Skip to footer

Magic Johnson, basketball legend, is now a Dodgers owner

Los Angeles Dodgers will be bought by a group of owners that includes NBA legend Magic Johnson for a staggering $2 billion. The Los Angeles Dodgers sale is the most expensive in professional sports history.

|
Seth Wenig/AP/File
In this file photo, basketball legend turned entrepreneur Magic Johnson tours the Sports Museum of America in New York. A group that includes the former Lakers star and longtime baseball executive Stan Kasten agreed Tuesday, March 27, 2012, to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers from Frank McCourt for $2 billion.
  • By Schuyler Velasco Correspondent

An investment group that includes NBA Hall of Famer-turned-businessman Earvin "Magic" Johnson will buy the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team from bankrupt owner Frank McCourt. And it won’t be cheap. Per a Tuesday night agreement with Major League Baseball, the team and its facilities will go for $2 billion, shattering the record for the most expensive sports franchise ever purchased.

The former record holder was the Manchester United Soccer club in England, bought in 2005 for $1.4 billion. No franchise purchase in North America comes close: In 2009, the Miami Dolphins went for a paltry $1.1 billion. In 2008, the Chicago Cubs, the former most-expensive baseball team, sold for $845 million. Chump change compared with the new deal.

In buying the Dodgers, Mr. Johnson is part of a large team of investors called the Guggenheim Baseball Management group, which also includes longtime MLB executive Bobby Kasten. Mr. Kasten has served as president of the Washington Nationals and the Atlanta Braves. The controlling owner of the franchise will be Guggenheim Partners CEO Mike Walter. Other stakeholders include movie executive Peter Gruber and Guggenheim Partners president Todd Boehly. Kasten is expected to run the team.

"I am thrilled to be part of the historic Dodger franchise and intend to build on the fantastic foundation laid by Frank McCourt as we drive the Dodgers back to the front page of the sports section in our wonderful community of Los Angeles," Johnson said in a statement.

Last night’s agreement, which came mere hours after three finalists were announced, is the first of a series of steps that, barring any snags, will culminate in the team’s sale at auction by April 30. Mr. McCourt, who bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for $430 million, will retain a partial stake in the land and parking lots surrounding Dodger Stadium, worth an estimated $150 million. The deal is subject to approval in federal bankruptcy court.

For Johnson, participation in the Dodgers deal cements his status as the ultimate sports star turned businessmen. The money management track record for the average retired professional athlete is notoriously poor – a star losing his millions in lavish spending and bad deals is an all too common story. But since retiring from a legendary basketball career with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1991, Magic has proven himself a shrewd and highly effective investor. His company, Magic Johnson Enterprises, is worth an estimated $700 million. Its ventures involve investments in poor neighborhoods, including a national chain of “Magic Johnson Theatres” (now wholly owned by AMC Theatres), a successful promotions company, and The Magic Johnson Entertainment movie studio. Until 2010, he held a $10 million stake in the Lakers and served as the team’s vice president. He has additional partnerships with Best Buy, 24-Hour Fitness, and T.G.I. Friday’s.

In addition, Johnson has flourishing careers as a motivational speaker and NBA analyst. As of 2009, his net worth was valued at an estimated $500 million, placing him in a four-way tie with Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Sean “Diddy” Combs as the nation’s third-richest African-American.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Magic Johnson, basketball legend, is now a Dodgers owner
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/0328/Magic-Johnson-basketball-legend-is-now-a-Dodgers-owner
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe