[
Lionsgate Television is developing a scripted series about the gambling scandal surrounding LA Dodgers star pitcher and hitter Shohei Ohtani.
Scott Delman and Albert Chen are set to produce the series.
The news comes as the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California announced Thursday that Ohtani’s interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, has agreed to plead guilty to stealing $17M from the baseball player.
According to Lionsgate, the series will follow Ohtani’s rise as a star baseball player, which led to a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Dodgers — the biggest contract in American sports team history — only to be shrouded in controversy after the allegations against Mizuhara broke just one day into the 2024 MLB season.
“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.”
Added Chen: “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. We’ll get to the heart of the story – a story of trust, betrayal and the trappings of wealth and fame.”
Delman’s is known for adapting the TV series Station 11. He has also produced several major Broadway hits, including The Book of Mormon, Death of a Salesman, All The Way, Raisin in the Sun, The Curious Incident of The Dog in the Night-Time and The Ferryman.
Chen is the author of Billion Dollar Fantasy, and he is also co-creator, co-host and producer of the podcast All American. He previously served as senior editor at Sports Illustrated, where he covered baseball and wrote more than a dozen cover stories for the magazine, and he has been a contributor at MLB Network.
