Amid some unexpected turbulence on the field, life for the Los Angeles Dodgers just got a bit more uncertain off of it.
On Wednesday, ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that Los Angeles Lakers owner Mark Walter — the investment titan who had bought the team from the Buss family just last October — had agreed to sell one of American sports’ most storied franchises to businessman Josh Kushner and former Disney chief Bob Iger for a cool $12 billion. While this might not seem like a baseball story at first glance, it could have serious ramifications for the two-time defending World Series champions.
Walter is also the owner and chairman of the Dodgers, a position he held long before he ever got involved with the Lakers. And while there’s been no indication as of yet that the Dodgers on the market, it’s not hard to read between the lines here — and wonder whether the driving force behind L.A.’s budding dynasty might not be long for the job.
Lakers sale calls Mark Walter’s future as Dodgers owner into question
While the timing of the Lakers sale is certainly shocking, it also didn’t come out of nowhere. Walter’s financial services is currently under federal investigation for potential fraud, spurred on by an employee who reportedly blew the whistle on suspicious private-credit deals. Again, we don’t have nearly enough information to say for certain, but it’s hard not to speculate that the nature of that investigation — and the potential consequences should it undercover evidence of wrongdoing — had something to do with why Walter would turn around and sell a sports team he’d just bought last fall.
And that’s not the only cause for concern. It was also revealed earlier this summer that Walter had suffered a stroke during the Dodgers’ first World Series run in 2024, the after-effects of which had left some colleagues concerned about his ability to carry out his professional duties.
Again, it’s hard to overstate just how surprising it is for someone of Walter’s stature to pay full freight for a franchise like the Lakers only to reverse course so quickly. We have no idea what his companies may or may not be accused of, or the exact state of his health. But it beggars believe that he’d be selling now if there weren’t something afoot. And what’s to say that something couldn’t affect the Dodgers sooner rather than later?
It’s entirely possible that Walter just decided he’d bit off a bit more than he wanted to chew, that the timing wasn’t right for him to add the Lakers to his ever-expanding portfolio. It’s also possible that he’s looking to get out of the ownership game entirely, for reasons both personal and professional; and if that’s the case, the Dodgers might be up for sale themselves.
Mark Walter has been the true driving force behind Dodgers dynasty
That might not seem like an existential crisis at first glance. The Dodgers have the deepest and most talented roster in baseball, with the best player in baseball in Shohei Ohtani, and are led by a historically great executive in president Andrew Friedman. All of those things will remain true for the foreseeable future, regardless of who’s at the helm of the operation.
But don’t underestimate the role that Walter has played in the Dodgers’ rise to the top of the sport. He inherited a team in financial disarray thanks to years of mismanagement under Frank McCourt, only to get them back to the NLCS in his second year of ownership in 2013. Since then, the arrow has been pointing straight up, which sure doesn’t feel like a coincidence. With a reported net worth of over $7 billion, Walter is the second-richest individual owner in baseball behind only Steve Cohen. And he’s consistently spent like it — not just on payroll, but on facilities and amenities and everything else that’s made Los Angeles the class of the Majors under his watch.
If the Dodgers did get put up for sale, they would almost certainly wind up in the hands of another fabulously wealthy individual (or individuals). But would the new owners be as maniacally committed to winning as Walter has been? Would they be willing to spare no expense on every aspect of running a big-league franchise? As long as Ohtani and Friedman are around, it’s hard to see L.A. losing much ground. But it all starts at the top, and Walter’s leadership has been a true differentiator — one that fans shouldn’t take for granted.
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