The Los Angeles Lakers will be changing ownership hands in the near future, and it’s for a price that may have been too good to ignore.
The Buss family has agreed to sell a majority stake in the Lakers to Mark Walter, who is the primary owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Buss family has owned the Lakers since 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the team for $67.5 million. According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the Lakers are being sold at a valuation of $10 billion.
Jerry Buss died in 2013 and passed the team down to his children, who have since been running it. There were some power struggles early on between Jeanie and her brothers, though she later emerged as the team president. Buss reportedly will continue to serve as the Lakers’ representative on the NBA Board of Governors.
As for Walter, he is a very familiar figure for Los Angeles sports fans. He is the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, which purchased the Dodgers from Frank McCourt in 2012. Walter is estimated to own 27 percent of the Dodgers. He purchased a 27-percent stake in the Lakers in 2021 that reportedly also gave him the right to buy out a majority share of the Lakers if the Buss family were ever to sell the team. It looks like that day has come for the Buss family.
In addition to his ownership stakes in the Dodgers and Lakers, Walter also is a part-owner of the Los Angeles Sparks. He owns multiple auto racing teams, soccer teams, and he owns the Professional Women’s Hockey League.
