The most surprising aspect of the Buss family’s blockbuster deal to sell the Lakers to Mark Walter at a $10 billion valuation—which broke the record for a pro sports franchise sale by almost $4 billion—is that it isn’t really surprising. 

The deal set a new benchmark for what a marquee franchise can command, significantly eclipsing the recently announced $6.1 billion sale of the Celtics. It may also have implications for future expansion fees and league ownership rules, experts say, although the exact effects won’t be clear for a while. 

For now, the sports universe is still reacting to the news. The Lakers had been in the Buss family since 1979, when Jerry Buss bought the team, and other assets, including the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and The Forum, where both the Lakers and Kings used to play, for a reported $67.5 million. When he passed away in 2013, the franchise went into a trust controlled by the six Buss children. In 2017, Jeanie Buss was installed as controlling owner after a contentious battle with her brothers that ended up in court. 

Once the sticker shock of the $10 billion figure wore off, the reality of the current market for sports franchises set in.

“It was not hard for me to believe,” says longtime sports executive Dave Checketts. “The first thing I thought was ‘are we sure [Jerry Buss] is gone? To me, this sounded exactly like what he would do if he was going to sell the team.”

Tripp Crews and Tim Lee of business valuation and advisory firm Mercer Capital were also unsurprised. Although they believe the Lakers’ valuation is not very shocking, “caution is warranted when projecting the implied valuation of the Lakers onto other NBA teams.”

“Truly ‘premium’ brands in the professional sports space that could command this type of valuation are rare,” they tell FOS.

It is widely believed the Cowboys and Yankees are among the select group of teams that could surpass the Lakers’ valuation.

Jesse Silvertown, principal at forensic accounting firm The Ledge Company, tells FOS the valuation is “completely reasonable given the math and environment.” He also says to “keep an eye on what this means for potential NBA expansion fees,” which even before the Lakers deal were expected to reach as high as $5 billion. 

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has not hidden from the NBA’s desire to expand—both with new teams domestically, including potential teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, as well internationally. In March, Silver announced the league is exploring a potential league in Europe with FIBA as partners.

Franchise Values Are Soaring

Franchise values have been on the rise, and recently it seems like each deal is breaking the record set by the last. Before the Celtics, the Commanders sold at a $6.05 billion valuation, and before the Commanders, the Broncos sold at a $4.65 billion valuation. The NFL has had recent minority investments valuing franchises in the $8 billion range (the 49ers and Dolphins), but the Celtics and Lakers stand as the two largest-ever change-of-control transactions for a pro sports franchise.

There are many reasons for the uptick in team values. For the NBA, the recent $77 billion media-rights deal that kicks in next season is a key factor.

Randall Boe, a senior counsel at law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, says the current state of NBA valuations can be traced back to the $2 billion sale in 2014 of the other Los Angeles franchise. 

“The change in thinking that has really buoyed NBA valuations was when Steve Ballmer bought the Clippers,” says Boe, who previously served as EVP and general counsel for Monumental Sports & Entertainment—the holding company for Ted Leonsis’s sports assets, including the Wizards, Mystics, and Capitals.

“[Ballmer’s] reasoning was, ‘I have the money, this is an asset I love, and there aren’t that many of them,’” Boe tells FOS. “If you want to look at winners today, Steve Ballmer’s got to feel pretty good.”

Scarcity of Assets, Scarcity of Buyers

It’s correct to say there aren’t many of these assets; the NBA has 30 teams. Not only is there a scarcity of teams, however, there’s a scarcity of buyers. 

Under NBA rules, the controlling owner must hold at least a 15% stake in the team. Walter, who already owned a 27% stake in the Lakers dating back to 2021, will need to put up a hefty sum, and is likely going to gather a group of investors to make up the rest of the purchase price.

Checketts, a seasoned executive with long tenures running the Knicks and Jazz, says private equity will come into play. “There’s going to be a big part of it that will be private equity,” he says.

Under NBA private-equity ownership rules, individual PE funds can own up to 20% stakes in as many as five franchises, but their ownership holdings are completely passive. 

“Limitations on private equity are going to have to open up,” Checketts tells FOS. 

The Unknown

The flashy announcement has been made, but there’s still a lot of unknown with the Lakers deal. According to ESPN, the Buss family will continue to hold a minority share of the team “for a period of time,” and Jeanie Buss will continue to run the team for “at least a number of years.” Per ESPN, that arrangement was “guaranteed” as part of the deal, and “Walter fully endorsed this plan.”

Just because ESPN is reporting that as being set in stone, will the NBA definitively allow it? Mark Cuban was supposedly going to stay on to oversee basketball operations for the Mavericks when he sold his majority stake at a $3.5 billion valuation in December 2023, but that didn’t end up working out, as Cuban was just as shocked as the rest of the world when Luka Dončić was traded to the Lakers. The jury is still out on exactly what will happen with the Celtics. In that deal, which is expected to be approved by the NBA board of governors next month, Wyc Grousbeck expects to stay on through the 2027–28 season.

Once the Lakers deal is complete, how will Walter—who has historically been private but is actually a very prominent figure in the world of sports ownership—feel about Jeanie Buss still being in the room and still being a key decision-maker?

“I don’t know why either party, seller or buyer, wants that to happen,” Checketts says. “I love Jeanie, she has been great for the NBA. But I actually think the Laker fandom would probably like a fresh start.”

The San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer are for sale after nearly two decades under the control of billionaire John Fisher, an heir to his family fortune through The Gap retail empire.

Fisher also owns the A’s, who are playing in a minor league park in Sacramento ahead of a planned relocation to Las Vegas in 2028.

Fisher, who has an estimated net worth of about $3 billion, has hired investment bank Moelis & Co. to lead the Earthquakes sale process, he said in a statement Wednesday. Fisher has been principal owner of the Earthquakes—one of the founding MLS teams in 1996—since 2008. His tenure has included the development of the team’s privately funded stadium, PayPal Park, which seats 18,000 and is owned and operated by the club.

The Earthquakes have an estimated value of about $540 million, according to Forbes.

A person familiar with the matter tells Front Office Sports that the planned sale of the Earthquakes is completely unrelated to the situation with the A’s. 

Fisher does need capital to help pay for his planned $1.75 billion baseball stadium on the Las Vegas Strip, however.

The project was originally projected to cost $1.5 billion, but the price has gone up thanks to a series of upgrades, including enhanced general-admission spaces, improved player amenities, and additional club and suite space—in addition to more standard hikes in construction expenses. The new costs are entirely Fisher’s responsibility as the public-sector contribution toward the project is capped at $380 million. 

The exact parameters of how Fisher intends to fund that remaining $1.37 billion is still not entirely clear; as of last year, he was still marketing potential minority-equity interests in the club. But Goldman Sachs and U.S. Bank are providing a $300 million construction loan, and Fisher has pledged that he and his family will contribute up to $1.1 billion. 

A groundbreaking ceremony for the new stadium is planned for next week, on June 23, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“We are proud of the role the Quakes have played in the growth of soccer throughout Silicon Valley,” Fisher said in the statement announcing the hiring of Moelis. “The Bay Area is a special place, and we’re deeply grateful to the fans, players and staff who’ve been with us on this journey.”

Under Fisher, the Earthquakes made five postseason appearances, though they never appeared in the MLS Cup (the furthest the team went under Fisher was the conference finals in 2010). The team has won the MLS Cup twice in its history, prior to Fisher’s ownership, in 2001 and 2003. 

The Earthquakes are currently in the playoff picture, sitting in eighth place in the Western Conference, although there is plenty of regular season left (it runs until October). Under MLS rules, the top seven teams in each conference automatically qualify for the playoffs, while the teams in 8th and 9th place play a single-elimination game with the winner advancing.

Fisher was met with scorn from A’s fans during his tenure. For years, fans pleaded with him to sell the team, and that chorus of voices grew louder once he decided to move the A’s out of Oakland, where they had played since 1968. A green SELL shirt became ubiquitous last year during the team’s final season in the city.

Private-equity-backed Concert Golf Partners found its niche as the “only pure-play private club operator in the industry”—and the company just made its largest acquisition ever with the more than $60 million purchase of a property in Cape Cod.

Florida-based Concert Golf, founded in 2011, announced June 13 the acquisition of The Club at New Seabury on Cape Cod, a 300-acre golf and beach club on the Nantucket Sound that includes two golf courses, a tennis facility, hiking and biking trails, and more. The deal, which increases the company’s portfolio to 39 clubs across the U.S., is more than double the size of its next-largest acquisition, according to SVP Jordan Peace.

Concert Golf’s involvement doesn’t stop once the acquisition is made. In fact, Peace tells Front Office Sports the company has a “large, multimillion-dollar capital plan within the next few years” to add to the club, even though it is already “healthy and thriving.” 

Peace says because Concert Golf is solely focused on private clubs, not public courses, it is not in direct competition with the largest U.S. golf course operators—like the top two, Invited and Arcis Golf, the latter of which recently reached an enterprise valuation of $2 billion and has a portfolio of 70 golf courses. The Arcis portfolio is basically an even split between public and private clubs.

“We have no desire to be the biggest,” he tells FOS. “We do want to be the best, and what the best means is the right clubs for us.”

It has been finding a lot of the right clubs lately. In November, Concert Golf bought The Georgia Club, a 350-acre club located near the University of Georgia; in October, it beat out multiple suitors to acquire the 261-acre Golf Club of the Everglades; and in July, it picked up TPC Jasna Polana, a 220-acre club near Princeton University.

“We have been, for the last two-and-a-half years or so, elevating our portfolio,” Peace says. 

Peace points to the nearly “unlimited resources” Concert Golf has at its disposal in order to upgrade and maintain facilities after a deal. Those unlimited resources are thanks to investors like private-equity firm Clearlake Capital, which first invested in Concert Golf in 2022. 

The private-equity industry’s interest in golf makes sense, as its resurgence as an asset class is legitimate. Participation in the sport has “surged” by 30% since 2016—including with a rise in female and junior golfers—and industry revenue has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 4% over the last five years to nearly $35 billion this year, according to research firm IBIS World.

Clearlake has other sports holdings too, such as Chelsea Football Club and PrimeSport, a sports and entertainment hospitality company. According to Peace, Clearlake has been a “great partner” because it is patient and understands its role as a financier that works from the shadows while allowing the experts to do their work.

“Our members do not, and never will, notice who our investors are in the background,” he tells FOS. “Our leadership team is incredibly strong; they know how to operate premium private clubs.”