Kyle Harrison
to-read

The Making of a Blockbuster

The Making of a Blockbuster: How Wayne Huizenga Built a Sports and Entertainment Empire from Trash, Grit, and Videotape
Author
Gail DeGeorge
Published
1995
Pages
354
Recommended
Once
Buy on Amazon ↗

Why it’s on the list: DeGeorge on Wayne Huizenga — the roll-up operator who built Waste Management, then Blockbuster Video, then AutoNation, using the same consolidation playbook three times.

Where I saw it: In the reply thread to @WillManidis’s question, “what is the single best book you can read that will explain an entire industry?” (June 2, 2025) — a crowd-sourced list Kyle recovered by hand and saved to his Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full set of replies lives on what is the single best book… (tweet). It was listed there as “The Making of a Blockbuster”.

Connections

  • Blockbuster — The company at the centre of the book.
  • Retail — The store economics the roll-up ran on.
  • Capital Allocation — Huizenga’s actual craft: serial consolidation.
  • what is the single best book… (tweet) — the thread this recommendation came from.