Who owns the lakers franchise

As such, there is no clear-cut correlation to Johnson's criticism and anything but him wanting the Lakers to win again. Johnson couldn't be majority owner of the Lakers anyway, because he's still a long way from being that rich.

Johnson showed, however, how he could be the fresh face of a marquee franchise in the purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. Mark Walter, chief executive officer of financial services company Guggenheim Partners, put in the most money, and Stan Kasten was to be the baseball brains in the operation—but Johnson had the profile. It's not impossible to envision something similar happening someday with the Lakers.

If things had broken just a little differently, we might be talking now about Johnson running the Clippers instead of cheering for the Lakers. This is what Guggenheim spokesman Terry Fahn said at the time about buying the Clippers: "Earvin Johnson is not certain if he is interested in joining at this point, given his love of the Lakers and Dr. Buss and his hope that he can be involved in that franchise at some point. There's no question the NBA would love to have Johnson as a prominent owner, something he expressed interest in as far back as the s.

The league's appreciation for Johnson only increased a year ago when he stepped in, again with Walter's funding assistance, to buy the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks when that club, first owned by Jerry Buss, fell so far it nearly ceased to exist. Although the Lakers, if ever up for sale, would logically go at auction to the highest bidder with no shortage of billionaire bidders , it would naturally be the ultimate fit for Johnson.

Cooke was successful and he owned several professional teams, enjoying paramount success. Then, Dr. Jerry Buss acquired the franchise, and the rest is history Or scroll on top to read again!

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