Jeanie Buss and her family, who have owned the Los Angeles Lakers since Jerry Buss bought the team in 1979, on Wednesday agreed to sell majority control of the storied team to Mark Walter, the sports investor and CEO of Guggenheim Partners, at a valuation of $10 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal told the Wall Street Journal.
That makes the Lakers the most valuable franchise in professional sports history, surpassing the Boston Celtics, their rival that sold for $6.1 billion earlier this year.
Walter, who is also part of the ownership group of MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, has been a part of the Lakers since 2021, when he purchased a 27% minority stake in the franchise. He is also a co-owner of Chelsea in the English Premier League, the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks, and the newly formed Cadillac Formula One team.
The Wall Street Journal says that the sale marks the end of nearly half a century of Lakers control by a family that has become synonymous with Los Angeles sports and the glitz of professional basketball.
The deal also comes at a time of skyrocketing valuations in professional basketball, which haven’t come back to earth since the league announced a media-rights deal last year worth $77 billion. When the Celtics sold in March, the $6.1 billion valuation exceeded the previous record valuation for a sports team set by the $6.05 billion sale of the NFL’s Washington Commanders in 2023.
Los Angeles Lakers: One of the most valuable sports properties in the world
Since Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers for $67.5 million in 1979, the team transformed from a franchise uprooted from Minnesota into one of the winningest and most valuable sports properties in the world. The Buss family oversaw the creation of “Showtime” and presided over the NBA’s last three-peat. A-listers like Jack Nicholson and Leonardo DiCaprio have become fixtures at their games.
They have won 11 championships since 1980, and their rosters have boasted many of basketball’s brightest stars. Magic Johnson , Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal and LeBron James have all worn the Lakers’ purple and gold.
After Jerry Buss died in 2013, his daughter, Jeanie Buss, took control of the team, and the Lakers won the most recent of their championships in 2020.
This season, the Lakers again added to their legacy when they made a shocking trade for Luka Doncic , a perennial MVP candidate to pair with LeBron James.
The stunning deal comes on the eve of a closeout game in the NBA Finals, which is familiar territory for the Lakers. The Celtics have 18 championships to the 17 of the Lakers, including the titles they won in Minneapolis. But now the Lakers have bragging rights over the Celtics in at least one way: they are valued at nearly $4 billion more than their rivals, the American newspaper notes.