Lakers fans who absorbed significant ticket increases this year could face more. Joshua Kushner's sports investment company, Thrive Eternal, is pitching investors on eliminating ticket brokers and using dynamic pricing to push the average Lakers ticket from $217 to $361 within two years, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing investor documents first obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
The $361 figure comes with a caveat. A person familiar with the deal told the Times the number was meant to show investors how much revenue the Lakers could gain by cutting out middlemen, not to signal another immediate price hike.
Kushner and former Disney chief executive Bob Iger agreed in August to buy controlling interest in the Lakers at a $12.5 billion valuation. The NBA Board of Governors met Sept. 14-15 in New York but did not vote on the sale. Kushner must first divest his minority stake in the Miami Heat. No timeline for league approval has been announced.
Thrive Eternal declined to comment on the investor pitch because the sale has not been approved.
The broker math
The strategy borrows from the Los Angeles Dodgers' playbook. Over the past decade, the Dodgers and other teams have dropped brokers and adopted dynamic pricing, adjusting ticket costs in real time based on supply and demand. The Dodgers are on pace to sell 4 million tickets for a second straight season, leading the major leagues in attendance.
The logic, as the Times described it: sell a $100 ticket to a broker who resells it for $200, or cut out the broker, sell the ticket directly for $200 and pocket the difference.
The Lakers played to 99.8% of capacity last season, according to ESPN. Demand is not the issue. The pitch frames the opportunity as capturing revenue that currently flows to brokers.
Prices already climbing
Fans have already absorbed significant increases. Under Mark Walter's ownership, the Lakers raised season-ticket prices for the 2026-27 season. One example reported by Sports Business Journal: 300-level season tickets jumped more than 45%, from $6,192 to $9,035.
"Obviously it reflects on what the market is now and the demand for tickets," Lakers President of Business Operations Lon Rosen told the LA Times in February, when the team announced the increases. "You can look at how tickets sell and what the prices are."
Arianna Uhalde, an associate professor of clinical marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business, told the Times in an Aug. 21 article on private equity in sports that passionate fans tend to absorb price increases. "They love their teams," she said. "They're likely to still show up in good times and in bad."
The long-term bet
Thrive Eternal's investor pitch projected the Lakers could generate close to $600 million in annual profit by 2037, when the franchise's value could reach $30 billion, the Times reported. For context, the Dallas Cowboys are the world's most valuable sports team at $15.5 billion, according to Sportico.
Walter purchased a majority stake in the Lakers from the Buss family in 2025 for roughly $10 billion, then agreed to sell to Kushner and Iger after 14 months of ownership. The NBA's current media deal is worth $6.9 billion annually through the 2035-36 season.
Lakers Media Day is Sept. 28. The regular season opens Oct. 20.
