It usually takes something pretty big to move the NBA Finals to the back burner.
I guess when a team sells for $10 billion, that qualifies as pretty big. Or, as Los Angeles resident Larry David might say, "pretty, pretty, pretty big.”
The basketball world had to be stunned when the news came out Wednesday that Mark Walter had purchased the Los Angeles Lakers for an NBA record price of $10 billion. That number served as the valuation of the franchise, which Walter was already a minority owner of.
Crazy as it sounds, that number seems like a bargain given the status of the Lakers in Los Angeles and the success the team has enjoyed during its time there.
Walter, who is the CEO and chairman of TWG Global, is no stranger to L.A. Sports. His investment group owns the World Champion Dodgers. He also owns the WNBA’s Sparks and is involved in sports ventures that include F1 racing, women’s tennis and women’s professional hockey.
Suffice to say, the guy’s got money. He also has control of the two most iconic sports franchises in Southern California.
It’s the latest of a run on purchases of NBA teams. The purchase of the Lakers for $10 billion makes Glen Taylor’s selling of the Minnesota Timberwolves to a group that includes former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez for $1.5 billion look like chump change.
There was Mat Ishbia buying the Phoenix Suns from Robert Sarver for $4 billion in 2022. There was the Adelson family’s purchase of the Dallas Mavericks from Mark Cuban for $3.5 billion in 2023. Most recently, the Boston Celtics brought a sale price of $6.1 billion for owner Wyc Grousbeck in late March.
The Buss family took over the Lakers back in 1979 when Dr. Jerry Buss bought the basketball team along with the Los Angeles Kings, the Forum and the ranch of Jack Kent Cooke for $67.5 million. The Lakers were the last vestige of that sale still with the Buss family as daughter Jeanie has been in control since 2013 after Jerry Buss died.
The Lakers have won 11 titles during the Buss family’s ownership. From Magic and Kareem, Kobe and Shaq to LeBron and A.D., the standard of excellence has been there for the most part. And given the Dodgers’ penchant and willingness to spend to win, if you’re a Lakers fan, you should welcome the news of the change in ownership. It would be hard to imagine Walter not being a competitive owner now that he’s going to be fully in charge.
I guess Jeanie Buss will remain as the team’s governor, much the way Cuban is still with a seat at the table in Dallas. No one should quibble over that. It still comes down to general manager Rob Pelinka finding the right pieces in building a championship team.
Here in Vegas, where we’ve been waiting for a chance to sit down with NBA commissioner Adam Silver about having a team of our own, the escalating sale prices of existing franchises will likely have an impact on expansion.
There has been speculation that an NBA expansion fee could be anywhere from $2 billion to as high as $4 billion. Could that number be going up in light of the Lakers’ transaction? Possibly. If the NBA believes it can get more than $4 billion why would it not try to do so?
I wonder what Bill Foley, the owner of the Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL must be thinking as he heard the news of the Lakers’ sale. It was nine years ago Foley took a shot on Vegas and hockey and ultimately paid $500 million to join the NHL as an expansion team and the league’s 31st member. Today, the Knights, who won the Stanley Cup in 2023, are worth $1.12 billion according to Forbes. Nothing like doubling your investment in less than 10 years.
But could Foley afford $4 billion or more to add the NBA to his list of sports teams? Wednesday, it was announced he purchased Moreirense, a soccer team in Portugal’s First Division, giving him full or partial ownership of five soccer clubs. But I guarantee you that the combined worth of those teams, including AFC Bournemouth of the English Premier League, wouldn’t come close to having the money to buy into the NBA. So if the price of poker to join the NBA goes up, Foley’s interest in owning a Las Vegas NBA expansion team may wane to where he folds and steps away from the table and let someone else take a run at it.
But back to the Lakers.
With the Clippers having vacated Crypto.com Arena for the Intuit Dome in Inglewood and the Lakers now only sharing the building with the Kings, it makes for a much more manageable situation when it comes to scheduling. And with the Olympics not far away, you figure there will be upgrades to the arena to have it ready for the 2028 Games where it will host the boxing competition along with some gymnastics events.
I’d like to think that Walter will spend what he has to in order to make the team’s arena a modern facility (remember, the place is going to be 26 years old come October). That’s important because players care about where they call home and attracting free agents with state-of-the-art facilities goes a long way toward building championship teams.
Seeing how the Buss family grew the Lakers franchise reminds me of how George Steinbrenner turned his purchase of the New York Yankees from CBS in 1973 for $10 million. Today, the Yankees are valued by Forbes to be worth $8.2 billion.
So the Lakers are keeping pretty good company. God knows what they’ll fetch if Walter ever decides to sell down the road.