Company profile
- Industry
- Home video and video game rental
- Founded
- 1985
- Ownership
- Brand owned by Dish Network
Profiles are auto-generated and infrequently updated.
In depth
Strategic Fork
Blockbuster Passes on Netflix (2000)
In 2000, Netflix was a money-losing DVD-by-mail startup burning through cash. Reed Hastings flew to Dallas and offered to sell it to Blockbuster for $50 million. Blockbuster's executives nearly laughed him out of the room. It became the most expensive 'no' in business history.
Vault
Blockbuster's Failure to Adapt: The $50 Million Mistake
By the early 2000s, Blockbuster Video dominated home entertainment with over 9,000 stores worldwide and $6 billion in annual revenue.
Decisions on record
3 verified Decision Records on Blockbuster, and the casebook each one belongs to.
| Fork date | Decision type | The story | Casebook |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 | The Fall | Read the story → | The Fall Casebook → |
| 2005 | The Fall | Read the story → | The Fall Casebook → |
| 2007 | The Counterfactual | Read the story → | The Counterfactual Casebook → |
Run one of these yourself
The decisions Blockbuster faced, as kits you can run.
Each pack takes one of these decisions and gives you the framework, a deck for the room, a model that resolves to one number, and the sourced cases behind it. $499, one-time.
The analyses
The Counterfactual · Decision Forks
Blockbuster's Bigger Blunder Came Seven Years After the Famous $50M Netflix Offer
The legend says Blockbuster laughed Netflix out of the room and missed a $50M deal of the century. But Netflix was on track to lose ~$50M that year, the CEO wasn't even in the meeting, and the real blunder came seven years later.
8 min
The Fall · Crisis & Reinvention
Late Fees Were About 16% of Blockbuster's Revenue — Matching Netflix Meant Burning Them
The favorite parable is wrong. Blockbuster collected nearly $800 million in late fees in 2000 - about 16% of revenue. The one model that could have beaten Netflix would have set fire to the very money keeping the company alive.
8 min
The Fall · Crisis & Reinvention
Blockbuster Built Its Netflix Killer by 2004 — Then a Board Coup Fired the CEO Funding It
The legend says Blockbuster laughed Netflix out of a Dallas meeting and died of arrogance. The real story: it had already built a Netflix-killer by 2004 — then a board coup fired the CEO funding it and a successor who called streaming a fad let it bleed out under nearly $1 billion of debt.
8 min