How 2 Super Bowl Winners Turned Warren Buffett’s Wisdom Into Their Own Winning Strategy
Ndamukong Suh was a player for the Buccaneers; Les Snead was the Rams’ GM. Both took vital advice from the Oracle of Omaha at key points in their career.
Warren Buffett, Ndamukong Suh, and Les Snead. Illustration: Inc.; Photos:
Anyone who’s seen Moneyball knows that the line between sports strategy and business strategy is thinner than it seems. Thinking like an economist or investor can be incredibly valuable for players, coaches and managers, both on and off the field—and Warren Buffett, it turns out, is a particularly popular point of reference.
That’s the takeaway from two different stories out of pro football this week, both of which show how the Oracle of Omaha—who stepped back from his long-standing role as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the start of this year—retains a sterling reputation among athletes and front offices alike.
One story, published in the Wall Street Journal
One story, published in the Wall Street Journal Friday, cites Buffett as a key influence on Les Snead, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, who has been a long-time devotee of the financial mastermind. Earlier in his career, Snead would listen to books on tape about Buffett as he drove to games across the south, the Journal reports; he learned some key lessons in the process.
One of them? Buffett’s mantra that “Price is what you pay, value is what you get.”
The daily digest for entrepreneurs and business leaders
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
That would prove to be an important mindset for Snead as he pushed for the Rams to secure a Super Bowl ring. Snead traded away tons of his own draft picks for seasoned league vets who he’d need to win a championship, per the Journal, and rethought how he approached draft day, spending later rounds looking for system players who could support his stars in specific ways.
The GM viewed himself less as a pure
The GM “viewed himself less as a pure talent scout,” write the Journal’s Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg, “and more as a value investor who just happened to be in the business of picking NFL stocks.”
His Buffett-inflected strategy ultimately worked: in 2022, Snead’s Rams won the Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals.
Source: www.inc.com
