New stage in one of the world’s largest sports franchises. Los Angeles Lakers, the legendary Kareem Abdul Jabbar team, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, change hands. The Buss family, which has controlled the destination of the team since 1979, has decided to sell it to Mark Walter, minority shareholder and CEO of the powerful global TWG conglomerate. The company has offered 10,000 million dollars (8,7 billion euros) to close the transaction, which is already one of the largest in global sport.
The sale has been advanced by Shams Charania, the ESPN journalist insider of the NBA, who has cited sources close to the operation. So far, neither the Lakers nor Global Twg have confirmed the sale. Charania says that Jeanie Buss, the daughter of Jerry Buss, the owner of the team who died in 2013, will be the one to supervise the operation and change of hands to Walter, who has a minority position in the franchise for four years. Buss will also retain your position before the NBA owners council, have confirmed the same sources.
Mark Walter is not only a new face at the top of the team. It is a more familiar face to the modern times of global sport, where teams are not only known in their markets, but familiar to global audiences. It is under that philosophy that Twg Global acquired some of its products from its sports portfolio, such as Los Angeles Dodgers, the current American baseball champions; The English Chelsea and the Cadillac team of Formula 1. The consortium also controls the Angelina de la Wnba franchise, the Basketball Women’s League, the Sparks; The Professional League of Women’s Hockey and Billie Jean King Cup, a women’s tennis tournament.
The influence of Global TWG is not limited to sports and entertainment, but also has an important presence in the financial sector thanks to the Guggenheim investment firm, and also in the technological with investments in different artificial intelligence companies. It also maintains a society, the Wall Street star data and surveillance.
The operation confirms the change of airs for the Lakers, acquired in 1979 by Jerry Buss to Jack Kent Cooke, a businessman who made his fortune on the radio of Toront Finals, winning the 1972 title. Today the team has 17 championships.
But the franchise we know today is Jerry Buss’s work, who bought Cooke from the Lakers for only 67.5 million dollars in an operation that also included the Kings, the ice hockey team, and the Forum stadium, which was the house for several years of both teams. It was Buss, a chemist who became a millionaire with real estate businesses, who forever linked the team with the glamour Hollywood and celebrities on and off the court. Thanks to him, names such as Jerry West, Pat Riley or Phil Jackson arrived. He molded the dynasty that made Kobe, Shaquille O’Neal and Pau Gasol yellow. Under the buss tutelage, the Lakers won eleven titles, the most dominant NBA team since 1980.
This Wednesday’s operation sprays for the sale of other valuable sports franchises such as the Celtics, the great rivals of the Lakers, who were sold for 6,100 million dollars in what was the largest transaction within the NBA and the American sport. That sale exceeded that of the NBA Washington Commanders, sold for 6,050 million dollars. The transaction also exceeds the sale of Formula 1, which Bernie Ecclestone left.
