Bob Iger and Josh Kushner buy Lakers for $12.5 billion

One of the most iconic teams in the NBA is changing hands again. A group led by Disney’s ex-CEO and Jared Kushner’s baby bro will buy the controlling majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking $12.5 billion, ESPN reported yesterday.If the league approves it, the deal would represent the highest valuation in history for any sports team, breaking a record set roughly one year ago by the previous sale of the Lakers:Last summer, businessman Mark Walter bought a majority stake from the Lakers’ longtime owners, the Buss family, for ~$10 billion. (The Buss family still owns a minority stake.)Now, Walter will sell his stake to a group led by Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, as the recently LeBron James-less team looks to reshape around Luka Dončić, the league’s top offensive scorer last season.Walter’s decision to flip the Lakers faster than a renovated house…comes as his business empire faces potential legal peril. The 66-year-old insurance magnate-slash-chair of asset-management firm Guggenheim Partners-slash-owner of the LA Dodgers is under federal investigation for alleged tax fraud involving billions of dollars in loans to his companies.Selling the Lakers should expedite Walter’s current efforts to raise cash to pay down those loans, Bloomberg reported yesterday.Meet the new ownersYou probably know Iger as the CEO of NBA broadcast partner Disney, which he helmed from 2005 to 2020 and again from 2022 until March 2026. And you may know Kushner as a high-profile investor. He’s also the younger brother of President Trump’s son-in-law and unofficial White House advisor, Jared.Additionally, Iger advises Thrive Capital, the younger Kushner’s VC firm that bets big on AI companies, and the duo was involved in the NBA’s potential Las Vegas expansion before pivoting to buy the Lakers, per ESPN.The younger Kushner is ramping up his sports investments. Thrive Eternal, an experiences-focused Thrive Capital subsidiary, bought a stake in the San Francisco Giants earlier this year. More recently, Thrive Eternal was on track to buy a piece of the World Cup, until reports of FIFA’s private investment proposal triggered major backlash and led President Gianni Infantino to scrap the plans.—ML