Buss Family Sells Majority Ownership of Los Angeles Lakers

Shams Charania of ESPN is reporting that the Buss family is selling majority ownership of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, currently a Lakers minority owner, for a valuation of about $10 billion. That makes the deal the largest sale of a U.S. professional sports franchise in history.

Charania reports that Jeanie Buss will carry on as Lakers governor.

The Buss family have been the majority owner of the Lakers since 1979 when the late Jerry Buss purchased the team for $67.5 million. That deal also included the Los Angeles Kings and the the Los Angeles Forum, former home of both the Lakers and Kings. Jeanie Buss took over as the controlling owner of the Lakers in 2013 upon the death of Jerry Buss, her father.

Mark Walter is an American businessman with wide-ranging investments and business interests. He is chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, a financial services company with interests around the world and more than $325 billion in assets. He also owns 21% of TWG Global Holdings and 19% of Group 1001 among various interests in the insurance industry.

Walter got involved with the Lakers when he invested in the team in 2021, while at the same time also securing a right of first refusal on a majority share of the team. He is also the primary owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His other sports investments include ownership with Magic Johnson of the Los Angles Sparks of the WNBA; 12.7% ownership of BlueCo, the holding company that controls Chelsea of the English Premier League and RC Strasbourg of French Ligue 1; and he is the primary owner of Andretti Global, which operates the Cadillac Formula 1 team.