Magic Johnson Has Magic Touch In Biz
Almost nobody would question Earvin Johnson’s skill on the basketball court. But in his second career as an entrepreneur, there were doubters from the start.
Johnson, best known by his nickname “Magic,” remains one of the best players to ever don the gold and purple Los Angeles Lakers uniform.
Executives he pitched on a business idea developed when still a player — opening high-quality movie theaters and restaurants in inner-city neighborhoods — often didn’t see what he saw. Instead, “they saw me as just a basketball player,” he says from inside his modestly decorated offices in Beverly Hills.
In his recently released book, 32 Ways to be a Champion in Business, Johnson wrote that executives would “hand me a basketball and ask for an autograph, but they did not want to hear my pitch for investing in neighborhoods populated by blacks.”
But Johnson says he had a dream and a concrete plan. While traversing the urban hearts of cities in team buses to basketball games, he saw boarded-up businesses and a lack of retail outlets. He told himself he’d help revive some of those neighborhoods when he could, he says.
And that’s the magic of Magic. While other executives steered clear of urban areas, Johnson saw opportunity. His business plan, his overtime performance after basketball, was to bring established retail brands to the inner cities by tailoring them to the residents.
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Photo by newsday.com.
cassy on January 9th, 2009 1:28 am
will aside from his success in basketball that call him tha magic man, what else we can say? he really is a magician and that gives him the opportunity to become a successful person in business and in sports!
Jaclyn on January 18th, 2009 12:01 pm
Who’s he though to say that the “black” neighborhood’s are the only one’s that need reviving and need buildings to be rengenerated? there are troubles in every neighborhood no matter who lives in them, and every neighborhood need’s help somewhere!
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