Reading The Real Madrid Way: How Values Created the Most Successful Sports Team on the Planet by Steven G. Mandis is a an amazing experience. It is a book with instant credibility thanks to the author’s vast experience and raving reviews from the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, David Stern, Ray Hudson, and Billy Beane.
A quote from Beane actually adorns the cover and it is quite fitting as this book may be the most substantial sports text, soccer or otherwise, since Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game from Michael Lewis. While it probably won’t become a movie starring Brad Pitt and Jonah, The Real Madrid Way is no less significant to popular culture or the sporting industry.
Mandis is absolutely the right man to write this book. He is a phenomenal writer, someone with real-world experience in massive organizations. He has worked for the likes of Goldman Sachs, McKinsey & Company, Citigroup, and Kalmata Capital. Mandis actually wrote the book on Goldman, the award-winning What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider’s Story of Organizational Drift and its Unintended Consequences. He is a man with some serious credentials.
While a crisis within Real Madrid in the late 1990s didn’t cause a global financial meltdown, it did provide a recipe for financial disaster among sports teams. Even though Real Madrid was winning on the pitch, they were underperforming and even disappointing off the pitch, out in the real world.
Enter Florentino Pérez, a man that transformed an organization that was teetering toward bankruptcy into the most valuable sports brand on Earth. Valued at $3.44 billion, Real Madrid has surpassed the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, FC Barcelona, and Manchester United in terms of total value.
While many here in the States think the NFL and the Cowboys would be king, you need to remember that soccer is a truly global game. The NFL’s reach, even with games and a hypothetical team in London, is dwarfed by that of the beautiful game. The same can be said for MLB and our beloved Yankees. The team led by the legends of Ruth, Mantle, DiMaggio, and Maris doesn’t stand above the generations of Galácticos at Real Madrid. Six of the top ten annual revenues actually come from soccer teams.
Simply put, Real Madrid has become a global brand of epic proportions. We are talking about a fan base of 450 million all over the world with some 200 million followers on the team’s social media platforms. So how did they do it? Mandis knows.
The Real Madrid way for success focuses on the values of their community and the resulting culture that is created. Simply put, “the club exists to serve the Real Madrid community,” a member-owned organization of nearly 92,000 people. Because of the focus on values and community, Real Madrid’s members are fiercely loyal when it comes to their brand. That same loyalty is seen in the traditional business world in the form of Harley Davidson and Ferrari.
Replicating the Real Madrid way is nearly impossible; you need to look at the steps that made Real Madrid the organization it is today. Moneyball strategies didn’t work for Tottenham or Liverpool, probably because the Oakland Athletics were a different organization in a different sport that is played in a different part of the world.
But what could The Real Madrid Way do for your organization? You’ll need to read this gem to find out.
This is a book that will be embraced by the general population and the sports industry alike. Everyone that has been part of and/or works in an organization of any kind could learn from this brilliant text. It should be required reading for every sports-related major in the country. It’s that good because it has the ability to make a transformative impact, a vehicle to lead positive change.
