Buss family to sell remaining stake in Lakers to Josh Kushner, Bob Iger

The Buss family, officially, no longer owns the Los Angeles Lakers.

Less than a week after Bob Iger and Josh Kushner purchased Mark Walter’s stake in the franchise, the Buss family opted to sell its remaining nearly 18% in the Lakers to the pair as well, as reported by Shams Charania of ESPN.

The Buss family provided a statement to ESPN about the sale.

“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. 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.”

Iger and Kushner will not own 100% of the team — at least not yet — as Patrick Soon-Shiong still maintains a minority stake in the Lakers. The LA Times reported last week that he intended to remain a minority owner.

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Among the many ramifications of this sale is that Jeanie Buss will no longer be governor of the team. League rules mandate the team’s governor must own at least 15% of the team.

Initially, Iger told the California Post that they intended to honor the agreement and keep Buss as the team’s governor, but with the caveat of “If things change, they’ll change,…” In the same interview, he also said he and Kushner had not yet made plans for the franchise’s future.

However, according to Yaron Weitzman, who has been around the Lakers since writing a recent book on the LeBron James era, the five other siblings decided to sell the team, ousting Jeanie as governor in the process.

This sale will completely remove the Buss family from the Lakers. Calling it the end of an era would certainly be an understatement.

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Dr. Jerry Buss bought the team in 1979 and the family maintained majority ownership through the sale to Mark Walter in 2025. When/if this sale becomes official, it will end over four decades of ownership by the Buss family.

While the transition from the Buss family to Walter felt like an attempt to keep something close to the status quo, particularly with keeping Jeanie involved, this feels like wiping the slate clean. That certainly may not…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/buss-family-sell-remaining-stake-193730088.html

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Publish date : 2026-08-17 19:37:00

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