Do You Think JR Was A Good Businessman?

[Billy Wall]

Me personally, I don't think so. I know he was perceived as a good, if not brilliant businessman, but it seemed like if he went up against someone his own size, he loss more than he won.

Clayton beat him when he was stockpiling his oil. Sure he made Clayton suffer, but at what expense? Miss Ellie eventually selling the oil back to Clayton.

Bobby, who was in all sense and purpose, a novice oilman, defeated him on numerous occasions, most famously, "the battle for Ewing Oil."

Jeremy Wendell assisted in taking Ewing Oil from the Ewing's.

He brings in some old coot to assist in their fight against Cliff, Jamie and Pam and because he didn't do his due diligence, he almost was able to assist Cliff, Jamie and Pam exceed in their attempt to take Ewing Oil.

Even Clifffor a stretch, gave JR fits once he became a for

Don't get me wrong, JR was still "the man", but if he wasn't going up against a weak foe that he could blackmail, just how good was he at business?

 

[Snarky Oracle!]

Larry said JR "was a disaster" as a businessman, doing the math while watching reruns.

 

[Toni]

Most times he wasn´t, but he always saw the outcome as "being back at the top" or something like that. I´m working on a video about the best/worst business deals of J.R., by the way. This is quite obvious in the plots...

 

[Jock Ewing Fan]

Me personally, I don't think so. I know he was perceived as a good, if not brilliant businessman, but it seemed like if he went up against someone his own size, he loss more than he won.

Clayton beat him when he was stockpiling his oil. Sure he made Clayton suffer, but at what expense? Miss Ellie eventually selling the oil back to Clayton.

Bobby, who was in all sense and purpose, a novice oilman, defeated him on numerous occasions, most famously, "the battle for Ewing Oil."

Jeremy Wendell assisted in taking Ewing Oil from the Ewing's.

He brings in some old coot to assist in their fight against Cliff, Jamie and Pam and because he didn't do his due diligence, he almost was able to assist Cliff, Jamie and Pam exceed in their attempt to take Ewing Oil.

Even Clifffor a stretch, gave JR fits once he became a for

Don't get me wrong, JR was still "the man", but if he wasn't going up against a weak foe that he could blackmail, just how good was he at business?

It is a little complicated.

When Jock was there to oversee him, JR did seem to grow Ewing Oil, so it can be said that he was a good businessman then.

The Asian wells was a gamble that worked, at least for a while. It is not unusual for businessmen to take similar risks.
Sometimes it works, sometimes not.. The problem is that it could have destroyed EO if it failed.

I never cared for the battle for Ewing Oil in general, because it was too unrealistic in the real world.
Even losing to Bobby, JR did accumulate lots of profit.
Co-owning with Bobby probably prevented JR from doing something too high risk until Calhoun.
Yes there was a failure of due diligence during the Jason Ewing story, but both Bobby and JR failed that time.

JR's business acumen seemed to decline starting with Calhoun. That was not an Asian Wells calculated risk, that was just
horrible judgement.

JR did regain the Assets from Wendell (after he lost EO, granted)
That may have been his last great victory

So maybe the final result is mixed, with both success and failure, probably with more success in the earlier years.