They are forced to considder the wellbeing of the employees as well
A practical example of this is the Cologne-based Toyota F1 racing team [1] of a few years back. Despite having one of the largest budgets and workforces in the sport, the team was never successful at all, never having won a race. Common wisdom among racing pundits was that the workforce was inefficient, and just not cut out to be a top-rank F1 team. But the labor practices of Germany prevented Toyota from getting rid of the deadwood to build up a better-performing team. The end result was that Toyota threw in the towel and got out of the sport altogether.
Of course, other examples in the OP show different results. But the absolute meritocracy of top-tier sports is hard to argue against. I would submit that it's a purer example (although "anecdote" isn't the singular of "data"), since the intrigues of international politics and voodoo of macro economics may obscure much of the truth.
Sports aren't a meritocracy. They (generally) aren't equally funded, and often compete on money. They outsizingly reward hits over simple strong performance.
But funding comes from performance -- it's a feedback loop. The teams that perform the best get greater funding. That is a meritocracy.
In any case, my point would still stand. The Toyota F1 team was understood to be one of the top-funded teams, but was unable to compete at a level commensurate with their budget.
A practical example of this is the Cologne-based Toyota F1 racing team [1] of a few years back. Despite having one of the largest budgets and workforces in the sport, the team was never successful at all, never having won a race. Common wisdom among racing pundits was that the workforce was inefficient, and just not cut out to be a top-rank F1 team. But the labor practices of Germany prevented Toyota from getting rid of the deadwood to build up a better-performing team. The end result was that Toyota threw in the towel and got out of the sport altogether.
Of course, other examples in the OP show different results. But the absolute meritocracy of top-tier sports is hard to argue against. I would submit that it's a purer example (although "anecdote" isn't the singular of "data"), since the intrigues of international politics and voodoo of macro economics may obscure much of the truth.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Racing