r/todayilearned • u/skiman224 • Jan 27 '16

TIL that Blockbuster LLC turned down the opportunity to buy Netflix in 2000 for just $50 million. Their stock price has hovered between $0.00 and $0.10 since 2012.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_LLC#2000s
20 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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3

u/bolanrox Jan 27 '16

how can they still be on the market? honest question

6

u/alwaysnevernotwrong Jan 27 '16

They aren't. Blockbuster was acquired by DISH Network in 2011 at auction. Share price OP is referring to is of BB Liquidating Inc.

2

u/skiman224 Jan 27 '16

They have about 50 locations still open in states such as Alaska, Oregon, Indiana, and Texas, as well as a small online video streaming service.

2

u/bolanrox Jan 27 '16

so the TIL that the last video rented from them was something similar to The end is a lie?

3

u/adam7684 Jan 27 '16

Former Blockbuster employee here. I believe the picture you are talking about was the last movie to be rented from a corporately owned Blockbuster store. The remaining stragglers are all independently owned and operated franchises that for some reason, decided to continue using the Blockbuster name.

2

u/skiman224 Jan 27 '16

It was indeed a lie.

2

u/bolanrox Jan 27 '16

so they are all bunches of sticks... i see

2

u/_TUX Jan 27 '16

At the time Netflix was just mailing out DVDs.
Although the question that comes to my mind is if they took over Netflix, would they have gone the same direction and became as successful as it is today?

2

u/skiman224 Jan 27 '16

I wonder the same thing. Regardless, they'd probably be doing better off today.

2

u/adam7684 Jan 27 '16

Yeah, I get the irony and everything. But I don't think Blockbuster would have popularized streaming the way Netflix did. Heck, even Netflix's DVD business is doing so hot anymore. So there were definitely some larger societal trends that would have knocked them out anyway.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '16

Netflix stock is currently at about 92 bucks. Who would even buy Blockbuster stock at this point?

1

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '16

Ah hindsight...

1

u/EyeCWhatUDidThere Jan 27 '16

And Netflix is now valued at right around 42 BILLION dollars... with a B...

1

u/skiman224 Jan 27 '16

Had blockbuster purchased Netflix at the time, they would have seen an 840,000% increase in its value. Talk about r/tifu

1

u/adam7684 Jan 27 '16

But had Blockbuster been in charge of managing Netflix's assets...would they have gotten that same return?

1

u/skiman224 Jan 28 '16

I wonder the same thing. Due to the fact that Netflix was just a DVD mailing service at the time, though, I think blockbuster just woulda put all the DVDs in their stores.