Thrive Capital founder Joshua Kushner and former Disney CEO Bob Iger stunned the sports world this week with a deal to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for a record $12.5 billion. <\/p>\n
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If approved, the acquisition would provide the new owners with an iconic NBA franchise that boasts 17 championships as well as ties to legends like Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O\u2019Neal, and LeBron James.<\/p>\n
But ownership of the Lakers would also provide tax benefits. In fact, sports teams have long been considered great tax shelters for wealthy individuals. <\/p>\n
That was not lost on Ram Ahluwalia, founder of Lumida Wealth Management, who said Kushner\u2019s Lakers deal has nothing to do with sports teams as an asset class.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a powerful tax shield,\u201d he posted on X on Saturday. \u201cMy guess is he is preparing to offset a boatload of carried interest income. If you own a sports team, done correctly, you can get a deduction against income. The goal in acquiring a sports team is to setup a \u2018non-passive\u2019 deduction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahluwalia pointed out that Kushner is likely facing big gains from his holdings in SpaceX, OpenAI and Stripe. Meanwhile, tax deduction benefits from owning a team are more favorable than owning real estate.<\/p>\n
He added that Warren Buffett mastered the art of depreciating goodwill expenses from high-quality brands like See\u2019s Candies and Dairy Queen that are owned by Berkshire Hathaway.<\/p>\n
Similarly, when Mark Cuban was the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks NBA franchise, he handled it very well, according to Ahluwalia. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe also grew the equity value at the same time. Net net he transformed high income tax into lower taxed capital gains. That\u2019s a trifecta,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
Thrive Capital didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
The blockbuster Lakers acquisition comes as pro teams have become hot commodities. Just last month, Silicon Valley venture capitalist\u00a0Vinod Khosla\u00a0agreed to buy the NFL\u2019s Seattle Seahawks for $9.6 billion.<\/p>\n
And in 2025, the Boston Celtics were sold for $6.1 billion, a record at the time\u2014until Mark Walter bought the Lakers for $10 billion later that year.<\/p>\n
By amortizing key assets like media rights and treating other assets as depreciable like contracts and the stadium, team owners can lower their tax bills.<\/p>\n
For example, a team\u2019s roster of players can be counted as an intangible asset that depreciates over time, generating hefty paper losses that offset an owner\u2019s taxable income elsewhere. Similarly, depreciation on stadium infrastructure can further shield an owner\u2019s income.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s possible even as a team appreciates in value while its actual business operations are also profitable.<\/p>\n
Broadcast rights have also emerged as a major factor in team valuations, especially as sporting events have retained their ability to draw viewers and advertisers. Regional broadcast deals can be structured to allow team owners to shift income to units with better tax rates.<\/p>\n
Thanks to long-term media deals, team revenue has become far steadier. Because of this, a team can stay profitable \u201cregardless of the number of people that shows up\u201d on a given night, David Silverman, a partner in Cooley\u2019s M&A group who worked on the Celtics sale, told\u00a0Fortune\u2019s<\/em> \u00a0Catherina Gioino\u00a0last month.<\/p>\nIn addition, consumers are spending more on in-person experiences generally, and sports captures that spending better than most entertainment options, he noted. As a result, franchise values have compounded at a pace few other asset classes can match over the long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is being part of a very elite and exclusive club of owners that control those franchises,\u201d Silverman said.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cThere are unique business opportunities that come from both being part of that club and being notable in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n#Lakers #provide #Joshua #Kushner #iconic #team #powerful #tax #shield<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thrive Capital founder Joshua … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2824,4207,4208,4206,1211,4716,4717,327,227,649,330],"class_list":["post-2435","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-iconic","tag-joshua","tag-kushner","tag-lakers","tag-powerful","tag-provide","tag-shield","tag-sports","tag-tax","tag-taxes","tag-team"],"yoast_head":"\n
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