In 1979, Jerry Buss bought the Lakers and turned professional basketball into a Hollywood production: courtside celebrities, a fast, camera-ready style of play, an arena built to feel like a stage. He called it Showtime, and it worked so well it became the template every league in the world eventually copied.
Forty-seven years later, the team Buss built as entertainment is being bought by the man who spent his career running the biggest entertainment company on earth. Bob Iger, who built Disney around owning stories the world already loved, is now buying the story Buss invented.
The deal, reported Wednesday by ESPN, values the Lakers at roughly $12.5 billion, the highest price ever paid for a U.S. sports franchise. Iger and Josh Kushner, the venture capitalist who founded Thrive Capital, are buying the team from Mark Walter, who purchased a controlling stake from the Buss family just 14 months ago at a $10 billion valuation, making Walter’s return roughly 21%.
“As 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,” Kushner and Iger said in a joint statement. “We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss.”
Iger stepped down as Disney’s chief executive in March, was replaced by Josh D’Amaro, and took an advisory role at Thrive Capital, Kushner’s firm. He previously was a venture partner at Thrive before Disney called him back in 2022 to replace Bob Chapek as CEO. Before this deal ever closed, Kushner was already Iger’s boss.
A sports entertainment venture
Kushner, 41, built Thrive Capital into one of the most consequential venture firms in tech, with early stakes in Instagram, Spotify, Stripe, and OpenAI. Earlier this year he launched a second vehicle, Thrive Eternal, structured as permanent capital meant to buy and hold minority stakes in sports teams and what the firm calls “other iconic brands.” Its first deal was a minority stake in the San Francisco Giants.
Then in July, FIFA president Gianni Infantino unveiled a plan to sell a stake in the organization’s commercial rights, including World Cup broadcasting and sponsorship revenue, through a new subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise. The subsidiary carried a proposed $20 billion valuation, with up to $4.2 billion available to outside investors. Kushner’s Thrive Eternal was named the lead investor. Following intense backlash and threats of a boycott, FIFA shelved it within a week.
Three months later, the same investor closed the largest sports-ownership deal in U.S. history.
Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and former senior advisor to President Donald Trump. Josh Kushner has his own political footprint: He appeared at the March for Our Lives rally in 2018 alongside his now-wife, Karlie Kloss, protesting gun policy. His most recent political donation on record went to the Obama Foundation.
The Lakers of the 1980s, under Jerry Buss, were built deliberately as entertainment as much as basketball: courtside celebrities, a fast, camera-friendly style of play, an arena treated as a stage. Disney under Iger ran on a similar principle, buying Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, and 21st Century Fox for the stories attached to them, building a franchise in itself.
Walter, who is selling the team after little more than a year of ownership, said in a statement owning the Lakers had been “one of the great honors of my life.” When Walter bought the team last year, Magic Johnson told the Los Angeles Times Jeanie Buss had made the right call: “One thing that Jeanie was going to do is put the franchise in the right hands. If she was going to sell, it had to be the right person, and Mark Walter is the right person to take over and lead us for the next 30, 40 years. So, this is the best news that could have happened for all Laker fans across the world. Mark has had his eye on the Lakers for a long time.” On X, Johnson added: “Laker fans should be ecstatic. A few things I can tell you about Mark – he is driven by winning, excellence, and doing everything the right way.”
Fourteen months later, with Walter already selling, Johnson posted his reaction to Iger and Kushner on X: “Laker fans, you couldn’t have two better owners. I’ve known Bob personally for over 40 years – he has always loved the Lakers and basketball and he will bring championships back to LA.”
Johnson would know what the bar looks like. He won five championships under Buss and has spent the years since defending the Showtime standard against every owner who followed, including a public break with Jim Buss