Magic Johnson a Slam Dunk With L.A. Dodgers
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By DERON SNYDER
Major League Baseball loses to pro football on so many fronts — TV ratings, broadcast revenue, merchandise sales, etc. — that it can’t afford to miss any chance to one-up the NFL.
Especially not the 6-foot-9 opportunity knocking at the door.
Former Los Angeles Lakers great Magic Johnson, who after retirement transformed himself from an All-Star point guard to an all-star businessman, makes no secret of his interest in sports ownership. And he means a major portion, not the 4.5 percent stake of the Lakers he sold last year.
Those proceeds, plus the gain from selling his 105 Starbucks franchises a day later, gave him reportedly more than $100 million to play with in his pursuit of a sports franchise. When he was the first speaker at a February news conference on the naming rights for a proposed football stadium in downtown Los Angeles, he made his NFL intentions clear.
But Johnson isn’t one to limit his options, and he has plenty. So with the Los Angeles Dodgers going through bankruptcy court, he met with six different groups of potential bidders before teaming up with Stan Kasten, a former NBA/MLB team president, and Mark Walter, CEO of a financial-services firm that has more than $125 billion in assets under management.
