The record-breaking Los Angeles Lakers sale, announced Wednesday to a largely unsuspecting audience, is packed with intrigue.
The seller, Mark Walter, is facing federal investigations across his business empire. The buyer, Joshua Kushner, is Trump family-adjacent, recently tried to invest in FIFA in what became a true international scandal and could soon become the youngest control owner in the NBA. The deal, which is still a long way from closing, has implications for the NBA’s potential multibillion-dollar sale of an expansion franchise 300 miles east of LA, the ownership future of baseball’s richest team and much more.
To unpack the biggest topics, Sportico complied six things to know about the agreement and its fallout:
1. The price
Yes, $12.5 billion is the highest valuation ever for control of a sports team in a transaction, but Kushner’s group is not forking over $12.5 billion to make it happen. Nor did Walter actually pay $10 billion when he consolidated control less than a year ago. It’s important context, particularly as sports team values soar to numbers unfathomable for all but the world’s absolutely richest people.
