NBA: Why did the Lakers owner sell after less than a year?
No sports club in the world has ever been as expensive as the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Their owner Mark Walter was remarkably eager to sell it. The US judiciary is investigating against his companies.
Düsseldorf. For wealthy sports fans in America, patience is crucial. The National Basketball Association (NBA) consists of thirty teams, almost never sold, and any talks about additional teams take years. Now, Bob Iger, a former Disney chief, and Josh Kushner, brother of Donald Trump's son-in-law, have secured the most famous club – the Los Angeles Lakers – in just three days.
The billionaire owners, Iger and Kushner, paid a staggering $12.5 billion for the team. There was no auction or negotiation; the interested parties simply offered the sale, and the owner accepted. They learned about the opportunity to own the Lakers in early August. Lakers owner Mark Walter met with Iger and Kushner at the end of last week, and an agreement was reached on Wednesday.
"The deal came together in three days," Iger told the California Post. "It's that simple." Bill Plaschke, a long-time columnist for the Los Angeles Times, called the transaction "not right" and questioned why Walter sold the team only ten months after purchasing it. "What kind of person owns a major sports club for just ten months?"
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