Magic Johnson sees major-league success for sports in Las Vegas
Hall of Fame basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson expects the marriage of major-league sports with Las Vegas will be a huge success — especially if teams adhere to his strategy of over delivering to their customers to keep them loyal.
Johnson was the opening keynote speaker Thursday for the final day of the three-day Global Gaming Expo at the Sands Expo and Convention Center. About 26,000 people attended the somewhat subdued casino industry convention and trade show, the world’s largest, that was overshadowed by the tragedy of the mass shootings that left 59 dead and nearly 500 injured Sunday on the Las Vegas Strip.
“All the sports leagues were saying, ‘We’re staying away from Las Vegas. No way. The whole thing with betting and this and that,’” Johnson said in a question-and-answer session with American Gaming Association President and CEO Geoff Freeman.
“Now you’ve got two teams coming to this great city,” he said. “I think it’s great for the NFL, I think it’s great for the NHL, for the fans, for all of you.”
Changing gambling attitudes
Johnson, who earlier spoke for 45 minutes about his transition from being a professional basketball player to a business entrepreneur and investor, said the changing attitudes by sports leagues about gambling will enable teams and all the spinoff businesses they support to prosper.
“You stayed away from it,” Johnson said of teams’ relationships with casinos and gambling. “Now, you have the (Los Angeles) Lakers that have a great relationship (with casino properties) and casinos are popping up everywhere. In the state of California, you’ve got great casinos and not just casinos, but hotels. It’s great for everybody.”
Johnson, who parlayed his business acumen into a leading role in sports franchises, was part of the group that acquired the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team in 2012 and the Los Angeles Sparks WNBA team in 2014. He currently serves as president of basketball operations for the Lakers.
Lakers and Las Vegas
Johnson promised that he would continue to bring the Lakers to Las Vegas for pre-season exhibition games. The team plays the Sacramento Kings Sunday at T-Mobile Arena, a venue operated by MGM.
“We’ll continue to come to Las Vegas to have games because the Lakers have a heavy fan base in Las Vegas,” he said. “Our friends over at the MGM have done a wonderful job laying out the red carpet for us. So we’ll be here and look forward to years and years of partnerships.”
Johnson said his success in franchise management comes from his philosophy to provide stadium amenities and a good team on the field to provide a reason for fans to attend games.
“We had to change the fan experience when we took over the Dodgers because we were right in the middle of the pack when it came to attendance,” he said. “But for the last four years, we put money into the stadium.
“We put a couple hundred million dollars into the stadium and made sure the concession offerings were taken to another level. Since we’ve owned the team for the last four years, the team has been No. 1 in attendance. This year, we almost went to 4 million fans coming through our doors. We sold 3 million tickets before the season even started. No other team was close to that,” he also said.
Building in poor neighborhoods
Johnson discovered his magic touch when he recognized how he could be successful locating businesses in traditional minority neighborhoods. Venturing into the G2E crowd and mixing sports and business anecdotes with taking pictures with fans, signing autographs and flashing his million-dollar smile, Johnson described how he defied critics and built a franchise of movie theaters in poor neighborhoods and put food concessions in them that catered to neighborhood tastes.
Even when Starbucks executives said building stores that sold $3 cups of coffee in those neighborhoods wouldn’t work, Johnson put up the money to build and modified the menu, switching out scones for sweet-potato cake and putting Michael Jackson and Earth, Wind & Fire music on the sound system.
“We don’t even know what scones are,” Johnson joked.
Today, his Magic Johnson Enterprises empire invests in infrastructure projects, including work at Denver International and LaGuardia airports, and his foundation funds thousands of dollars in scholarships.
Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.
Millennials: a different animal
"I'm a creature of habit," Earvin "Magic" Johnson told an enthused crowd at his G2E keynote address.
"If you take care of me, that's where I'm staying and I stay at the same place every time. If I get everything I want when I come to that city, that's where I'm going."
But he admitted that marketing to millennials may be a different story.
"We've got to get ahold of millennials because they're a little different," he said. "They like it fast, quick and on their phone. They're not like us creatures of habit. They like to jump around. So you've got to really hone in on those millennials. They're a different customer than you're used to having."
