One of the most brutal lessons for sports fans is that the teams they support are often viewed by owners as mere assets in a larger portfolio. This reality has never felt more pronounced than this week. On Wednesday, ESPN reported that the Los Angeles Lakers are set to change hands, for the second time in 10 months, for $12.5bn, a sum that would be a record for any North American sports team. The deal must be approved by the NBA’s board of governors before it can go through. The buyers aren’t diehards who saved up every penny like the good Dr Jerry Buss in the 1970s.
Mark Walter took control of the team from the Buss family last October at a valuation of roughly $10bn. Now he is set to cash out around $2bn richer. This rapid turnover stands in stark contrast to the old guard, who treated NBA franchises as cherished heirlooms. Walter, however, faces significant scrutiny beyond the court. Bloomberg reported in July that Manhattan prosecutors are investigating whether two insurers he controls, Delaware Life Insurance Co and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co, concealed that their private-credit books were secretly propping up his other businesses. The SEC opened its own line of inquery, and the loans at issue reportedly run near $16bn. A spokesperson for Walter’s company, TWG Global, told the Wall Street Journal that “Mark Walter and TWG have always acted in good faith, and those who have done business with Mark know him as honest and straightforward.” Insurance made Walter rich long before he entered the sports world.
The prospective buyers, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger, represent a new breed of ownership. Starting in 2009 at the age of 24, Kushner built Thrive Capital into a firm now worth more than $60bn. He shoved his way into Instagram’s 2012 round at a $500m valuation days before Facebook paid $1bn for it, then rode early bets on OpenAI, Stripe, Spotify, GitHub and Skims. Iger, the former Disney CEO, took control of the NWSL’s Angel City FC in 2024 alongside his wife, Willow Bay, and he’s also a Thrive partner. Now, they are poised to add one of America’s most important cultural touchstones to their portfolio.
The timing of Kushner’s deal may be linked to broader global ambitions. Fifa said in late July it would hive off its commercial arm into a new company, Fifa Forward Enterprises, and sell 20% to a Thrive Eternal-led group for $4.2bn. However, the plan faced immediate backlash. Uefa convened an emergency summit and threatened to have all 55 members boycott every Fifa competition until the deal died. Representative Jamie Raskin criticized the move, stating to, “Over the last few weeks, Fifa’s cozy relationship to Donald Trump has been floating to the top of the swamp of quid pro quo corruption in which the Trump Administration is swimming.” The political entanglements are complex; one associate, who was pardoned by Trump in 2020, currently represents the United States as ambassador to France, a job he holds despite not speaking French.
Some observers suggest Kushner’s moves are more palatable because he is a registered Democrat who told Forbes in 2017 that liberal values shaped him. He did not vote for Trump, and after 2016, he reportedly went company by company through his portfolio, telling founders he could not secure them any favors from the administration. His wife, Karlie Kloss, publicly split with her in-laws in 2021, writing that honoring a legitimate election is patriotic and inciting violence is not. Despite these distinctions, the sheer scale of the Lakers deal suggests that teams are no longer just sports franchises; they are high-stakes poker chips for the most powerful men in America.
The NBA’s other 29 owners have a direct financial incentive to bless this sale, as the paper value of every team surges when an franchise fetches $12.5bn. While fans have historically pushed back—such as when NFL players forced Roger Goodell into an apology in 2020 or when NBA players threatened to boycott the season over the police shooting of Jacob Blake—the current trend of ownership consolidation continues unabated. Politics, extreme wealth, and professional sports are colliding, and the Lakers are now at the center of this transformation. The report also notes that “But now we see where all the bribes, kickbacks and sweetheart deals have been leading.”. The report also notes that in fact, the other 29 owners have a direct financial stake in blessing the sale. The report also notes that their father, Charles Kushner, pleaded guilty in 2005 to 18 counts – among them illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering – and was sentenced to two years in prison. The report also notes that the titleless Wormtongue to Donald Trump’s Saruman, kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner. The report also notes that a franchise woven into a city’s identity should never become an asset vastly wealthy people move around like a chip around a poker table. The report also notes that but that is exactly what the Lakers are about to become. The report also notes that the way the deal came together should terrify anyone who still thinks sports belong to the fans. The report also notes that that’s not how this is supposed to work.
