Circular Financing

About this episode

Mark Walter bought the Lakers for $10 billion and sold them fourteen months later for $12.5. That's a 20% return - which sounds enormous until you consider that nobody sells the Lakers after a year unless something has gone badly wrong. Chris Branch, author of The Athletic's The Pulse, joins to pull on the thread: life insurance money funding franchise purchases, a UAE sovereign wealth fund in the holding company, a Kushner and a former Disney CEO waiting on the other side. Neither of them can prove anything. Both of them can tell something is rotten. -- Timestamps: (00:00) - Welcome and Guest Intro (00:45) - Why the Lakers Sale Matters (03:12) - Mark Walter’s Rise and Red Flags (04:58) - Insurance Money and Shady Ownership (07:24) - Sports Franchise Valuation Boom (10:42) - Streaming Deals and Bubble Fears (11:50) - Fans Priced Out and Losing Connection (14:35) - What Happens Next for Walter (18:17) - NBA Expansion Vegas vs Europe (25:42) - When Franchise Values Could Fall (26:55) - New Orleans Relocation History (27:43) - NBA Valuations and Debt (28:32) - Financing Partners and Risk (29:25) - LSU NFL Return Loophole (32:02) - NIL Money and No Rules (35:03) - Uni