{"id":811468,"date":"2026-08-12T19:56:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:56:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/811468\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T19:56:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T19:56:15","slug":"lakers-sale-hints-at-rising-expansion-price-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/811468\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers\u2019 sale hints at rising expansion price tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN\u2019s Ramona Shelburne said the Lakers being sold for $12.5B to a group that had previously been linked to a potential expansion team in Las Vegas<\/a> suggests the price for expansion teams is \u201cgoing to be more than\u201d the $6B-$8B range previously estimated. Earlier on Wednesday, Shelburne reported former Disney CEO Bob Iger and Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner had bought the majority stake in the Lakers<\/a> from Mark Walter at a valuation of $12.5B. Shelburne, appearing on \u201cThe Pat McAfee Show,\u201d said she believes the number for the Vegas expansion team is \u201cclimbing close\u201d to what Walter paid for a controlling share<\/a> in the Lakers last year, which was $10B<\/a>. Shelburne said Iger and Kushner, who had been linked to having interest in the Vegas expansion team, at some point \u201cgo, \u2018Well, why would we buy an expansion team for $10B, and then have to spend another $2.5B to build the stadium in Vegas without at least calling Mark Walter and seeing if we could buy the Lakers for $12.5B?\u201d She added Las Vegas is \u201cpretty much an L.A. market,\u201d adding, \u201cwhy buy Vegas when you can buy L.A., when you can buy an established team and brand with a superstar that\u2019s in place for basically the same amount of money that they were going to have to go for in Vegas?\u201d (\u201cThe Pat McAfee Show,\u201d 8\/12).<\/p>\n

The Lakers purchase by Iger and Kushner\u2019s group \u201cleaves the door open for other suitors\u201d of the Las Vegas team, including billionaire Walmart heiress Nancy Walton Laurie and her husband, Bill Laurie<\/a>; a group led by Golden Knights owner Bill Foley<\/a>; and the Las Vegas Jacks group, led by former NBA owner Jerry Colangelo<\/a>. MAGI, led by Basketball HOFer Magic Johnson, also has \u201cexpressed interest<\/a> in pursuing a Las Vegas expansion team\u201d (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 8\/12<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s Ramona Shelburne said the Lakers being sold for $12.5B to a group that had previously been linked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[402,355,99],"class_list":["post-811468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}