The American Sports Plutocracy Is Bullshit
American sports laws amount to a kind of out-in-the-open conspiracy to help a lucky few billionaires get much, much richer
This week, the businessman Mark Walter agreed to sell the Los Angeles Lakers to venture capitalist Josh Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger. Walter had agreed to buy a majority stake in the Lakers just last summer, in a deal that valued the team at $10 billion. The latest deal values the iconic franchise at $12.5 billion, a 25 percent premium for roughly a year of Walter doing pretty much nothing, other than getting himself investigated for potential fraud.
Since last summer, federal agents have seized Walter’s phones and computers, and federal investigators have combed through transactions involving his insurance companies and the rest of his business holdings. Under pressure to raise billions in capital to clean up his books, Walter went looking for liquidity, and it came pouring from the heavens. From the Wall Street Journal:
