Mark Walter to buy majority stake in L.A. Lakers for US$10 billion

Los Angeles Lakers president Jeanie Buss dances in her seat to music as she attends the NBA basketball game between the Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers in Los Angeles, Oct. 29, 2013. (AP Photo/Danny Moloshok, File)

LOS ANGELES — The Buss family’s decision to sell a controlling stake in the Los Angeles Lakers at an eye-popping franchise valuation of US$10 billion marks the end of nearly a half-century when one of the most valuable properties in the sports world was run by an eccentric father and his sometimes squabbling children.

With high-living playboy Jerry Buss and current team governor Jeanie Buss in charge, the glamorous Lakers essentially have been the professional sports equivalent of a quirky family business for two generations.

Sports became increasingly corporate and monolithic in the 21st century while franchise values skyrocketed and ever-more-wealthy titans seized control of this perpetual growth industry.

Just not around Hollywood’s favourite basketball team, with its gold uniforms and 17 golden trophies.

“The majority of businesses in this country are family-owned businesses,” Jeanie Buss told NPR earlier this year in a rare interview to promote a Netflix comedy series based on her career. “And everybody has a family. If you’re in business with them, (disagreements) happen. But at the end of the day, what brings you together is the team or the business, and you want to build something successful.”

The Lakers and the Buss clan have been inextricable since 1979 — the longest active ownership tenure in the NBA — but Mark Walter’s stunning sports coup Wednesday effectively ends this improbable era. A person with knowledge of the agreement confirmed it to The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because neither side immediately announced the deal.

The sale should make an extraordinarily wealthy woman of Jeanie Buss, one of Jerry’s seven acknowledged children and a longtime employee of his various sporting concerns.

And that’s the biggest reason many Lakers fans are rejoicing: This lavish sale comes with the knowledge that the buyers have exponentially more resources than the Buss family — and Walter has showed he knows how to spend it intelligently.

Walter, who heads a group that already bought 27 per cent of the Lakers in 2021, has a sterling reputation in Southern California for his group’s stewardship of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The iconic baseball team has become a perpetual World Series contender with bold, aggressive financial moves grounded in smart organizational planning ever since Walter’s firm, Guggenheim Partners, paid $2 billion to wrest the Dodgers from the reviled Frank McCourt in 2012.

“He’s really committed to the city of Los Angeles in various ways, and sports is something that he’s very passionate about, and certainly Los Angeles sports,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. ”Speaking (as) a Dodger employee, he’s very competitive and he’s going to do everything he can to produce a championship-calibre team every single year and make sure the city feels proud about the Lakers and the legacy that they’ve already built with the Buss family.”

In the Buss era, the Lakers could sell prospective players on their trophies, sunny Los Angeles and that family-business intimacy. While that was enough to win big in most decades, Walter’s group epitomizes the modern, deep-pocketed approach to building a consistent championship contender. Guggenheim Partners reportedly has $325 billion under management, with Walter particularly leveraging insurance investments to pursue gains across the breadth of the sports world.

“He does everything he can to provide resources, support,” Roberts said. “He wants to win. He feels that the fans, the city, deserve that. I think that that’s never lost, and it’s more of challenging us always. How do we become better and not complacent or stagnant, to continue to stay current with the market, the competition to win?”

Before this sale, the Buss siblings were not thought to be particularly wealthy, at least not by team owner standards. Jeanie Buss occasionally appeared to balk at writing certain checks — ask any Lakers fan about Alex Caruso’s departure — and the team’s front office and infrastructure are thought to be on the NBA’s smaller side.

The new ownership group’s wealth could knock down some financial barriers in the restrictive, apron era of salary cap management. It definitely will provide the Lakers with every resource in scouting, player development and any other competitive avenue to assemble a team commensurate with the Lakers’ brand.

“I know that my sister Jeanie would have only considered selling the Lakers organization to someone she knows and trusts would carry on the Buss legacy, started by her father Dr. Buss,” Magic Johnson wrote on social media. “Now she can comfortably pass the baton to Mark Walter, with whom she has a real friendship and can trust. She’s witnessed him build a winning team with the Dodgers and knows that Mark will do right by the Lakers team, organization, and fans!”

There is a familial symmetry to these two transactions 46 years apart: Jerry Buss got a steal when he bought the Lakers, and his kids might end up with the wealthiest deal in sports history when they sell.

Jerry Buss was a chemist and USC instructor who heavily leveraged his real estate investments to buy the Lakers, the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, the Forum arena and a large ranch from Jack Kent Cooke for $67.5 million. Buss loved a good time almost as much as he loved basketball, and he built the Showtime era of Lakers basketball on Magic and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but also on his own undeniable charisma and hunger for titles.

Buss and his front offices then landed Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant in the 1990s, ushering in a second championship era. All told, the Lakers reached the NBA Finals in 16 of Jerry Buss’ 34 seasons as their primary owner, winning a whopping 10 championships.

Jeanie Buss succeeded her father as the Lakers’ governor upon his death in 2013. Her brother, Jim, was the Lakers’ head of basketball operations until Jeanie fired him in February 2017 and installed Johnson and Rob Pelinka, Bryant’s former agent. Pelinka gradually took over basketball operations and presided over a string of Lakers-worthy player additions, including LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Luka Doncic.

The Lakers won the 2020 championship in the Florida bubble, and they reached the 2024 Western Conference finals. Their seismic trade to acquire Doncic last winter rejuvenated the franchise, positioning the Slovenian superstar as the Lakers’ centerpiece for years after the matchless career of James, who has essentially confirmed he will return in the fall for his record 23rd NBA season.

Jeanie Buss hasn’t yet announced her reasons for agreeing to sell her inheritance, and she will remain the Lakers’ governor — at least for now, because a governor must own at least 15 per cent of the team. But she is following a recent trend of high-profile NBA owners ceding their teams to ownership groups with even more extensive resources.

Buss is close friends with both Mark Cuban, who sold his majority ownership of the Dallas Mavericks for $3.5 billion, and Wyc Grousbeck, who sold the Boston Celtics for $6.1 billion.

Greg Beacham, The Associated Press

AP Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds and AP Sports Writer Beth Harris contributed to this report.