The Los Angeles Lakers just sold for $12.5 billion, the most expensive sale in American sports history. And there’s some for a lack of better words, interesting connections. The seller is Mark Walter, who is under active federal investigation.

The buyer is Josh Kushner who’s brother is Donald Trump’s son in law and the man whose firm tried to buy the FIFA World Cup. The most famous franchise in sports just passed straight from a man being probed by the feds to a man who tried to privatize the world’s biggest tournament. Let’s take a look at the full picture, because the full picture is ugly.

Let’s start off with some of the facts because this story is LOADED.

Mark Walter bought the Lakers 14 months ago at a $10 billion valuation. He didn’t buy them to just flip them. He tore up the front office, rebuilt the scouting department, overhauled the business side, all the moves of a man planning to own this team for a decade. Then, 14 months in, he sold the Lakers?! Nobody does that. You don’t buy your dream asset and unload it before you’ve finished redecorating, unless something changed and changed drastically.

Here’s what happened. Walter is under federal investigation, a probe into the insurance companies he controls, the same case where the FBI reportedly seized his phone and laptop off a private jet at a Chicago airport. Separate investigations by U.S. prosecutors and the SEC are underway.

Now there is no proof of guilt yet. No one has pointed out for sure that the investigation forced this sale. Walter hasn’t been charged with anything. The teams themselves are not named in the probe. Every serious outlet says the connection is unproven, and it is.

But you’re allowed to look at the picture, and the picture is ugly. A man under federal investigation does not sell his trophy asset 14 months after buying it, at $2.5 billion above what he paid, in a matter of days, for no reason. That’s not a normal exit. That’s a fast, wildly profitable, remarkably clean getaway from the spotlight, executed at the precise moment the spotlight turned into a liability. You don’t liquidate the Los Angeles Lakers this quickly unless you have a reason to want out. What that reason is, only the investigation knows. But the timing is not small.

But then who is buying it is a whole new story.

The buyer is Josh Kushner, founder of Thrive Capital. Weeks ago, that same firm was the lead investor in Gianni Infantino’s $20 billion plan to sell off the commercial rights to the FIFA World Cup, the scheme that collapsed under a global revolt and nearly cost the FIFA president his job. Same man. Same firm. Different sport, different continent, weeks apart.

And there’s a layer under the Kushner name that makes this bigger than sports. Josh Kushner is the brother of Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump. Which means the most famous franchise in American sports is now owned, in part, by the sitting President’s son-in-law’s brother. Not the President himself, to be clear. He has no stake in this and no role in it. But the Lakers just became connected by marriage to the First Family, at the same time the seller is under a federal investigation run by that same administration’s Justice Department. You don’t have to allege anything to notice that’s a crazy plot twist.

Two of the biggest money scandals in sports right now, a federally investigated owner on one side and the private equity operator who tried to buy the World Cup on the other, just resolved into a single transaction. The investigated man sold America’s most famous team to the FIFA guy, in days, at a record price, and most people are reading it as a fun headline about the Lakers getting a new owner.

Here’s the thing about the money at the very top of sports. Fans watch 30 teams, 30 owners, 30 separate franchises with their own colors and cities and rivalries. But the capital behind all of it is a small room. It’s the same few dozen people, and they keep turning up in each other’s deals. The Lakers, the Dodgers, the Giants, the Heat, Liverpool, the World Cup itself, pull the thread on almost any of them right now and you find the same handful of names, buying from and selling to one another.

That’s the lesson that runs underneath all of this. At the level fans watch, sports is a game. At the level that actually owns it, sports is an asset class, and it is a far smaller and more connected world than anyone lets on. The Lakers didn’t just get a new owner. They moved one square on a board most people don’t know they’re looking at, from a man under federal investigation to a man connected by marriage to the President.

The Buss family owned the Lakers for 46 years. Mark Walter owned them for 14 months. The next chapter belongs to the man whose firm tried to privatize the World Cup, and whose brother is married into the White House. That tells you everything about how fast the money moves at the top now, and how very few hands it moves between.

Vir:  https://x.com/GeorgeOnTap/status/2087568768998453393

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Objava @GeorgeOnTap je večinoma točna glede osnovnih dejstev, a z močno interpretativno (in špekulativno) noto. Tukaj je razčlenitev ključnih trditev iz objave (ki citira Bleacher Report in nato podrobneje razlaga):

1. Prodaja Lakersov za rekordnih ~12,5 milijarde $

Resnično.

Los Angeles Lakers so se danes (12. avgust 2026) prodali Joshu Kushnerju (Thrive Capital) in Bobu Igerju (nekdanji CEO Disneyja) za 12,5 milijarde dolarjev. To je najdražja prodaja profesionalne športne franšize v ZDA/svetu. cbssports.com

Mark Walter (lastnik Dodgersov itd.) je kontrolni delež kupil od družine Buss oktobra 2025 (oz. dogovor junij/julij 2025) pri vrednotenju okoli 10 milijard $. Franšiza se je torej prodala dvakrat v manj kot 18 mesecih / po približno 14 mesecih lastništva. nytimes.com

2. Mark Walter pod federalno preiskavo

Resnično.

Walter (in njegova podjetja, zlasti zavarovalnice Delaware Life in Clear Spring ter Guggenheim Partners / TWG Global) je pod preiskavo ameriških tožilcev (Southern District of New York) in SEC zaradi potencialnih finančnih nepravilnosti – gre za okoli 16 milijard $ v povezanih posojilih/transakcijah, ki niso bile pravilno razkrite. FBI je septembra 2025 zasegel njegov telefon in prenosnik z zasebnega letala na letališču v Chicagu. Nobene obtožbe še ni, ekipe (Lakers, Dodgers itd.) niso neposredno vpletene v preiskavo. Več resnih medijev (Bloomberg, WSJ, LA Times) to potrjuje. Povezava med preiskavo in hitro prodajo Lakersov ni dokazana – gre za spekulacijo (časovna ujemanja in hitra, zelo donosna prodaja). Walter trdi, da je deloval v dobri veri in sodeluje z oblastmi. wsj.com

3. Kupec Josh Kushner in povezave

Resnično.

• Josh Kushner je mlajši brat Jareda Kushnerja (moža Ivanke Trump, torej zeta predsednika Donalda Trumpa).
• Kushnerjev Thrive Capital / Thrive Eternal je bil vodilni vlagatelj v FIFA-inem načrtu (objavljen konec julija 2026), da bi ločili komercialne pravice (vključno World Cup) v novo podjetje in prodali manjšinski delež pri vrednotenju okoli 20 milijard $ (vložek do ~4,2 milijarde $). Načrt je doživel močan odpor (UEFA in drugi) in je bil hitro umaknjen / propadel v začetku avgusta 2026. axios.com

4. Interpretacija objave (“ugly picture”, povezave, “getaway” itd.)To so mnenja in špekulacije avtorja, ne dokazana dejstva.

Dejstva o prodaji, preiskavi in osebnih/poslovnih povezavah držijo. Ni pa dokaza, da je preiskava prisilila prodajo, da gre za “umazano” transakcijo ali da ima predsednik/Trumpova družina kakršnokoli neposredno vlogo pri poslu. Avtor sam prizna, da ni dokazov o krivdi ali prisili. Prodaja se je zbrala zelo hitro (po poročilih v ~3 dneh). Iger in Kushner sta prej raziskovala morebitno ekspanzijsko ekipo v Las Vegasu. Sklep: Osnovna dejstva o rekordni prodaji, Walterjevi preiskavi, Kushnerjevih povezavah (vključno FIFA) in časovnici so pravilna. Objava pa dodaja močan narativni spin o “grdosti” in povezanosti na vrhu športa, kar je interpretacija, ne trdo dejstvo.

Vir (GeorgeOnTap) je športno-poslovni komentator, ne novinarska agencija.