{"id":1653,"date":"2014-02-05T16:04:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T21:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/?p=1653"},"modified":"2014-02-05T16:04:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T21:04:44","slug":"magic-johnsons-group-buys-wnba-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/2014\/02\/05\/magic-johnsons-group-buys-wnba-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Magic Johnson&#8217;s group buys WNBA team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1654\" alt=\"lasparks\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2014\/02\/lasparks.gif\" width=\"545\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2014\/02\/lasparks.gif 545w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/files\/2014\/02\/lasparks-300x201.gif 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 545px) 100vw, 545px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The investment group led by NBA legend Magic Johnson and controlling owner of the Los Angles Dodgers Mark Walter have purchased the WNBA&#8217;s Los Angeles Sparks.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">The investment group includes Dodger co-owners Todd L. Boehly, Robert L. Patton and Stan Kasten.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>There should be few changes to the team&#8217;s \u00a0operation as they will remain in Los Angeles and continue to play at the Staples Center. The WNBA will announce it&#8217;s television schedule later this week.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">&#8220;This is a great day for the city of Los Angeles and the Sparks,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;The leaders of this great city came together quickly to keep this franchise right where it belongs\u2014in the city of Angels. Thanks to my sister, Evelyn, playing college basketball, I have a great appreciation of the talented players that represent the WNBA. Our group will now work together to bring our loyal fans another WNBA championship. &#8220;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Johnson pushed some of his fellow owners of the Dodgers to buy the Sparks after Lakers ownership had decided to pull out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The investment group led by NBA legend Magic Johnson and controlling owner of the Los Angles Dodgers Mark Walter have purchased the WNBA&#8217;s Los Angeles Sparks. The investment group includes Dodger co-owners Todd L. Boehly, Robert L. Patton and Stan Kasten. There should be few changes to the team&#8217;s \u00a0operation as they will remain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3],"class_list":["post-1653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1653"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/backpage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}