant.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/CEO.mp4?_=5" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/CEO.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">A chief executive officer, or CEO, is the top-ranking employee who runs a company. The CEO fired Simon Cowell.<br/></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/ceo/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">CEO and managing partner of the Philadelphia Phillies major league baseball team (and a super fan since the age of five), drove a few miles from Citizens <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Bank<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-6" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Goldstein.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Bank.mp4?_=6" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Bank.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">A bank is a financial institution whose primary activities are to receive money from depositors and lend it to borrowers. John's parents convinced him to deposit his money from the first salary in the bank, instead of spending it on a summer vacation.<br/></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/bank/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">Bank Park to sit down with Wharton’s Asuka Nakahara for a conversation during the Wharton Sports Business Summit. Here are 6 strategic plays from Wharton’s inside baseball chat with Middleton: 1️⃣ World Series goals. “You either win the big trophy or you don’t,” said Middleton of the success metrics he cares most about as an owner. “There’s one winner and 29 losers. Nothing else matters. You just win.” 2️⃣ Outside rules don’t apply. “Every industry has technical knowledge, and you have to learn it and master it to be an effective CEO,” noted Middleton. “In baseball you have to know how to evaluate baseball players, how to develop baseball players, and how to manage baseball players. There’s nothing you do in the outside world to develop those skill sets. You can get buffaloed. You make a lot of mistakes. We just hire great general managers and are smart enough to let them do their jobs. But it’s hard to find that great GM… The <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Product<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-3" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Gans.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Product.mp4?_=3" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Product.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">A product is an object that one individual or company makes for purchase by another. A car company's main products are its cars. A computer company's main products are its computers.<br/></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/product/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">product is a baseball team, and the raw ingredient are athletes who play baseball exceptionally well. If you really want to be in the business of baseball long-term, you have to get into that side of the field and learn something about it. You can’t be ignorant.” 3️⃣ A value proposition. When it comes to different revenue streams (like merchandise and ticket sales), “The more money you are bringing in, the more money you can spend, assuming you do it intelligently. You’re buying better players,” said Middleton. “What’s different about baseball than the other major sports is the degree to which our <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Revenues<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-4" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Guay.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Revenues.mp4?_=4" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Revenues.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">Revenues are the sales of products, merchandise and services that a company makes to customers due to the normal business activities. The Philadelphia Phillies, the 2008 World Series Champions, generated a record-breaking $216 million in revenues from ticket sales, merchandise, and refreshments last year.<br/></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/revenues/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">revenues are local revenues as opposed to national revenues… The disparity between the large-market and the small-market <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Teams<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-7" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/20180215-KWHSG-Carton.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20180220-Teams.mp4?_=7" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20180220-Teams.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">Teams are groups in which the members have a shared goal. Groups are sets of individuals who share a common boundary and influence one another. One joke that I find informative goes like this: What do you call a few people riding in an elevator? A group. What do you call those same people when the elevator gets stuck? A team. A team requires people to divide labor and coordinate their efforts to arrive at a common goal. Teams are best used when people are not easily able to achieve certain goals when working alone — such as landing a plane on an aircraft carrier.</blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/team/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">teams is significant. Putting aside the individual best interest of the team, for the future of baseball we need to move more money into the central baseball fund and have it distributed equally among the 30 teams. That’s the only way the small-market teams will be able to stay competitive long-term.” 4️⃣ The Niagara Falls of <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Data<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-8" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Handbury.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Data.mp4?_=8" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/Data.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">Data are collections of observations regarding a set of items. These observations are typically numerical measurements, but can also include words describing items. The U.S. Census includes data on the ethnicities, incomes and sizes of U.S. households.</blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/data/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">data. “As much information as you can get on baseball players is good,” said Middleton, noting that the Phillies were late to the party, not investing in data and analytics in any way until 2014. “You’re looking for congruency; agreement between the scouts and their eyes and the analytical people and their formulas, algorithms and conclusions. When you see that agreement, it’s good and when you see a disparity you need to explore the why.” 5️⃣ $750 million decisions. The Phillies recently sold stake in the <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Organization<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-1" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/20180215-KWHSG-Carton.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20180220-Organization.mp4?_=1" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20180220-Organization.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">An organization is a collective oriented toward a common goal. The goal may vary according to the industry and the organization’s unique history. For instance, employees at a hospital, including nurses, social workers, and physicians, may be united toward the goal of providing cutting-edge health care and healing patients.</blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/organization/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">organization to billionaires for future financial health. “In Covid, we lost a little over $200 million in two years. It started there,” said Middleton. “My desire to get my trophy back has caused me to spend a lot of money in payroll. We’re still losing money after Covid. We have a lot of work we want to do. [We have] laid out a vision for our Clearwater (Florida) training facilities and it’s a $350 million project. We have a lot of money to spend on Citizens Bank Park, like infrastructure upgrades and improvements. Fans enjoy games differently than they did 25 years ago. Frankly, our tab was three-quarters of a billion dollars. We needed to go to the outside and broaden our financial base and add some depth so we could do some of these things comfortably.” 6️⃣ A high-tech pitch. “The fastest growing expense category in Major League Baseball in the last five-plus years isn’t player payroll, it’s ancillary services, like the analytics department, equipment and cameras,” noted Middleton. “There’s a $1 million machine called a [Trajekt that uses data to mimic the way balls break from any big-league pitcher]. You can call up any single pitcher in baseball. A hole moves around this giant screen. Let’s say you want to hit against Zack Wheeler’s fast ball. A life-sized Zack Wheeler appears on the screen and the hole moves to a specific spot. He winds up and throws the ball and it hits that hole precisely and the ball comes out of the machine at exactly the spin rate and MPH of Zack Wheeler. We are on the cutting edge of all that stuff, finally. It took us years to get caught up. I don’t know how you could long-term be successful if you’re not riding the wave at that place.” Click HERE to read our original article featuring Nate Y. Conversation Starters What are three key decisions that John Middleton has made to boost the business of the Philadelphia Phillies? Are you interested in the business of sports? How are you pursuing this interest in high school? Share your story in the comment section of this article. Do you have questions for Nate Y.? Post them here and he might just answer! Hero Image <a class="glossaryLink" aria-describedby="tt" data-cmtooltip="Credit<div style="width: 640px;" class="wp-video"><video class="wp-video-shortcode" id="video-18486-9" width="640" height="360" poster="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Video-Glossary-Michael-Schwert.jpg" preload="metadata" controls="controls"><source type="video/mp4" src="/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20181015-KWHSG-Credit.mp4?_=9" />/wp-content/uploads/glossary_videos/20181015-KWHSG-Credit.mp4</video></div><blockquote style="display:none !important">Credit is a contractual agreement in which a borrower receives money now and agrees to repay the lender at a specified date in the future, generally with interest. <em>People use credit to make large purchases when they do not have the money today, but expect to have it in the future.</em></blockquote>" href="https://globalyouth.wharton.upenn.edu/glossary/credit/" data-gt-translate-attributes="[{"attribute":"data-cmtooltip", "format":"html"}]">Credit: Canva.com