Lakers Sale
The Buss dynasty has reigned over the NBA since 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the Los Angeles Lakers in what has proved to be one of the shrewdest deals in sports history. Since then, the Lakers have won 11 NBA championships, employed several of the league’s most valuable and iconic players, and become the NBA’s most glamorous franchise, a magnet for ritz and success.
It was bound to end at some point, but that future seemed far away. Wednesday, however, it struck like a thunderbolt. Jeanie Buss, the daughter of the family patriarch, will sell the Lakers to Mark Walter, a prominent financier, in a shocking deal that values the franchise at $10 billion. It is the largest sale in sports history, a number with the kind of sticker shock to match the franchise it involves.
The sale, when it goes through, will not only end to the Buss family’s hold on the Lakers, but might turn the page on a new era for the league.
The NBA has long been run by voluble owners, including Buss, but the last half-decade has brought enormous change. One third of the league has taken on new ownership since 2019. In a matter of months, the Boston Celtics and Lakers have been sold, each setting new records and sending two of the NBA’s historic teams into new hands. The small-scale style of ownership seems to be on its way out and no longer feasible. Their replacements have come in with audacious plans and ever-wealthier backgrounds, ready to spend to contend.
