Shohei Ohtani. Duane Burleson/Getty Images
Shohei Ohtani had one of the most eventful offseasons a superstar athlete could possibly have, signing a mammoth $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers and then being embroiled in a messy gambling scandal.
Lionsgate is ready to turn the turmoil into a TV series, the company announced on Thursday, May 9. Scott Delman and Albert Chen will executive produce the series, which does not yet have a writer or network attached.
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With the drama still playing out in real-time, there’s no timeline yet for the TV series, but Lionsgate released a statement on Thursday in which both Delman and Chen voiced their excitement.
“With a strong track record of creating daring, boundary-pushing series, Lionsgate Television is the perfect partner to bring this unbelievable story to the screen,” Delman said in a statement. “In addition, Albert’s extensive sports journalism background will enable us to connect the dots to make sense of the startling turn of events we’ve seen play out on the world stage.”
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Delman was previously the executive producer on HBO Max miniseries Station 11 and is a Broadway producer with 13 Tony Awards and credits in The Book of Mormon, Death of a Salesman and A Raisin in the Sun.
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Chen is the author of the book Billion Dollar Fantasy: The High-Stakes Game Between FanDuel and DraftKings That Upended Sports in America. He has also served as a senior editor at Sports Illustrated and a contributor at MLB Network.
“This is Major League Baseball’s biggest sports gambling scandal since Pete Rose – and at its center is its biggest star, one that MLB has hitched its wagon on,” Chen said. “We’ll get to the heart of the story – a story of trust, betrayal and the trappings of wealth and fame.”
The series will chronicle Ohtani’s rise into the greatest two-way player in baseball since Babe Ruth, the global fame and fortune that came his way and the scandal that overshadowed his nine-figure payday.
In March, ESPN reported that $4.5 million in wire payments came from Ohtani’s bank account to a bookmaker under federal investigation. His interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, said that Ohtani made those payments to cover Mizuhara’s gambling debts. Ohtani and his lawyers later said that he had no knowledge of the payments and that he was a victim of “a massive theft.”
Mizuhara pled guilty to bank and tax fraud charges in a federal court this week after allegedly stealing $17 million from the Dodgers’ All-Star.
Ohtani has denied ever betting on sports and claims he had no knowledge of Mizuhara’s gambling debt. The Dodgers fired Mizuhara in March.
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