The Los Angeles Lakers organization is undergoing some major changes as Mark Walter decided to sell his majority ownership stake in the team to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for a $12.5 billion valuation just one year after he bought the team from Jeanie and the Buss family.
The Buss family maintained a 17.8% minority stake in the original sale, but they are now getting out as well, agreeing to sell their remaining shares to Iger and Kushner.
It took four out of the six Buss siblings voting in favor of making this happen, and now that an agreement has been made, they released a statement to Shams Charania of ESPN:
“We have decided as a family to sell the remaining Buss Family Trust shares to the Bob Iger group as part of the ongoing transaction,” the family said in a statement. “We love the Lakers, Laker fans and will continue to support Los Angeles; but it is time to use this opportunity to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.”
That last sentence of the statement is telling as the Buss’ obviously felt this sale was the perfect way for them to get out before it was too late. Their family has had some notable disagreements throughout this whole process, and it appears that may have been the case here too.
Regardless, the Buss family’s legacy will forever be an exceptional one as the Lakers have won a league-best 11 championships since Dr. Jerry Buss purchased the organization in 1979.
After his death, Joey and Jeanie took over the organization until the latter kicked her brother out in 2017 to bring in Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka to run basketball operations.
When the Buss family decided to sell its majority stake last year, they thought the franchise was in good hands with Walter. Now that he is being federally investigated though, he decided to flip the team to Iger and Kushner.
All of these sales will need to be approved by the NBA’s board of governors when they meet later this year, but the Lakers are about to enter a brand new era with completely different ownership for the first time in over 40 years.
Jeanie Buss can no longer be Lakers governor
The original plan when Iger and Kushner bought the team was for Jeanie Buss to remain the Lakers’ governor. A 15% ownership stake is required in order for that to happen though, so now that the Buss family is selling, the Lakers will need a new governor with Iger making sense for that role.
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