Commanders deal a Magic moment

As a point guard, Magic Johnson had stellar court vision. But he saw the future, too.

One day in a cramped Los Angeles Lakers locker room, circa 1988, he told a reporter he was “gonna do big business things” someday. 

“What, a talk show?” the reporter asked. 

“No, you’re thinking too small.” 

“Own a basketball team?” 

“No! Bigger.” 

“An MLB team?”

“No! Bigger.”

“NFL?” 

“Bingo.” 

So, 35 years later, that explains the tears and exhales after Johnson invested roughly $240 million, or 4%, into Josh Harris’ $6.05 billion purchase of the Washington Commanders. Johnson called it one of the greatest days of his life and his longtime agent and confidant, Lon Rosen, called it “his dream for years.” But the raw emotion, including a 15-second sob on NBC’s “Today Show,” has to do with what Johnson told Rosen on the eve of the sale: “I wish my father was alive to see this.”

As a child in Lansing, Mich., Johnson would sit on his father Earvin Sr.’s knee and watch the Detroit Lions. His favorite player: Mel Farr. And, after a hundred Sundays like that, his favorite sport. “He’s a basketball player,” Rosen said, “but he’s a bigger football fan than anything else.”

When he joined the Lakers in 1979, Johnson bought Rams season tickets. When the Raiders showed up in ’82, he stood on their sidelines. “With the assistant coaches,” said former Lakers teammate Mychal Thompson. 

Johnson’s football Sundays were sacred. “Don’t call me, I’m off limits,” he’d tell the media. In between Pat Riley’s grueling training camp practices in Hawaii, he’d sit at the hotel bar watching football and eating chicken wings. He’d chat up Eric Dickerson whenever he could. There were more Raiders at his parties than Lakers.  

By ’88, he decided he’d be a businessman. As a child, his father worked night shifts at GM; he had never been his own boss. So Johnson intended to be what few Black men had been: a sports owner. When the Lakers played in Atlanta, he met with Coca-Cola executives. In Seattle, he met Starbucks execs. He put together an informal advisory team consisting of record producers Clive Davis and Lou Adler and Lakers owner Jerry Buss. They taught him business was about relationships. 

Johnson opened inner city Starbucks stores. Sony’s Peter Guber helped him develop Magic Johnson Theatres. In 1994, Buss sold him 4.5% of the Lakers for $10 million, which Johnson flipped and sold for roughly $127 million to biotech investor Patrick Soon-Shiong in 2010. Sentimentally, it made little sense, but he had a plan. Years before, then-Hawks exec Stan Kasten offered Johnson the team’s head coaching job, which he turned down. But by 2012 Kasten was part of the Guggenheim Baseball Management group purchasing the Dodgers for $2 billion and wanted Johnson to invest $50 million. This, he wasn’t turning down. 

Johnson grew close with Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter, and when the WNBA’s L.A. Sparks were in limbo in 2014, Johnson and Walter teamed up to buy them. That same year, Johnson leveraged his relationship with Guber — who had offered him a slice of the Warriors in 2010, which he passed on — to buy a stake in LAFC. 

Johnson had now not only hosted a talk show (“The Magic Hour’’), he’d owned NBA, WNBA, MLS and MLB teams. But, as he predicted in ’88, he was thinking “bigger”: football. 

He held exploratory talks with groups pursuing the Dolphins and Raiders, but then — through Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin — connected with 76ers and Devils owner Josh Harris. Harris was trying to buy the Broncos and solicited Johnson as an investor. The Denver bid failed, but wouldn’t fail when the Commanders became available last spring. 

Rosen said Johnson is not just lending his name to the Commanders; that with all four of his teams — Dodgers, Sparks, LAFC and Washington — he will be front and center. In D.C., he will try to rehabilitate a jaded fan base and grease the skids for a new stadium. The Dodgers (2020), Sparks (2016) and LAFC (2022) all won titles under his watch, something he will remind his Washington constituency. 

“You guys gotta stop calling him Magic and start calling him Midas,” Thompson said. “Because this guy — everything he touches in sports turns to gold.”