A Wonderful Pipedream

F ixing the Game: Bubbles, Crashes and What Capitalism Can Learn from the NFL is a deeply serious and important book wrapped in an ambiguous cover, intended, one presumes, to attract a wide audience. But anyone who picks it up expecting an easy read about business and American football will be gravely disappointed. It began life as a learned article in the Harvard Business Review and might easily be a series of lectures delivered at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, where the author is the widely respected dean—and, as he tells us, a football fan.

Roger Martin might also warn us that when it comes to conventional wisdom about U.S. business, he is a contrarian. For example, a business should seek to enhance value for its shareholders. Right? Wrong, says Martin. It should concentrate on “delighting” customers, and shareholders should expect no more...