How Magic Johnson inspired Alex Rodriguez’s path to sports ownership

Former MLB superstar Alex Rodriguez joins 'Influencers with Andy Serwer' to discuss his decision to take a partial stake in the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA franchise.

Video transcript

ANDY SERWER: So did you ever imagine-- like, you're a baseball guy-- owning an NBA team? Does that seem weird to you?

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: You know, it seems a little weird, Andy, but you know, about 25 years ago, my mentor, Magic Johnson-- who gave me an inspiration that a man of color can actually go out and play great baseball on the field and can transfer some of his set of skills to the boardroom. And he gave me some incredible insight in a meeting that was supposed to be 30 minutes that his agent, Lon Rosen, set up for us in Beverly Hills. And that 30 minutes went to about 3 and 1/2 hours and where I had, like, you know, tens of pages of notes.

And in that meeting, he said to me, over the course of-- of your career, are you going to have a lot of titans that are going to want to meet with you, have lunch, take pictures? That's your opportunity to build some wonderful relationships out there. And I did just that, Andy, is I kind of went with the Yankees and the Rangers in all these great cities-- I would cold-call a lot of CEOs, would meet with them, and, with no agenda, just wanted to build a relationship over time.

And when I saw Magic do what he's done institutional with, you know, Starbucks, 24 Hour Fitness and others and what he's done for communities with, you know, brown skin and Black skin, that also inspired me to do that. And then I saw him go from the Dodge-- I mean, from the Lakers to the Dodgers, and I go, wait a minute. That actually-- why couldn't I go from NBA to Major League Baseball-- I mean, from Major League Baseball to the NBA? And that's exactly what happened. And we laugh about that now, that I'm in the NBA and he is in baseball, so I guess we can coach each other.

ANDY SERWER: That's crazy. You're doing like a reverse Magic, or Magic's doing a reverse A-Rod.

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Yeah, exactly.

ANDY SERWER: I love it. That's great. And you know, it strikes me, listening to you speak here, Alex, that you-- two things. You take the initiative to reach out to people-- mentors, number one. And number two, you really listen to them. Is that something that young athletes really need to listen to themselves?

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Yeah. Look, Andy, I didn't go like yourself, like, you had the formal education, went to undergrad, and then went to business school, and, you know. So we have to learn, just like I learned in baseball, through hard work, great leadership, mentorship. And I really believe you're an average of the five people you spend the most time with. And I've been so lucky to have the likes of Magic Johnson, the Warren Buffetts, Barry Sternlicht, and others that really kind of lent a hand into my career-- Marc Lasry-- can go on and on about people that I've invested hours and hours, but more importantly, they invested hours in me. And it's been a great thrill.

And I think as an athlete, athletes get sometimes bad raps as, oh, whether they're not good business people. But I actually think that athletes in this next generation-- because they have a thirst to not only be good on the court of the field. They have-- they want to be good investors. And they've had great role models like LeBron James and others who are taking more initiative of their careers.

They have a set of skills of hard work, toughness, grittiness. They can roll up their sleeves. They don't believe in a time clock. They just-- they're there to get the job done. And if they can transfer those set of skills into the boardroom and have the right partners and have the right alignment, I think they can have wonderful careers, even bigger careers, once they're done playing.