On Friday morning, Robert Herjavec was trying to catch his 9 a.m. flight from John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California, until his five-year-old twins, Hudson and Haven, announced in the car that they were hungry.
Herjavec, a Canadian businessman and star of “Shark Tank” and “Dragons' Den,” was traveling alone with the twins. Not wanting to start the four-and-a-half-hour flight on the wrong foot, Herjavec stopped for breakfast and texted the pilot that they would be late. “That’s the beauty of having your own plane,” Herjavec said by phone Monday. “You show up whenever you want to leave.”
Little did Herjavec know at the time, the 40-minute delay had only added fuel to a rumor that had been spreading rapidly since the night before, when an X user posted that a private jet with the tail number N616RH was from Santa Ana was scheduled to fly to Toronto in the morning. Amateur Internet sleuths connected dots — like flight trackers that showed the jet had been in Oakland when Ohtani faced the Giants in San Francisco; Ohtani had that signed this day, December 8th, in his first free agency; and that he had flown once before in a Bombardier Global 5000 – and concluded that Shohei Ohtani, baseball unicorn, was flying privately to Toronto to sign with the Blue Jays.
The delay, the theory goes, was because Ohtani got cold feet.
Businessman and television star Robert Herjavec unexpectedly found himself the focus of international attention. (Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images)
Herjavec hadn't followed the excitement surrounding Ohtani's free agency. He had been in Australia with his family for almost a month. His wife, Kym, remained in Australia for a funeral, and as Herjavec boarded the jet, he focused on entertaining the twins. He pulled out books, board games, and coloring worksheets, then turned off his phone for the duration of the flight.
When N616RH blew up, the baseball world waited to see if Shohei Ohtani would step onto the tarmac in Toronto. A crowd gathered outside Toronto Pearson Airport's private terminal, and a far larger crowd formed online as tens of thousands of people followed on free flight trackers. But there wasn't Ohtani on board. It was a tired father and his tough twins.
“Such a strange confluence of events,” Herjavec said, “that the one time I’m completely separate from the world, the world is integrated into me.”
Even before N616RH left the hangar in Santa Ana on Friday morning, Ohtani speculation was circulating at top speed. Baseball insider JP Morosi had reported a decision was “imminent.” In Toronto, former NHL player Carlo Colaiacovo, now a morning radio host on TSN 1050, read a message from the show's byline that said Blue Jays pitcher Yusei Kikuchi had a reservation for 50 people at a sushi place on Friday night. restaurant near the Rogers Center.
“I said clearly afterwards: 'Guys, don't let anything get in there,'” Colaiacovo recalled. “'This doesn't come from a credible source.' This is something someone suggested in our lyric.'”
But after the show, the show's producer Colaiacovo shared a tweet from Canadian opera singer Clarence Frazer reported that the same rumor was true.
“I think you’ve got to be kidding,” Colaiacovo said.
But even if the sushi restaurant was a bad lead, Colaiacovo believed for the first time that Ohtani would actually sign with Toronto. “It was the best thing I've ever seen,” he said, “simply because I always thought it was a pipe dream.” He followed the flight of N616RH along with everyone else.
In the rush to make connections, some obvious warning signs were ignored. For one thing, N616RH's flight log showed that the jet frequently flies from Toronto and in the past two months has flown everywhere from London to Zagreb and, in Southern California, Van Nuys and Santa Ana. Additionally, the jet had been sitting at Oakland airport for almost a month. On Friday morning, Reddit user _jr56_ reported that N616RH was Herjavec's jet – RH in the tail number stands for Robert Herjavec – but was accused of lying. “I say this because I just asked the pilot and I personally know everyone involved with this aircraft,” _jr56_ wrote.
When N616RH was over Colorado, the Dodgers Nation website stated that Ohtani had made his choice: the Blue Jays. The jet later crossed Lake Huron as Morosi said Ohtani was on his way to Toronto. Both reports were debunked by other insiders, but the Ohtani clock was ticking. There was no stopping now. When N616RH entered Canadian airspace, 18,800 people followed the flight using Flightradar24, an online flight tracker, the most followed flight of the day. (Another tracker, Flight Aware, declined to release numbers.)
Later, Herjavec saw videos Enthusiastic fans filmed from the ground as N616RH flew overhead. “They say, 'Ohtani's jet just flew over my house,'” he said. “I’m like, hey, that’s my jet!”
Evan Mitsui, a photographer for CBC News, was on duty elsewhere in Toronto on Friday afternoon when a reporter asked him to go to the airport. Mitsui drove through traffic for an hour, parked and found a spot overlooking Hangar 8, where N616RH had previously stood. Mitsui wasn't the first on the scene. There were Blue Jays fans, some celebrity spectators and media members. There was also security, Mitsui said, “which felt like a good sign.”
Mitsui grew up a Mariners fan in Vancouver, and because his grandfather was Japanese, her entire family idolized Ichiro Suzuki. Mitsui has since made the Jays his home team and loved the idea of Ohtani playing there for the rest of his career.
At 4:23 p.m., N616RH taxied toward Hangar 8 in Toronto and stopped just out of view of the cameras. Mitsui and his Portal colleague Carlos Osorio jumped back in the car, turned a corner and encountered another group of photographers and fans with a better vantage point. There, standing in a ditch between a concrete barrier and a chain-link fence, Mitsui raised his Canon camera and aimed the 300-millimeter lens at the front door of the N616RH.
Inside, Herjavec saw Canadian customs officers approaching.
“I prepare the children,” he said. “The plane is a disaster, as you can imagine. I put them on. I turned on my phone and it's going crazy. I look out the window and the customs officers are there. If you land privately in Canada, clearance is usually done online. It’s pretty rare for customs to come.”
Herjavec did not experience the hours of anticipation leading up to the landing of N616RH. He hadn't been initiated either the radio call from Pearson ground control, which had crashed into the pilot's headset as the plane landed in Toronto: “November 6-1-6 Romeo Hotel, ground, hello. A warm welcome to everyone who may or may not be on board Toronto.” All Herjavec knew was that customs officials were climbing the stairs to the jet.
“Where is he?” an agent asked.
“WHO?” Herjavec asked.
“Ohtani.”
“Ohtani?”
As they began to clear up the confusion, the customs officer mentioned that there were a lot of people waiting outside the airport. Herjavec scanned the fence line and saw photographers, videographers and security guards. He said there was also a helicopter circling there.
“Now I expect this treatment every time I land,” Herjavec joked. “It was like something out of a movie – which of course makes you realize after 21 years on 'Shark Tank' and 'Drag's Den' that we really aren't that famous. We need to go out and find another $700 million deals.”
Neither Mitsui nor the people standing next to him in the ditch noticed that the jet's tail had a shark fin logo and a name: Herjavec.
“You have blinders on,” Mitsui said. “I remember sitting there in the ditch, watching the door at the front of the plane with eagle eyes as if my life depended on it.”
Mitsui laughed.
“And then this guy comes out,” he said, “and it’s clearly not Ohtani.”
Shohei Ohtani was definitely not on N616RH. (Kyodo via AP Images)
As Herjavec and the twins climbed into a waiting Cadillac SUV, Mitsui and Osorio didn't move. They stayed there for half an hour and then waited in the car for another half hour, just in case Ohtani's agents planned to smuggle him off the plane after the crowd dispersed. The photographers would never forgive themselves if they left early. “How crazy would it be if we were the only two people who had a picture of Ohtani setting foot on Canadian soil for the first time as Jay?” said Mitsui. “That’s what we thought: Don’t screw this up.”
But Ohtani wasn't on the jet. He did not come. The photographers packed their things and headed home. On the way, CBC News sports reporter Devin Heroux called Mitsui and asked if he could confirm it was Herjavec. Mitsui could. He hadn't thought anyone would care. Heroux tweeted the news. More than 4.2 million people have done it I viewed this post since Friday. Then a newsroom editor asked if Mitsui had any photos. “I have pictures of a plane with the door open and a guy who isn’t Ohtani,” Mitsui told him, sitting in traffic. The editor said this send one over.
“I was so focused on making a picture that when that picture didn't come together, that was it. I lost interest,” Mitsui said, laughing. “If I had been a better journalist, I would have recognized that this was information that was important to the rest of the world.”
On the drive home, Herjavec realized that his jet had already been at the center of the baseball universe even before he went to bed in Southern California the night before.
“All my friends texted me,” he said. “The reaction went from 'Hey, are you buying the Blue Jays?' to “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Ohtani?” to “Are you negotiating this deal?” I think the story is big news in the baseball world. But I get in the car, I drive home, I turn on the radio. It's national news in Canada. The Ohtani jet just landed with my tail number on it.”
But when Herjavec was a Blue Jays fan who spent most of his childhood in Ontario and celebrated two World Series titles in his early 30s, he got caught up in the Ohtani rumors. He liked the idea that the Blue Jays would beat the other big-city ballclubs and sign Ohtani. There had to be some truth to all the reports, right? “I was excited,” he said. “I thought, oh, maybe they just caught the wrong flight. Maybe he's behind me. Maybe there will be another flight.”
Herjavec had some fun with the Ohtani saga on Friday night, posting a photoshopped photo of himself in a Blue Jays uniform, but he has since learned about the theories floating around his flight.
Like the one that Colaiacovo, the radio presenter, still finds lazy. Ohtani is represented by CAA. Herjavec is also a CAA customer. Colaiacovo believes the Blue Jays were outplayed. A former professional athlete, he said he praised Ohtani's agent Nez Balelo for perfectly executing a plan without any accidental leaks. Colaiacovo believes Ohtani wanted to sign with the Dodgers all along, and Ohtani's camp made the Blue Jays possibility seem real, which caused the Dodgers to collapse.
And they made this possible, Colaiacovo surmised, by sending Herjavec on a strategically timed flight to Toronto, maintaining silence and letting the baseball world believe Ohtani was on N616RH.
“That raises questions,” Colaiacovo said. “Why did Robert fly from this airport to Toronto on this day and at this time and is associated with the same agency?”
Herjavec has seen this theory. Friends asked him about it.
“I thought that was interesting,” Herjavec admitted before dismissing it. “I'm sure Ohtani knows who his agent is at CAA, while I rarely speak to my agent – perhaps because he doesn't negotiate $700 million deals for me. I have to call him. There is absolutely no truth to that. CAA is a big agency. They just happen to represent both of us. But funny story. Fake media is definitely a real thing. Isn’t it incredible that just one small (detail) and people just want to connect the dots?”
Herjavec has a home in Hidden Hills, California, but he said he refuses to go to Dodger Stadium. They took Ohtani away from the Jays and that's why he's out. “It makes me angry,” he said. “I'm waiting for the Blue Jays to invite me to the season opener to throw out the first pitch.” He might get lucky. The Blue Jays reported Monday morning. Before calling them back, Herjavec said he was confident he could get a $400 million deal for five-year Hudson as a pitcher for the Jays.
“He’s got a pretty nasty knuckleball,” Herjavec said.
When you ask Herjavec, a man who knows a lot about deals, about the 10-year, $700 million deal Ohtani signed with the Dodgers, he's lost in thought. That kind of money even impresses a shark.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “The biggest sports deal in history. I think it shows you how the dynamic of the sport has changed. I mean, look at what my friend Mark Cuban just did. He sold part of the Mavs at a valuation of $3.5 billion for a team he bought 23 years ago for $285 million. There is no doubt that everything is increasing – money, salaries, television rights. Have we reached the peak? Or does it go to another level?
“Is it like Formula 1? Liberty Media bought Formula 1 for $4 billion. And now the market value of Formula 1 is $20 billion. So I think a lot of smart people think that baseball and all of live television is going in that direction.
“Cuban and I bought a pickleball club a few years ago. I don’t know if we’ll go down the same path, but as Mark tells me, we’ll make hundreds of dollars doing it.”
However, when you ask Herjavec about his Friday flight on the N616RH, he just laughs.
“Well, after 21 years on TV,” he said, “it extended my 15 minutes of fame to the 16th minute.”
(Illustration by Bombardier Global Jet and Shohei Ohtani: Ohtani photo by Ezra Shaw / Getty Images; Bombardier photo Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images)