An era has passed. If you are an NBA fan, especially a fan of the Los Angeles Lakers, you will surely feel the weight of these words. This summer, the man who brought the championship back to Staples Center, the man who kept striving to be the GOAT—LeBron James—left the team after eight years. The Lakers will officially establish Luka Dončić as the franchise leader and build a distinctly different tactical system around their new cornerstone. Along with James, team owner Mark Walter is also saying goodbye.
Recently, venture capitalist Josh Kushner announced that he would acquire the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion (approximately 84 billion yuan), breaking the record for the most expensive team in sports history—a record previously held by the Lakers themselves. It is worth noting that this is actually the second time the Lakers have been sold within a year. Although Mark Walter had become a Lakers shareholder as early as 2021, he did not gain controlling interest until October 2025. At most, he enjoyed only about ten months as the owner.
Sold after ten months—WHY? The story of buying a company and flipping it within ten months would, in most industries, point to a "failed" deal. But the outgoing Lakers owner Mark Walter does not quite fit that judgment. For an NBA team, the most important metric is performance: winning games, developing a franchise star, and competing for a championship—only after meeting these can commercialization truly take off.
Such work cannot be accomplished overnight. To ensure the league's healthy development, the NBA imposes strict financial restrictions. For example, rules like the salary cap and luxury tax make it difficult for owners to boost a team's competitiveness in the short term simply by spending lavishly. Under these conditions, building a championship-caliber team requires sustained investment and planning over multiple seasons. "Ten months" is essentially just one season—far too little for Mark Walter to make his mark.
More importantly, Mark Walter had already proven himself a capable and successful sports industry investor. Nearly every major profitable sports league you can think of has his investment footprint. In Major League Baseball, he is the owner of the famous Los Angeles Dodgers. In Formula 1, he runs the General Motors Cadillac team. In Europe's top five football leagues, his investment company BlueCo, in which he holds a 12.7% stake, is the de facto controller of Premier League giants Chelsea and Ligue 1 side Strasbourg. In women's sports, he also owns the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks.
Beyond that, Walter's investment portfolio extends far beyond sports. Aside from being a team owner, he is also the CEO of Guggenheim Partners—a U.S. asset management firm that currently manages $330 billion in assets, with businesses spanning investment banking, asset management, capital markets services, and insurance services.
One of the NBA owners most familiar to Chinese fans, Joe Tsai, once summarized his experience running the Brooklyn Nets: "Everyone thought I overpaid, but seven years later, you'll see I didn't pay that much... A very important reason behind this is that owning a team is essentially owning a franchise... As long as you can expand the fan base and grow television or streaming viewership, there is still enormous upside."
In the entire NBA, is there any owner better at "asset integration" around a sports IP than Mark Walter? That is why, when he became the Lakers owner last year, both fans and team legends reacted with "excitement." For instance, Magic Johnson posted on social media: "Lakers fans should be ecstatic," because, as he knew, Walter "pursues victory, pursues excellence, does everything the right way," and has the resources needed to win.
On the other hand, even though this offer represents a $2.5 billion (approximately 17 billion yuan) increase over previous valuations, it is still bewildering that such a highly anticipated owner, who fully understands the value of sports IP, would step down after just ten months. One simply cannot help asking: why? why baby why? look in my eye?!
An NBA league insider told the media: "This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen. My phone has been ringing off the hook—everyone says they're shocked." Another detail: according to ESPN, the entire deal was struck in just 72 hours. After Kushner expressed interest and made an offer, Mark Walter did not seek competing bids. The whole process can only be described as a "hasty exit." So when news of the Lakers sale broke, everyone entered detective mode, frantically searching for the reason behind Mark Walter's decision.
At present, the most plausible explanation is that Mark Walter is facing "regulatory troubles." As mentioned, Walter's investment empire is vast. His holding company, TWG Global, not only includes sports investments but also the investment banking and asset management firm Guggenheim Partners, as well as insurers Delaware Life and its affiliate Clear Spring Life. And the problem lies with these two insurers.
According to the Los Angeles Times, a whistleblower inside Guggenheim filed a complaint questioning how Guggenheim accounted for revenues related to these insurance companies. The whistleblower stated that in June 2025, Delaware Life reported only $1.4 billion in related-party investments to regulators—just 3% of its portfolio. But in reality, at least $17 billion (39%) of loans were routed through third-party intermediaries before flowing to other Walter-owned companies—making it the largest risk exposure in the North American insurance market. Although Delaware Life later said it would restructure some related-party loans, ratings agencies Fitch, A.M. Best, and S&P Global have downgraded their outlooks to "negative."
More critically, Mubadala Capital, one of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth funds, invested $10 billion in TWG Global last year, and there is a possibility that valuation misrepresentation is involved. Over the past year, U.S. regulators (including the FBI) have been investigating Mark Walter, even raiding his private jet and seizing a personal phone and a laptop. Resolving this mess clearly requires substantial cash. According to Bloomberg, TWG Global has approached several investment firms, including Point72 Asset Management, run by New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, to discuss financing deals to raise cash. These funds would be used to repay loans tied to Walter's insurance and other companies. In this light, the money from selling the Lakers will most likely be used to plug that hole.
A new buyer with "connections" —strictly speaking, the new owner Josh Kushner is actually a perfect substitute for Mark Walter. According to publicly available information, Kushner made the acquisition together with his partner, former Disney CEO Bob Iger. They co-own a sports investment platform called Thrive Eternal. Before buying the Lakers, Thrive Eternal had invested in the MLB's San Francisco Giants, and Kushner personally was a minority shareholder in two other NBA teams, the Miami Heat and the Memphis Grizzlies.
Under NBA rules, Thrive Eternal will hold 20% of the Lakers' equity, while Kushner and Iger will hold the remaining shares as individual investors, with Kushner becoming the controlling shareholder. Above Thrive Eternal is an equity investment platform called Thrive Capital. Before entering sports, Thrive Capital's portfolio focused mainly on internet and technology companies, including Instagram, GitHub, Spotify, Twitch, Scale AI, Anduril, and Databricks. In short, Josh Kushner is equally skilled at resource integration, equally understands the value of the sports industry, and has a sufficiently large investment footprint to help the Lakers further amplify their commercial value.
But sharp-eyed readers will have spotted the key: the surname Kushner... seems familiar? Yes, exactly what you think—Josh Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law. Thus, many suspect that Mark Walter, under regulatory siege, sold the Lakers to a buyer with family ties to the U.S. president without much hesitation—could this be some form of quid pro quo?
Even more suspicious: not long ago, FIFA attempted a controversial plan to package the World Cup and other tournament operations into a commercial company and bring in market investors, offering up to 20% equity. The plan met with collective resistance from UEFA, the AFC, and other major confederations, and was hastily scrapped just four days after being proposed. FIFA President Gianni Infantino was widely suspected of having some interest-alignment with the Trump family. The main evidence for these suspicions was that the external shareholder FIFA planned to bring in was precisely a consortium led by Josh Kushner.
Still, one must say: class solidarity is not determined by surname. Josh Kushner is actually an open "dissenter" within the Trump family, with a clear record of donating to Democratic candidates. Moreover, his wife, Karlie Kloss, publicly attended the opening of the Obama Presidential Library. Given the public tensions between Trump and Obama, trying to curry favor with Trump by "bribing" Josh Kushner seems a very strange approach.
In a public statement, Josh Kushner said, "As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored to have the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports clubs in the world." At the same time, Kushner said he would continue to respect the Buss family's imprint on the Lakers. When Mark Walter previously acquired the Lakers, he promised that Jeanie Buss would remain as team governor, which also means the Buss family will retain at least 15% equity (the league requires governors to hold at least that much). Josh Kushner will accept that arrangement, stating: "We have great respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss. Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary franchise, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles."
Thus, Lakers fans need not be overly pessimistic. After all, being sold twice in one year is not a problem with the Lakers themselves. The fact that a suitable buyer could be found so quickly in a moment of crisis fully demonstrates the Lakers' inherent potential.
