The Los Angeles Lakers are preparing for another major shift in ownership, the iconic NBA team allegedly being sold for a record sum of $12.5 billion. This transaction, first mentioned by ESPN, would make the Lakers the most expensive North American sports franchise ever to be purchased.
The group which is going to buy the team is being headed by businessman Joshua Kushner and former Disney CEO Robert Iger; their reported deal of $12.5 billion clearly exceeds the previous record of $10 billion, which Mark Walter had paid for the Lakers less than two years before.
“We are deeply honoured,” Kushner and Iger said in a statement, “to have been given the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers. Our aim is to build upon the foundation laid by the Buss family, to compete at the highest level and to stay closely connected with the team’s fans and with the city of Los Angeles.”
For decades the Lakers have been one of the NBA’s most valuable and well-known teams; after Dr. Jerry Buss bought the franchise in 1979 the Buss family held control of the team for several generations. Upon his death in 2013 ownership was handed over to his six children, and Jeanie Buss ultimately became the team’s controlling owner.
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Even after Walter bought the franchise in 2025, Jeanie Buss stayed involved with the Lakers. The man who also co-owns the Los Angeles Dodgers referred his experience with the Lakers as one of the great honours of his life.
“Owning the Los Angeles Lakers has been one of the greatest honours of my life,” Walter stated, saying that he would always remember the team’s fans, the players, the staff and the Los Angeles community.
The most recent change in ownership is occurring at a significant time for the Lakers in their basketball operations. The team is now entering a new phase centred on the superstar Luka Doncic after LeBron James, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, has left.
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James, the player who helped the Lakers to win the 2020 NBA title, retired from the team this summer in a free agency move and joined the Philadelphia 76ers. With James now gone the Lakers will be looking to Doncic as the focus of the next phase of the franchise.
Walter has never given a public explanation for his decision to sell the team so shortly after having acquired it. At the same time, two companies linked to Walter are the subject of federal investigations into the financial activities of his businesses.
Even though there has been a quick change in ownership, the Lakers are still one of the biggest brands in professional sports. The stated valuation of $12.5 billion shows exactly how valuable the franchise has become and establishes a new standard for the sale of sports teams in North America.
For fans of the Lakers, however, the main question won’t just be about the team’s value; it will be what the new ownership group does with that investment as the franchise moves forward without LeBron James and starts to build its future around Luka Doncic.
