Everything we know so far about shocking sale of Los Angeles Lakers: Why now? Potential impacts?

Nobody saw this coming.

When the Buss family sold their majority stake in the Lakers 14 months ago — ending 46 years of being a family-run business — it didn’t come out of nowhere. There had been speculation for years that as the deep pockets needed to run a competitive major American sports franchise grew, the Buss family had no choice but to consider this option, and Dodger owner Mark Walter already owned 27% of the team (and had first right of refusal on any sale).

Advertisement

Now, just 14 months later, Walter is flipping the Lakers and selling them to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger at a valuation of $12.5 billion. The suddenness of the sale caught the league off guard and leads to a lot of questions. Here’s what we know so far.

How did sale come together?

Fast.

NBC Sports had been told that Kushner and Iger were seriously involved in the bidding for a potential expansion team in Las Vegas (though not necessarily the frontrunner). That massive expense — an expansion fee expected to be at least $7 billion but likely higher — to get in the door and then start a new team may have given the partners pause.

Advertisement

Kushner reached out to Walter on Friday and the deal quickly came together during the weekend, all of it coming together in three days, Iger told The California Post.

Why sell the team now?

That is the $12.5 billion question. It also is at least part of the answer. Walter purchased the team 14 months ago at a valuation of $10 billion, so turning a tidy $2.5 billion profit in just more than a year is good work if you can get it.

However, it also may be that Walter needed cash. Walter is the CEO and invested deeply in Guggenheim Partners (which owned the Lakers as well as the Los Angeles Dodgers), and is also the founder and leads TWG Global, a holding company. Investigators at both the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and the SEC are looking into alleged failure to properly disclose billions of dollars in related-party private credit loans tied to Walter’s companies.

Advertisement

Bloomberg reports that Walter is trying to raise cash to pay down debt in the face of that investigation. A quick sale…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/everything-know-far-shocking-sale-033524627.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-08-13 03:35:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.