The Lakers will soon have a new majority ownership group running the franchise.
The Buss family will be selling their majority ownership of the Lakers to Mark Walter, the CEO and chairman of diversified holding company TWG Global.
Shams Charania of ESPN was the first to report.
Walter has been a minority stakeholder in the Lakers since 2021 and has interests in multiple professional sports organizations, including the LA Dodgers, WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks, the Billie Jean Cup, Cadillac Formula 1 team and the Professional Women's Hockey League. https://t.co/mgZkxcdXnp
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) June 18, 2025
Walter owned a minority stake in the team, which he purchased in 2021. At that time, he also negotiated the right of first refusal if the family sold their stake in the team. Effectively, he could match any deal the family reached to sell their stake.
Walter earned the first right of refusal if the Buss family ever decided to sell their 66 percent stake when he purchased Phil Anschutz’ 26 percent stake in 2021. In other words, this has been positioned to go this way. There are a lot of ties between the Lakers and Dodgers… https://t.co/GlLkBFVkRs
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 18, 2025
Walter’s right of first refusal is the likeliest reason news of a sale never went public. The outcome, almost certainly, was always going to be Walter purchasing the team.
Currently, he owns 27.5% of the Dodgers, making him the lead owner, and is also an investor in Chelsea Football Club. He also owns a small stake in the Los Angeles Sparks.
While the majority ownership stake will change according to Shams’ reporting, Jeanie Buss will remain the Governor after the sale, at least for now.
The Buss family originally bought the Lakers — as well as the Kings and the Forum — back in 1977 by the late Dr. Jerry Buss for $67.5 million from Jack Kent Cooke.
While this is the most recent sale of an NBA team, there have been several over the past few years. Recently, the Celtics were sold to private equity firm co-founder Bill Chisholm for a record $6.1 billion.
In 2023, Mat Ishibia purchased the Phoenix Suns for $4 billion, and Mark Cuban sold his majority stake of the Dallas Mavericks to Miriam Adelson and son-in-law Patrick Dumont for $3.5 billion.
The Lakers’ future and vision will now undoubtedly change as a new ownership group will have influence and input into the decisions affecting the franchise.
This live story will be updated as more information becomes available.
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