Stock Market or L.A. Lakers Ownership?

A mind-blowing statistic for those of you who think, long-term, the stock market is a risky place.  Many risk-averse humans, those who hate to lose money more than they love to win, and there are millions of them, are the real losers.

Jerry Buss bought the Los Angeles Lakers for $67,000,000 in 1979, the year I moved to San Diego.  

He just exited for 149 times his money at $10,000,000,000 in 2025.

Sounds like a lot, right? 

That is $3,000,000,000 less than he would have made by investing in an S&P 500 index fund over that time. 

I do know one thing and this is a certainty.   It would have been a hell of a lot more fun owning the Lakers and walking away with only $10 billion.

The size of the private jets, yachts, homes, and support staff would have been the same.