In what was a surprising move to many, the Buss family agreed to sell their majority share of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, CEO and chairman of TWG Global.
Walter, who already owned a partial stake in the Lakers, is the primary owner and chairman of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is also the primary owner of Andretti Global, which operates the Cadillac Formula 1 team, and the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks. He owns 12.7 percent of BluCo, which controls Chelsea of the English Premier League, along with several other investments in sports.
With Walter now in charge, the Lakers could follow a path similar to his other teams.
Are the Los Angeles Lakers Following in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Footsteps?
Since Walter purchased the Dodgers in 2012, they have turned into the top franchise in baseball. They have made the playoffs every season since 2013 and reached the World Series four times, losing to the Houston Astros in 2017 and the Boston Red Sox in 2018, while winning two titles by beating the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020 and the New York Yankees last season.
Appearing on ESPN’s “NBA Today,” NBA insider Brian Windhorst said that now that the Lakers are no longer family-owned and are joining the ranks of billionaire hedge fund and tech owners, they will likely move in a new direction and operate more like the Dodgers.
“It means that the Lakers are about to join the modern era.”@WindhorstESPN thinks the Los Angeles Lakers deal will change the league for the better 💵 pic.twitter.com/lFIKR7ZKas
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) June 19, 2025
“First off it means that the Lakers are about to join the modern era,” Windhorst said. “While they have had incredible success and their brand is enormous, they ran as a family operation in a league that is run by tech billionaires and hedge fund billionaires. They run their teams that way and invest in the infrastructure of their teams. The Lakers were behind in that regard.”
With Walter in charge, the Lakers will likely see even more investment, which says a lot considering how committed the Buss family already was to winning.
“And they are, I’m sure, going to get great investment there,” Windhorst added. “And we know this because Mark Walter and his group did this exact same thing with the Dodgers when he brought them out of a family operation into the modern era and they have become a juggernaut.”
Of course, there are many differences between MLB and the NBA, especially the salary cap. But seeing the Lakers become even more aggressive and willing to spend could be a scary thought for the rest of the league.
That doesn’t mean the Lakers will be the only franchise to benefit from this kind of shift though.
Could the Sale of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics Lead to NBA Expansion?
Windhorst also pointed out that the kind of money these NBA franchises are going for, the Lakers at $10 billion and the Celtics recently at $6.1 billion, could cause a ripple effect in the league that could lead to expansion.
“The second thing for the league is I think we’re going to now see real momentum towards expansion,” Windhorst said. “The price of the Celtics, the price of the Lakers, Adam Silver already said that it’s going to be a topic on the Board of Governors meeting coming up in July in Las Vegas.”
“The value that they could get for expansion has been explosive, inflated and the other owners are going to want to get in on this so I think we’re going to see some movement in that direction with a new benchmark being set.”
That’s exciting news for fans in basketball-hungry cities. Could that mean a team returns to Seattle? Could there be a new team in Mexico City, where the NBA already plays games? Let the speculation begin.
