What makes a basketball team worth $10bn?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We look at the record-breaking sale of the Los Angeles Lakers which has just been approved by the board of the NBA - or National Basketball Association.

The Buss family had owned the team since 1979.

The new majority owner of the franchise is TWG Global CEO Mark Walter.

Mr Walter also has a controlling stake in the Los Angeles Dodgers, the professional US baseball team that won the World Series last year, as well as investments in Chelsea FC.

Produced and presented by Guy Kilty Edited by Helen Thomas

(Image: Los Angeles Lakers star player LeBron James drives to the basket during the game against the Utah Jazz during the game on 23 November 2025. Credit: Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:08.6	Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service.
0:12.7	I'm Guy Kilty.
0:14.0	Today we dig into reportedly the most expensive sale of a US sports team in history.
0:19.7	The bus family has agreed to sell the majority ownership of the Lakers to Mark Walter for a cool $10 billion, the highest ever for a U.S. professional sports franchise.
0:28.7	Earlier this year, the family which has owned the Los Angeles-based basketball team, the L.A. Lakers, for the last 45 years, sold their majority state to new owners in a deal that valued the Lakers at a record 10 billion U.S. dollars.
0:42.5	The Lakers are the biggest basketball franchise. The Lakers were a big part of the NBA coming on to the world stage in the 1980s.
0:50.4	The L.A. Lakers are one of the biggest names in U.S. sport and they've been a huge part of the
0:54.4	growth of the National Basketball Association. But $10 billion, how can a sports team be worth
1:00.0	so much? It's been extraordinarily successful as an entertainment entity and as a basketball team,
1:06.3	and they generate a lot of publicity because they have all of these famous people who show up at their
1:11.5	games. We'll try and break down how the Lakers have reached this valuation, see how that money
1:16.4	compares to other sports teams around the world, and find out what impact this $10 billion
1:21.0	sale could have on global sport. That's all coming up in today's Business Daily.
1:28.9	June 2025, and the shock announcement comes that the legendary bus family,
1:34.1	owners of the Los Angeles Lakers, are selling up.
1:37.5	In the NBA and outside it, this is huge news.
1:40.8	The owners of one of the biggest teams in the league, if not the biggest, are getting out.
1:45.2	And the new owners already own one of Los Angeles baseball teams, The Dodgers.
1:49.7	Here's what some Lakers fans thought about the deal just after it was announced.
1:53.2	It's kind of sad in the way because me being a Laker fan here, been here all my life.
1:57.7	I like the fact that it's been Jerry Buss's family being in control,
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 10 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.