Netflix has been employing a curious strategy recently to respond to increased competition from amazon’s new online streaming service, and companies creating their own respective websites and programs to make their shows available on. In ‘Moneyball’  Brad Pitt, as the manager of a baseball team, chooses to buy mediocre players with potential for a quarter of the price of a current star player, ‘to create a roster’.

for example, the team he eventually ends up with is a extremely cohesive team that is winning as many players are more than likely to secure a base. Netflix has been employing a somewhat similar strategy as can be seen from the risks taken to revive cancelled or ‘dead’ shows under their own brand name as the risk is relatively small, it has seen successes in shows such as Arrested Development  and The Killing, whose rights have been purchased from their respective owners and produced and provided exclusively on Netflix. Whereas House Of Cards has been completely developed through large research and development investments exclusively for Netflix, and has met with resounding success.

Albeit the riskiness of this method, the potential profitability of the projects in comparison to the investment made is much greater, and as it stands, this strategy is keeping Netflix in the lead of other streaming services.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillbarr/2013/11/15/is-netflix-playing-a-tv-game-of-moneyball/