Mark Walter explains why he sold his share of the Lakers

Last October, Mark Walter purchased a majority share of the Los Angeles Lakers from the Buss family, which has owned at least a portion of the team since 1979. While that sale came as a shock, the news this August that Walter had decided to sell that share to entrepreneur Josh Kushner and former Walt Disney Company CEO Bob Iger was an even bigger shock.

Many have speculated about why Walter, who has also owned the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2012, elected to sell the Lakers so soon. He is currently dealing with a federal investigation, and the Lakers are dealing with a big ownership saga, as each Buss sibling other than Jeanie Buss, the team’s governor, elected to sell the remaining minority share the family still owns.

Per Jack Harris of the California Post, Walter said that he had no plans to sell his stake in the Lakers until Kushner and Iger made their offer this summer.

“We just received an offer on the Lakers that was quite a good offer,” Walter insisted, “that we decided we’d pursue selling it.”

Walter had bought his stake at a valuation of $10 billion last year. His sale of that stake to Kushner and Iger came at a $12.5 billion valuation, which represents a nice profit for him.

“If he hadn’t called me the way he did,” Walter added of his August phone conversation with Kushner, “we wouldn’t be selling the Lakers, either.”

In Walter’s brief time as Lakers majority owner, the organization has made a series of hires to its front office in order to fill out its staff with more people who specialize in various roles. It has hired Rohan Ramadas as an assistant general manager to handle analytics and the salary cap and Eric Amsler as a second assistant GM, as well as former college basketball coach Tony Bennett to serve as a draft adviser, among others.

Walter also made it clear that he has no plans to sell the Dodgers anytime soon. The Dodgers, who won World Series championships in 2020, 2024 and 2025, recently got swept in the National League Championship Series by the Milwaukee Brewers, who won the world title on Wednesday over the Tampa Bay Rays.

This article originally appeared on Lakers Wire: Mark Walter explains why he sold his share of the Lakers

Source: sports.yahoo.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.