The news of the sale of the Los Angeles Lakers to Mark Walter, CEO of TWG Global and owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, came as a shock to many with the Buss family having owned the majority share since Dr. Jerry Buss bought the team in 1979. Upon Dr. Buss’ passing in 2013, daughter Jeanie Buss took over as team president and has maintained that role ever since.
Even with the sale, Jeanie’s role will not change as she will remain on in running the team and, according to ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne, this idea came from Walter himself and is in writing:
“I think this was Mark Walter’s idea for her to stay on. In getting to know Jeanie over the last four years and understanding how important she is to the brand, because the reason this franchise went for $10 billion, it’s not because an NBA team is really worth $10 billion, they don’t even own their building. It’s the brand. I think Jeanie Buss understands the Lakers brand better than anybody. I think he sees how important she is in running and keeping that brand alive and also how she runs a business, also how she runs a franchise. And so it was his idea for her to stay on and it’s in writing. Mark Cuban did not get his role in writing. Jeanie Buss’ is in writing, that’s part of the deal. So she’s staying on for the foreseeable future to run the team. I think it’s interesting, there’s gonna be a great continuity in the transfer of this ownership and I think it’ll be a lot like how Mark Walter took over the Dodgers. He kept Ned Colletti, who was the general manager at the time. He kept Don Mattingly, who was the manager at the time. He kept a lot of the long-term staffers, like everybody was sort of in a trial period. He was observing everyone. And I think Jeanie is gonna be in this role where she’s making a lot of decisions about who’s staying, in consultation with Mark. But he really values her.”
As Shelburne noted, this is something that Walter did with the Dodgers in keeping on top decision makers and not forcing immediate massive changes to the structure of the franchise. Oftentimes throughout all sports, new owners can come in and try to make a huge impact and change things right away, sometimes to not so pleasant results. But that won’t be the case with the Lakers as Jeanie will continue to oversee things in consultation with Walter.
The fact that Jeanie has this in writing should mean that there will be no power struggles or attempts to push her out in the immediate future, keeping peace and continuity within the Lakers as this transfer of ownership goes through and, hopefully, allow the team to continue to build on-court success without unnecessary off-court distractions.
Buss family vote to sell Lakers was not unanimous
In order for the sale of the Lakers to Mark Walter to go through there had to be a majority vote of approval from the six Buss children. They did get that majority, with Jeanie Buss being one of the ones to approve, but it was not a unanimous vote as there were some who did not want to sell.
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