Walter has sold the Lakers to Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger for a record price for any team in North American sports.
The Los Angeles Lakers have been sold again, per Ramona Shelburne and the number attached to it is almost hard to say out loud, with Mark Walter agreeing to hand over the team to businessmen Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger for $12.5 billion, a record for any sports franchise in North America.
Walter had only taken control of the Lakers last October, when the NBA approved his purchase from the Buss family in a deal that valued the franchise at $10 billion, a record at the time.
Kushner and Iger were reportedly circling one of the NBA's planned expansion teams in Las Vegas before switching gears and making an aggressive run at one of the league's most famous franchises instead.
In a joint statement, Kushner and Iger said they felt "deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards" of the franchise, and promised to keep building on what Jerry and Jeanie Buss started.
Why Walter Is Cashing Out
The sale hands Walter a payday that is almost too big to believe, turning his $10 billion investment into more than $12 billion in barely ten months of ownership.
It also comes only weeks after Bloomberg reported that federal regulators are looking into Walter's insurance businesses and Guggenheim Partners, the investment firm he runs, a detail several outlets have connected to the timing of this sale.
Walter had a gracious tone on his way out, calling the Lakers "an extraordinary investment" and saying the team belongs to Los Angeles no matter who signs the checks.
Where This Leaves the Lakers
For the Lakers themselves, the sale closes out an 18-month run that began with the trade for Luka Doncic in February 2025, a move that reshaped the roster long before it reshaped the franchise's price tag.
Doncic answered immediately, leading the league at 33.5 points a game last season while adding 7.7 rebounds and 8.3 assists, numbers that made him the unquestioned face of the franchise.
LeBron James left as a free agent this summer, and the front office spent its energy reshaping the roster around Doncic instead, adding pieces like Walker Kessler while saying goodbye to most of last year's rotation.
That version of the roster still finished 53-29 last season, good for fourth in the Western Conference, before Oklahoma City swept Los Angeles out of the second round.
What Comes Next
New owners now inherit that pressure, since the Lakers were already under pressure to build a real contender around Doncic long before Kushner and Iger entered the picture, and it becomes their job to solve starting this fall.
The NBA's board of governors still has to approve the transaction, though that step was treated as a formality when Walter bought in last year, and few expect it to slow this deal down either.
Jeanie Buss is expected to stay involved in some form, which means the family that built the Lakers into what they are today will still have a seat at the table even as the ownership group around her changes for the second time in less than two years.
