{"id":64647,"date":"2026-08-12T23:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/64647\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:04:24","slug":"bob-iger-joshua-kushner-to-buy-lakers-from-mark-walter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/64647\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Iger, Joshua Kushner to buy Lakers from Mark Walter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Less than a year after Dodgers<\/a> owner Mark Walter<\/a> bought the Lakers<\/a> for a record-breaking sum<\/a>, majority ownership of L.A.\u2019s iconic NBA franchise is now being sold to Joshua Kushner<\/a> and Bob Iger<\/a> for $12.5 billion, sources familiar with the matter but not authorized to speak publicly confirmed to The Times.<\/p>\n

It is $2.5 billion more than the reported number when Walter bought the team in October from the Buss family.<\/p>\n

Kushner, of permanent-capital holding company Thrive Eternal and younger brother of Jared Kushner, and Iger, Disney\u2019s former chief executive, were recently looking into buying an expansion franchise<\/a> as the NBA eyed new teams in Seattle and Las Vegas. Walter, who also owns the Dodgers and the Sparks, has been at the center of a federal loan investigation<\/a>. The Dodgers and Sparks<\/a> were not involved in the deal, according to a source familiar with the transaction but not authorized to speak publicly, and Walter is not looking to sell the Dodgers<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Walter\u2019s firm, TWG Global, is in talks with investors to raise money to help pay down loans on the books of its insurers that had drawn scrutiny from the Justice Department, Bloomberg reported<\/a> citing anonymous sources.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world,\u201d Kushner and Iger said in a statement. \u201cWe have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss. Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeanie Buss<\/a>, whose family owned the Lakers for more than four decades, remained the governor of the Lakers despite the family selling controlling ownership of the team to Walter last year. Minority owners can still serve as the team\u2019s representative in league meetings if they own at least 15% of the team. Buss remained a fixture at games, sitting courtside during the season, with Walter occasionally joining her or sitting courtside near the baseline. The NBA announced in October after the sale was unanimously approved by the board of governors that Buss would be the team\u2019s governor for at least five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOwning the Los Angeles Lakers has been one of the great honors of my life \u2014 an extraordinary investment, but what I will carry with me is the community, the fans, and a city that treats this team as family,\u201d Walter said in the statement to ESPN, who first reported the sale Wednesday morning. \u201cI am grateful to Jeanie Buss, the Buss family, the players, and the staff for welcoming me into this chapter. The Lakers belong to Los Angeles, and I have every confidence the best is still ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the L.A. Times Media Group and minority owner of the Lakers, welcomed his new business partners on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cGo Lakers!\u201d he posted on X<\/a>. \u201cCongrats Bob and Josh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iger stepped down from his role as Disney CEO in mid-March, but he remains on the board of directors through December. The longtime executive and his wife Willow Bay, the dean of USC\u2019s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, bought a controlling stake in NWSL club Angel City FC<\/a> in 2024 and led a project to build an NFL stadium in Carson<\/a> before the NFL instead returned to Inglewood, where Rams owner Stan Kroenke built SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n

\"Mark <\/p>\n

Mark Walter, chairman and controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, acknowledges a fan before a game against the Chicago Cubs last week.<\/p>\n

(Melissa Tamez \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Kushner also owns a minority stake in the Miami Heat, which he bought in 2024 and must now sell to finalize the Lakers purchase. He was previously a minority owner in the Memphis Grizzlies. This year, his venture capital firm Thrive Capital launched Thrive Eternal, which is focused on long-term ownership of a small number of iconic franchises and cultural institutions, and acquired a stake in the San Francisco Giants as its first foray into sports. Thrive Eternal was at the center of a plan to buy tournament rights to the FIFA World Cup<\/a>, but the controversial deal collapsed amid outrage<\/a>, including a boycott from UEFA, the governing body for European soccer.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoth of them love basketball,\u201d Lakers legend Magic Johnson said in an interview with The Times. \u201cAnd I think they\u2019ll take us in the right direction. \u2026 First I was happy because it was Mark Walter and now I\u2019m even happier that it\u2019s Bob Iger and Josh Kushner so we got the right two people to own the team. Bob lived here, Bob worked here, on and on and on. And he wants to win. Both of them want to win. And you gotta have people who want to win. They\u2019ll bring all the resources and make sure they bring a championship to Laker fans and L.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his short tenure, Walter and TWG Global started remaking front-office and business operations<\/a> with the Lakers. The franchise was investing in assistant general manager positions this offseason, growing its sports science resources with the help of the Dodgers and moving G League operations from the South Bay to the Coachella Valley. Lakers general manager and president of basketball Rob Pelinka called the two-time defending World Series champion<\/a> Dodgers and Lakers \u201cbrother-sister\u201d organizations.<\/p>\n

Despite being one of the NBA\u2019s marquee franchises, the Lakers, who had been a family-run team for 46 years since Jerry Buss bought the franchise in 1979, were starting to fall behind in the booming NBA business. Within months of buying the team, Walter installed Dodgers executive Lon Rosen to oversee business operations<\/a>. Rosen added new roles to drive revenue, oversee business strategy and grow interest in the franchise domestically and internationally. <\/p>\n

The Lakers added a second row for courtside seats during playoff games, sold a uniform sponsorship to Daiso for the Laker Girls dance team and agreed to a new jersey patch deal with Albert, a personal financial assistant app. The team also laid off more than a dozen employees in May, soon after the season ended with a second-round playoff sweep by the Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a year after Dodgers owner Mark Walter bought the Lakers for a record-breaking sum, majority ownership…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4094,33744,33745,2124,3208,8,26360,30899,3213,306,33746,2733,9,7061,7003,7,16042,1349],"class_list":["post-64647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-bob-iger","tag-buss-family","tag-expansion-franchise","tag-family","tag-game","tag-headlines","tag-jeanie-buss","tag-joshua-kushner","tag-lakers","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mark-walter","tag-nba","tag-news","tag-owner","tag-team","tag-top-stories","tag-walter","tag-year"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/117085042645600663","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}