Is $10 billion sale price good or bad for Lakers? Yes. Mostly it highlights changing NBA.

The NBA without the Buss family owning the Lakers sounds… weird.

Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers when Ronald Reagan was entering the White House and he proceeded to transform both the team and the league. There is the on-court success, where the Lakers have won 11 championships since Buss bought the franchise, while boasting a parade of “face of the game” level players: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, and now LeBron James, with Luka Doncic.

Beyond that, Dr. Buss changed how the sport was packaged as a product — this was entertainment. This was an event. It was the Laker girls and music pumped in the arena (not just an organist), it was Dancing Barry and celebrities sitting courtside. The modern fan sporting experience started with Buss’ vision.

Now, Lakers ownership is changing. Once approved this summer by the Board of Governors, it will be Mark Walter, the CEO of global investment firm Guggenheim Partners, who will have bought the franchise at a $10 billion valuation. Jeanie Buss is reportedly set to stay on as the team’s governor (she and the Buss family will retain 18% ownership, according to reports).

Sale about change

Is the sale of the Lakers good or bad for the franchise? Is it good or bad for the NBA?

Yes. The answers are nuanced. It’s also not the right question,

Is this the end of family ownership in the NBA?

Yes

This is the real takeaway from the sale. The days of an NBA team as a family-run operation — especially where the team is the primary source of income, as it was for the Buss children — are gone. Big-time professional sports are now an investment for the ultra-wealthy.

Fans look at the Lakers’ brand, the superstar players, how often they are on national television, the purple-and-gold jerseys in the crowd at road games, and with all that comes a perception that the Lakers were a free-spending, do-whatever-it-takes-to-win organization.

They were not even close. Behind the scenes, this was a relative mom-and-pop operation because it had to be — and if it weren’t for a very generous local television contract it would have been much more noticeable (but betting on cable television to keep funding the team is a losing proposition long term). The Lakers did not spend top dollar on coaches (remember Ty Lue going across town?). They did not spend to beef up basketball operations and staff — Oklahoma City has a larger scouting and basketball operations team.

That’s what Walter’s ownership changes and why Lakers fans should feel positive. Under Walter’s ownership, the Dodgers have unashamedly acted like the richest kids on the block and have been rewarded for it on the field. For a Lakers team going into summer negotiations with Doncic and LeBron, having a deep-pocketed owner willing to spend matters, even if the NBA’s tax structure limits that spending.

What Walter did with the Dodgers was spend — not just on players, but also on upgrading Dodger Stadium, beefing up the team’s front office (and stealing the GM from another team), its analytics department, and investing heavily in player development. He turned the Dodgers into Goliath and has a couple of World Series wins to show for it.

Walter can’t just spend to buy players under the NBA’s punitive salary cap/luxury tax system, but his Lakers will start acting like a rich team off the court. Expect the Lakers’ front office and scouting teams to grow. Expect a focus on player development. Expect facility upgrades (not at Crypto.com, which AEG owns, but at other team facilities).

The Lakers didn’t act like the richest kids on the block — that other team in Los Angeles did — and around the Lakers there are a lot of little stories that highlight things. As noted at ESPN: “An assistant coach was not approved to stay at the same hotel as the player he was traveling to work out with in the offseason because the room was too expensive.”
All that is about to change.

Something lost

With that, a connection between the fans and the owner is lost. Jeanie Buss will remain the team governor and in some ways the face of ownership, but Walter and his investment team will have the final say. A much more corporate entity now runs the Lakers, regardless of the face they put on it.

The same was true in Dallas, where part of the loss in Mark Cuban selling the Mavericks was not having him as the recognizable owner fans to relate to (and talk to). The same is true in Boston, where Wyc Grousbeck was always a wealthy, corporate owner, but one fan saw, who a year ago was carrying the Larry O’Brien Trophy around the streets of Boston during a parade, high-fiving fans.

The trend toward corporatization and private equity/investment banking touching everything is not just a sports phenomenon, it’s a societal issue. It’s the way of the world.

It’s just going to feel a little different for the NBA. At least Jeanie Buss will still be around and have a voice in the Lakers, but it won’t be the same.

Not that it will matter to Lakers fans if they start winning like the Dodgers.