Earvin Johnson wanted to realize his bold business ambitions, he was going to need a little magic. During the peak years of the Showtime-era Lakers in the 1980s, there was little reason to believe that an athlete would ever be taken seriously in the boardroom.
So when a then-31-year-old Johnson told Sports Illustrated in 1990 that he wanted “to be in that $100-$200 million range” someday, the magazine wondered what he would even do with that kind of wealth. “For a franchise,” he answered. “And it doesn’t have to be the Lakers; it doesn’t even have to be an NBA team. I’m a sports fan. If baseball became available before basketball, I’d be right there. I want to do big business.”
Read the full story on Forbes here.