NBA Team Valuations

1. The whole league is worth about $162 billion. Summing the 30 franchise valuations produces an aggregate market value of roughly $162 billion — up from about $120 billion a year ago. The 35% year-over-year lift is the largest in the league's Forbes tracking history.

2. The new $76B media deal is the story. In July 2024 the NBA locked in an 11-year national media package with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon at roughly $6.9B per year — nearly triple the prior deal. Every franchise's national-revenue share stepped up sharply, and the market repriced accordingly.

3. Warriors, Knicks, and Lakers each cleared $10 billion. That is a new threshold in the sport — the first time three NBA franchises have simultaneously carried marks above $10 billion. Golden State's arena ownership, New York's market and MSG package, and the Lakers' brand-plus-market combination each drive the premium in a different way.

4. The Denver Nuggets +52% is the largest one-year revaluation. Championship year plus strong local-media renewal drove the move; the Kroenke ownership vehicle (which also owns the NHL Avalanche and stadium) shares fixed cost across teams.

5. Operating income spans a wide range even within the same league. Warriors generate $126M in operating income on $820M in revenue (15% margin). Grizzlies generate $26M on $308M (8% margin). The Oklahoma City Thunder run the best margin in the league — $59M on $333M (18%) — on a small-market cost structure and a favorable arena deal.

Los Angeles Lakers (2) — Josh Kushner & Bob Iger — $12.5 billion (August 12, 2026). Mark Walter sold his controlling interest in the Lakers to a group led by Josh Kushner (founder, Thrive Capital) and Bob Iger (former CEO, The Walt Disney Company) at a reported price of $12.5 billion (per CNBC, citing a person familiar with the matter) — a 25% markup over the price Walter paid the Buss family fourteen months earlier. Kushner and Iger were originally in the NBA's Las Vegas expansion process; per ESPN reporting they pivoted to acquire an existing franchise rather than wait through the multi-year expansion timeline. Walter's exit sits against a public backdrop: US prosecutors in Manhattan are examining whether Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co. — two insurers controlled by Walter — failed to disclose that portions of their private-credit holdings backed other Walter-controlled ventures (Reuters, Bloomberg; the investigation is not tied to the Lakers or the Dodgers). Institute point of view: the 25% markup on a fourteen-month hold is the market's clearest statement to date that trophy-asset scarcity dominates fundamentals in the current cycle. Iger's Disney tenure — including his role as CEO during the July 2024 eleven-year, $76B NBA-Disney-NBCU-Amazon media agreement — is best framed as operating expertise the Lakers ownership group has acquired. The current media deal runs through roughly the 2035-36 season, every ownership group has full visibility into its terms, and the renewal discussion is a decade away.

Los Angeles Lakers (2) — Mark Walter — $10 billion, closed June 2025. The Buss family sold their controlling interest in the Lakers to Mark Walter (CEO of Guggenheim Partners; controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers via Guggenheim Baseball Management; owner of stakes in Chelsea FC and Cadillac F1) at a $10 billion enterprise value — the largest sports franchise transaction in US history at the time of announcement, and the first NBA franchise to trade at eight figures per fan seat. The price aligned with the Forbes 2025 mark of $10.00B on the Lakers, which was itself a 41% one-year jump. Jeanie Buss retained a role in franchise leadership; the Buss family retained a minority position. Walter continues to control the Los Angeles Dodgers via Guggenheim Baseball Management. The August 2026 Kushner and Iger agreement at a reported $12.5B would supersede this price if it closes; as of September 8, 2026 it has not, and the Board of Governors vote is scheduled for September 15–16, 2026.

Boston Celtics — Bill Chisholm group — $6.1 billion (March 2025). The Grousbeck family sold the Celtics to an ownership group led by Bill Chisholm (co-founder of Symphony Technology Group; managing partner of STG). The $6.1 billion price closed slightly below the Forbes 2025 mark of $6.7B, but was still the second-largest NBA transaction on record at the time and the largest Boston-area sports franchise sale in history. Wyc Grousbeck (governor since the 2002 acquisition) is expected to retain a governance role for a transition period.

Minnesota Timberwolves & Minnesota Lynx — Marc Stad — $4.5 billion (agreed August 21, 2026; pending league approval). Marc Lore agreed to sell the majority of his controlling stake to Marc Stad, founder and managing partner of San Francisco growth-equity firm Dragoneer Investment Group (an early backer of Uber, Airbnb, and DoorDash) and already a minority investor in the group. Lore retains a minority position and steps back to focus on an IPO push at his food-technology company, Wonder Group. Alex Rodriguez increases his stake and becomes Co-Chairman, Governor of the Lynx, and alternate Governor of the Timberwolves; Elisa Stad is slated to serve as Timberwolves governor. At $4.5B the mark would rank fourth-highest in NBA history. Institute point of view: read the return figure carefully. The popular framing is a 200% gain in fourteen months, measured from the $1.5B June 2025 close. The arithmetic is right and the interpretation is wrong. The $1.5B was a price struck in April 2021 and then defended — Glen Taylor moved to void the deal in March 2024, an arbitration panel ruled for Lore and Rodriguez in February 2025, and the NBA Board of Governors unanimously approved the sale on June 24, 2025. What the buyers won in that arbitration was the right to close at a four-year-old price. The gain accrued across five years of league-wide repricing on the July 2024 $76B national-media deal, not across fourteen months of value creation. The transferable lesson is about contract, not timing: a signed purchase agreement with an enforceable price, held through a hostile counterparty and a multi-year dispute, was worth roughly $3B here.

Aggregate 2025-2026 NBA transaction volume. Three franchise-control transactions inside eighteen months at a combined $28.6 billion — and the Lakers accounting for $22.5 billion of that total across two trades of the same franchise — is unprecedented in NBA history. All three trades happened in the immediate wake of the July 2024 $76B national-media deal, which lifted the underlying revenue base of every NBA franchise. The two Lakers buyers of record represent different profiles: Walter was the classic operator-collector building a multi-league sports portfolio (Dodgers, Chelsea FC, Cadillac F1); Kushner and Iger represent a growth-capital principal (Thrive) plus a former operating-CEO of the counterparty on the NBA's largest media contract (Disney/ESPN). The Institute reads that combination as a bet on continued rights-value expansion rather than on operating-margin extraction — the two buyers who are best positioned to know where the next NBA media dollar goes are willing to pay a 25% markup on a fourteen-month hold to own the asset it flows into.

Institute Field Note. Full practitioner treatment: Field Note No. 2 — "The 20% Markup: What the Lakers' $12B Second Sale in Fourteen Months Says About Trophy-Asset Pricing."