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Buss Family to sell majority stake of Lakers to Mark Walter
Buss Family to sell majority stake of Lakers to Mark Walter
The Buss Family is electing to sell the majority stake of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, the CEO and chairman of diversified holding company TWG Global, ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania first reported Wednesday. The valuation for the deal will be approximately $10 billion.
According to Charania, Jeanie Buss, who was the controlling owner, will still serve as the team’s governor.
Buss, 63, inherited full control of the team’s ownership her father, Jerry, passed away in 2013. It’s interesting that she’s electing to remain with the organization upon selling; perhaps she doesn’t want as much responsibility as she did before, but she still wants an input?
Nevertheless, $10 billion is an absurd amount. For perspective, the former Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck sold the franchise for just north of $6 billion in March, the biggest in North American sports history. According to Forbes’ most recent valuation of each NBA franchise, the $10 billion that Walter purchased Los Angeles for is nearly $3 billion more than they were worth.
It’s always tough to sell a family business; Jerry Buss bought the Lakers for $67.5 million in 1979. But cashing in when the iron’s hot is also not bad business, especially for one of America’s most popular franchises.
Walter has his investment in plenty of Los Angeles sports teams. He previously had minority ownership (~27 percent) of the Lakers that he bought in 2021, where he had the right to first refusal upon a new sale. He also has at least partial ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Sparks and an F1 team.
If we’ve learned anything about how he’s run the Dodgers specifically, they’re going to spend money and they’re going to hire qualified individuals to do their jobs. There’s obviously a new CBA that Walter and his crew must navigate, but this could be huge for the organization that has won just one NBA Title since 2010.
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