Forty-six years ago, Jerry Buss paid $67.5 million for the Los Angeles Lakers. Today, the franchise is changing hands for $12.5 billion — a number that says everything about how professional sport has been transformed into one of the world's most lucrative asset classes.

Josh Kushner, founder of venture-capital firm Thrive Eternal, and Bob Iger, the former chief executive of Disney, are buying the controlling interest in the seventeen-time NBA champions, setting a new record for any sports franchise sale anywhere on the planet. The deal moves faster than most people expected. Mark Walter — who also holds a stake in the LA Dodgers alongside Chelsea FC co-owner Todd Boehly — only secured his own majority share of the Lakers in October 2024, reportedly for around $10 billion, which was itself a record at the time. That figure has now been overtaken by $2.

5 billion in less than twelve months, underlining just how aggressively investors are competing for elite sports properties. The NBA Board of Governors approved Walter's original purchase unanimously, and a similar process will now follow for Kushner and Iger. The new buyers arrive at a complicated moment for the franchise. The Lakers lost LeBron James — the all-time leading scorer in NBA history — during the summer, and the team still sits one championship behind the rival Boston Celtics' record of eighteen titles.

Luka Dončić is now the marquee name expected to carry Los Angeles back toward contention, a reminder that billionaire ownership alone has never guaranteed a trophy. Kushner's name also carries baggage beyond basketball. His venture firm was linked to a controversial and ultimately abandoned FIFA proposal to sell stakes in the governing body's competitions to private investors — a plan that attracted fierce criticism across Europe, South America and beyond.