Mark Walter scandal, LA Lakers sale raise concern about ownership in pro sports 

Billionaire Mark Walter’s purchase of the Los Angeles Lakers and his subsequent forced sale of the team less than a year later amid allegations of financial crimes at his companies are sparking fresh concern about who owns the biggest brands in pro sports. 

It is also highlighting how clubs are being leveraged as profit-driving mechanisms for some of the world’s richest people.   

Walter, who made his billions in the insurance business and until this summer owned stakes in the Lakers, Los Angeles Dodgers and the English Premier League’s Chelsea, is reportedly under investigation by the federal government for alleged tax irregularities and failure to report billions in financing for key portions of his businesses.  

His abrupt sale of the Lakers to an ownership group that includes Josh Kushner, the brother of President Trump’s son-in-law, is raising suspicion Walter is attempting to curry favor with the federal government and avoid the harshest of possible punishments.  

Walter is hardly the first billionaire sports magnate to face scrutiny. His case, however, is underscoring what critics say is a growing danger in the accelerating corporatization of pro sports. 

Insufficient guardrails vetting the financing of potential club buyers are a growing problem, critics say, and they are contributing to a widening disconnect between the sports ownership class and fans.  

“There is probably no drier topic than billionaire debt service for everyday people, but we know for sure that fans are a more than a little bit tired of seeing their favorite teams treated like assets as opposed to community goods,” said Will Norton, director of the McCormack Center for Sport Research and Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “These teams are becoming so expensive that you simply have to look to open up avenues to capital that otherwise would look like precarious choices for the long-term health of the club.”  

More franchises than ever in the NFL, NBA, NHL and other leagues are partially owned and controlled by either private equity firms, owners who live and do business hundreds of miles away from a club’s home city or top executives with financial priorities that have little to do with the sports brands they own.  

The result has been an ecosystem in which fan experience is suffering, and ownership groups are placing short-term return on investment over hometown pride and roster development.  

Walter’s scandal is unique in that his businesses involve multiple franchises in several top sports leagues.  

The Dodgers, perennial winners in the National League, have benefited in recent years from a major bargain on the team’s most recent media rights deal brokered by Walter.  

The deal freed up millions for the franchise to spend aggressively on top talent and build arguably the most elite roster in baseball while ticket prices skyrocketed and wealthy celebrities packed Dodger Stadium’s most desirable seats.  

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