Business
Can Magic Johnson bring African Americans back to Major League Baseball?
Earvin “Magic” Johnson. PHOTO/File
“We are the communities we serve.”
That motto, asserted in the opening chapter of his 2008 book “32 Ways to Be a Champion in Business,” is what Magic Johnson says frames all the business interests he’s had since retiring from the NBA in 1996. It’s been a successful mantra, as Johnson, whose net worth was estimated at more than US$500 million by Forbes in 2009, grew his business over the past two decades by opening franchises for Starbucks, T.G.I. Fridays, AMC Theatres and Best Buy in primarily African American and Hispanic neighborhoods, such as Harlem and South Central Los Angeles.
Those endeavors pale in comparison with his most ambitious power move to date: Johnson is part of a group that has agreed to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers for US$2.15 billion, the largest amount ever paid for a sports franchise. Yet while most of Johnson’s prior businesses have focused on expanding to the black community, he now enters a business in which involvement by African Americans, both as players and fans, is near its lowest numbers in decades.
Sixty-five years after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball in a Dodgers uniform, will baseball’s most prominent African-American owner be able to use his star power to bring African American fans back to the ballparks?
“Magic Johnson will not be able to wave a magic wand over baseball and make that kind of meaningful impact,” said Tommy Hawkins, the Dodgers’ VP of communications from 1987 to 2005. “I think it’s great that he becomes a part-owner, but a lot of work needs to be done to reignite the African American response.”
