Time to Reboot “The Magic Hour”: Johnson’s Group Buys Dodgers
My jaw almost dropped when I saw the dollar sign on the deal. The long-awaited sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers has been finalized. The price tag is reportedly in the neighborhood of $2 billion. That’s right. I’ll capitalize the B.
Fans across Los Angeles celebrated when it was announced late Tuesday night that the sale of the Dodgers was complete.
Applause. APPLAUSE!
It marked the end of the Frank McCourt era.
But the information should have been put on in pieces. This would have been the perfect opportunity for a Ryan Seacrest-type figure to toss out a “And the buyer is … going to be revealed after the break.”
Build the suspense and keep them hanging on before introducing the new owner(s). It’s a simple production technique. Drag the viewer into another segment.
To be clear, it’s a group of investors under the banner “Guggenheim Baseball Management LLC” that is led by Mark Walter. Everyone will focus on the legend included in those names appearing in the crawl. Earvin “Magic” Johnson will attempt to bring his golden touch to the Dodgers after dominating the business world since his retirement from the NBA. Everything he’s done, save for the short-lived talk show commemorated in the title of this entry, has been successful (gyms, movie theaters and Starbucks among others).
McCourt isn’t out of the picture entirely. He’s still in the parking lot and property side of things, but fans of the team can breathe a sigh of relief and find a new source of angst.
