The Soaring Price of Sports Teams

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Hey, have you been saving up a few billion dollars to buy your favorite sports team?
Well, that may no longer be enough. Before the news, we talked Trumponomics on the bond market, the national debt and the Iran War. Now, we turn to the business of sports, which has had some eye popping headlines in recent days. If you don't follow this, earlier this month, ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner, yes, the brother of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, bought the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team for $12.5 billion, the highest price ever paid for a sports franchise, and $2 billion more than the team sold for only a year ago. A group led by VC mogul Vinod Khosla had set the previous record just a month earlier for any sports franchise when they bought the Seattle Seahawks of the NFL for $9.6 billion, so $3 billion less than the Lakers just went for, and that was $3.5 billion more than Bill Chisholm spent on the Boston Celtics to break the last former record only last year in 2025 You think gasoline is going up in the last year? The value of pro sports teams, wow, and we're not done yet. In baseball, asset management firm Apollo Sports Capital just invested $2.6 billion in the Yankees. That puts the total value of those Bronx guys in the ballpark of $9 billion.
And MLB, Major League Baseball, approved the highest outright sale of a baseball team, $3.9 billion for the San Diego Padres just last week. But it's not all upside for investors. The plot thickens with this bit of intrigue. That sale of the LA Lakers was by Mark Walter, who also owns the LA Dodgers, who seemed to sign every big name pre-agent under the sun in recent years. Even if you're not a sports fan, you probably know the name Shohei Otani, for example. But reporting indicates Mark Walter may have cashed out on the Lakers because, like the federal government we discussed last hour, he may have taken on too much risk and too much debt.
He's under federal investigation for some of his financial dealings too. I know these are a lot of big numbers and storylines that can be mind-numbing. So we'll talk now about what it all might mean for the owners, the players, we the fans, and the quality of the games. Our guest is John Ourand, sports correspondent at PUC. John, welcome to WNYC. I appreciate your work for PUC.

**John Ourand** (2:53)
Thanks, Brian. I'm happy to be here.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:55)
Let's talk about the Lakers first. When you saw the news of that sale for over $12 billion, did the number shock you? Was the deal itself surprising?

**John Ourand** (3:07)
It shouldn't have. It did, yes. But what shocked me was a couple of things. One is that the Lakers weren't for sale, and it took a cold call from Josh Kushner and Bob Iger.
It was a deal that got wrapped up. Imagine this, a $12.5 billion deal that gets wrapped up in about four days.
Then the whole idea of Mark Walter buying the Lakers, having that go through, and a year later flipping it essentially, is something that doesn't happen with sports franchises, and certainly not a sports franchise like the Los Angeles Lakers, which is for the NBA, like the New York Yankees or the Dallas Cowboys. It's just one of the crown jewels of the sport. So I think both of those combined just made my jaw drop. But we have been seeing, as you laid out so perfectly in your intro, it's been a new record that's been set every couple of months, it seems, in terms of franchise values and franchise sales. And it's not just being set by being a dollar over the last part, it's being set by $3 billion every now and then. So when the next one comes out at $15 billion, seeing that number is still going to be just totally shocking, but it shouldn't be.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:27)
Well, what are these valuations based on? Why is the sports team, the Lakers, even though they're as marquee as they are, worth $2 billion more today than they were one year ago?

**John Ourand** (4:40)
So there are a lot of things at play here.
One is that Josh Kushner is a big investor, of course, in open AI. That's where a lot of his money is. The Seattle Seahawks sale that you talked about was the same thing. There's a real fear that the AI is that there's a big bubble with AI now. So where can you take, say $12 billion and put it in a safe investment? Worst case scenario, the Lakers could in five years be worth less than $12.5 billion, but it's not going to be worth zero.