In the span of business moves , a lot of smart people in a business will do some dumb ...stupid things. Be it to compete in a very competitive market or going outside their wheelhouse. And usually going outside their wheelhouse of expertise sinks them. In recent years...its been Elon Musk and his comedy of errors running a social media platform. But we always discuss Musk so...lets go elsewhere...




Ted Turner is a brilliant business man who jumped in the early days of cable expanding and grew an empire that included the NBA Atlanta Hawks and MLB Atlanta Braves. But a big building piece that helped his cable network go national (WTBS) was pro wrestling from Georgia. Or later Jim Crockett Productions.

Turner was a pro wrestling fan too. He would attend some cards like he did Braves games. So his support for pro wrestling on WTBS was there for years.

By 1988 Jim Crockett had screwed the pooch so to speak. He had tried going national and crippled his company in bad moves that sunk the company into debt. Turner not wanting to lose his pro wrestling product and being a fan himself....BOUGHT ...Crockett Productions and renamed the company "WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING".

Turner however wasn't a day to day runner guy. He had a media empire to run and he couldn't logically run a pro wrestling company. So he handed the company to people below him to run and well...they didn't know either.

From former pizza executives who wanted Ric Flair to look like Spartacus to one who may have ticked off Hank Aaron , WCW floundered for years. A fact that executives at board meetings would bring up WCW costing the Turner company $6+ million a year in losses. So why not shut it down.

Turner to his credit told the executive to NEVER bring that up again as a warning. But Turner hated losing and he hated how WCW was not doing good enough to beat Vince McMahon. The guy owned sports teams and he wanted to be #1 in everything.

When Eric Bischoff got the job a frustrated Ted Turner asked why they weren't beating WWF. Bischoff thinking quick said..."We need Hulk Hogan." Turner told Bischoff to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to get Hogan and gave him a check book to do it. Then after that and still not beating WWF...Turner asked what else Eric needed.

"I need to go against WWF Monday Night RAW..." Bischoff said as he really didn't know what to say to his big boss. Turner told his secretary..."Give Eric a Monday night slot on TNT...." Turner then handed Bischoff an unlimited check book to make it happen.

But you get the gist of it. Turner was a genius at handling a media corporation , corporate mergers and buyouts. But as far as running a pro wrestling company he was so outta his wheelhouse , he was gonna do whatever he thought would work.





Edward Lampert by all accounts is a genius at investments and built a great company called ESL Investments. His returns was one of the best in the 1990s at 29% a year then. Which made a lot of rich people happy.

But Lampert is more known for the comedy of errors of going , outside his wheelhouse to be CEO of K-Mart (and later Sears Holdings). Which well...both companies have a long history in retail.

K-Mart was founded in 1899 and had a long history. By the late 1990s and early 2000s the once famous chain retailer was in trouble. Bad business moves and more had the company in debt and ESL Investments bought the debt and controlled the retailer. Lampert cut unprofitable stores in 2003 and began a small turn around for it.

Sears itself is the longer ran store. Its prestige and being known for its Sears catalogue began in 1892. In the American world of the 20th century Sears was very big.

But like K-Mart it too was struggling. Perhaps in worse shape than K-Mart then. Sears was headed towards bankruptcy and the company likely would be gotten for nothing ahead.

But then its been claimed Lampert decided to make a deal. One article i remember reading someone advised Lampert to NOT BUY SEARS at the price point then. Because in the words this guy put it at , the company was gonna be gotten for cheap after.

Lampert instead had K-Mart buy Sears for $11 billion dollars. The idea in Lampert's mind possibly (and likely others) was competing with Wal-Mart and Target. With great brands like Craftsman and Martha Stewart , both companies would now have 3,500+ stores.

Want to know how many stores there is is now with Edward Lampert running things ?

https://chainstoreage.com/news-brief...7T10%3A53%3A52

13 total stores....COMBINED in 2023. Its like....such a bad fall that it mirrors Musk's running of Twitter comically.


In 2018 it was said how bad things were ran with this :

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/busin...ars/index.html

“Everyone knows it’s the last company, the last person you want to work for in retail,” said Jaime Ward, head of the retail finance group at Citizens’ bank. “He doesn’t get retailing. It’s been obvious to everyone in the company. The headquarters employees have been working under duress for the last five to ten years.”
In terms of history Lampert may be known as the man who tanked 2 big name American retailers in the years he ran things.