Lionsgate Developing TV Series On Shohei Ohtani Interpreter Scandal

The turnaround on a television series is apparently getting faster. 

Lionsgate is working on a story that's just a month and a half old: the sports betting scandal involving Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara. Amazing how quickly that happened.

To be fair to Lionsgate, the story has had an incredible number of twists and turns over such a short time period. Initially, Mizuhara essentially dictated the public response, telling ESPN and Ohtani's representatives that he had amassed massive gambling debts that Ohtani agreed to pay off.

That story changed  within just a few hours, with Mizuhara admitting Ohtani had no knowledge of the gambling debts or that Mizuhara had ever gambled on sports at all. Understandably, that disconnect created doubt and uncertainty around Ohtani's innocence and what he knew, and when. 

But every release of information afterward confirmed that Ohtani was a victim of massive theft. After learning what was happening after one of the South Korea series games, Ippei was fired and a consistent version of events unfolded.

And those events were certainly dramatic enough to warrant the television treatment.

"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," said producer Scott Delman. "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."

"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," said Albert Chen, another attached producer. "We’ll