Los Angeles. The Buss family has agreed to sell its controlling stake in the Los Angeles Lakers to TWG Global CEO Mark Walter, valuing the franchise at $10 billion, the highest valuation ever for a professional sports team, a person familiar with the agreement told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

For comparison, Sportico reported in February that the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys was the world’s most valuable sports franchise at $10.32 billion, followed by the NBA’s Golden State Warriors ($9.14 billion), New York Knicks ($8.3 billion), and Los Angeles Lakers ($8.07 billion), with MLB’s New York Yankees at $7.93 billion. The most valuable football clubs, Manchester United ($6.2 billion) and Real Madrid ($6.06 billion), ranked only 17th and 18th, respectively.

As part of the deal, Jeanie Buss, whose family has controlled the Lakers since her father purchased the team in 1979, intends to remain as team governor, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because neither party had publicly disclosed the details.

It remains unclear how much additional ownership Walter is acquiring. He was part of the group that purchased a 27 percent stake in the Lakers in 2021. Jeanie Buss will retain at least 15 percent of the team after the deal, in line with NBA rules that require a team governor to hold a minimum ownership stake of that amount.

Walter and TWG Global already hold the controlling interest in several high-profile sports organizations, including Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers, Premier League club Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League, and several auto racing teams through TWG Motorsports, including Cadillac’s Formula 1 team.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called the deal “a very exciting day for the Lakers and for the city of Los Angeles.”

“He’s very competitive and he’s going to do everything he can to produce a championship-caliber team every single year,” Roberts said of Walter. “He’ll make sure the city feels proud of the Lakers and their legacy built by the Buss family.”

ESPN first reported the agreement.

“Mark Walter is the best choice and will be the best caretaker of the Laker brand,” Lakers legend Magic Johnson posted on social media. Johnson, a close friend of Jeanie Buss and a business partner of Walter, praised Walter’s track record with the Dodgers, including two World Series appearances and 11 NL West titles over the past 12 years.

Johnson added that he believes Jeanie Buss only agreed to the deal after being confident Walter would uphold the Lakers’ legacy.

“Laker fans should be ecstatic,” Johnson said. “A few things I can tell you about Mark, he’s driven by winning, excellence, and doing everything the right way. And he’ll invest the resources needed to win. I can understand why Jeanie sold the team to Mark Walter; they’re alike: competitive, big-hearted, committed to giving back, and they both prefer to work behind the scenes. This makes all the sense in the world.”

Walter, a notoriously private figure, is the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, a financial services firm with more than $325 billion in assets under management. Johnson is among Guggenheim’s investors.

The Lakers sale follows news in March that Bill Chisholm had agreed to buy the Boston Celtics in a deal valued at $6.1 billion, a figure that, at the time, was set to break the $6.05 billion record set by the 2023 sale of the NFL’s Washington Commanders. The Celtics sale is still pending approval from the NBA’s Board of Governors, which is scheduled to meet in Las Vegas next month.

At $10 billion, the Lakers deal not only surpasses the previous record but shatters it, establishing a new benchmark for sports franchise valuations.

The Buss family has owned the Lakers for 46 years, the longest tenure of any current NBA ownership. The next longest is Herb Simon’s ownership of the Indiana Pacers, which began in 1983.

Jerry Buss bought the Lakers for $67.5 million and led the franchise to 16 NBA Finals appearances and 10 championships over 34 seasons. After his death in 2013, ownership was passed to a trust controlled by his six children, all of whom held various roles within the organization.

Family tensions over team control culminated in a 2017 legal dispute, when Jeanie Buss retained her role as controlling owner following a court battle triggered by her brothers Jim and Johnny Buss. The conflict began after Jeanie ousted Jim as executive vice president of basketball operations.