The Los Angeles Lakers have a new ownership group, and it doesn’t look anything like the last one. Bob Iger and Josh Kushner have reportedly agreed to buy the franchise from Mark Walter in a deal worth $12.5 billion, the highest price ever paid for a North American sports team.The agreement comes barely 14 months after Walter purchased the Lakers from the Buss family at a $10 billion valuation, and it lands as Walter faces reported federal scrutiny over his broader business holdings. Two men with almost no shared history in pro sports ownership are now steering one of the NBA’s flagship franchises.
Who is Bob Iger?
Bob Iger. Image via: Michael Kovac | Getty Images
Bob Iger, 75, spent close to two decades running one of the most powerful companies in entertainment. He served as CEO of The Walt Disney Company from 2005 to 2020, then returned for a second stint from 2022 until stepping down again this past March. His fingerprints are on nearly every major move Disney made during that stretch.He pushed through the 1996 purchase of Capital Cities/ABC, which gave Disney its controlling stake in ESPN, and later oversaw the acquisitions of Pixar in 2006, Marvel in 2009 and Lucasfilm in 2012, a deal worth more than $4 billion that relaunched the Star Wars franchise across film and television. In 2018, he engineered Disney’s $71 billion purchase of 20th Century Fox, bringing Hulu, FX and National Geographic under the Disney banner.Iger also helped launch ESPN’s direct-to-consumer streaming platform in 2025, building on the ESPN+ service that debuted back in 2018 during his first run as CEO. After initially leaving Disney in 2020, he joined Kushner’s venture capital firm, Thrive Capital, as a partner, then departed again when he returned to Disney in 2022.He rejoined Thrive as an adviser this past April, a relationship that laid the groundwork for the Lakers deal. Beyond the boardroom, Iger and his wife, Willow Bay, a former host of “NBA Inside Stuff,” have owned Angel City FC, the Los Angeles-based NWSL club, since 2024. The Lakers now become his second major sports ownership stake.
Who is Josh Kushner?
Josh Kushner. Image via: Getty Images
At 41, Josh Kushner has built one of the most closely watched portfolios in venture capital. He founded Thrive Capital in 2010, and the firm has since raised more than $10 billion in its latest funding round, backing companies like OpenAI, SpaceX, Spotify, SKIMS and A24.OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company has received major Thrive investment, including another $1 billion round in December, once told Fortune, “Josh makes high-conviction bets on high-quality companies and founders, and he doesn’t care too much about what other investors think. I feel a lot of camaraderie with that.”Kushner has increasingly turned his attention toward sports and legacy institutions. He launched Thrive Eternal this year to invest in what the firm calls “assets with qualities that cannot be replicated by technology,” and used it to acquire a minority stake in the San Francisco Giants. He also owns a minority piece of the Miami Heat, which he’ll be required to sell as part of the Lakers agreement.Born in New Jersey to real estate developer Charles Kushner, Josh is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Donald Trump. He’s kept his distance from the family’s political orbit, saying in 2017 that “liberal values have guided my life.” He’s married to model Karlie Kloss, and the couple has three children. Kushner also founded health insurer Oscar Health in 2012. Forbes puts his net worth at roughly $5 billion.
How Bob Iger and Josh Kushner landed historic $12.5 billion Lakers deal
According to a source who told The Athletic, Kushner reached out to Walter on a Friday, and the deal came together over the following weekend. Walter wasn’t actively shopping the franchise, the source said, but the offer proved too strong to walk away from. In just 14 months, the Lakers’ valuation jumped from $10 billion to $12.5 billion.Walter’s business empire, including his role at Guggenheim Partners, has reportedly drawn federal scrutiny tied to questions about loans connected to his insurance holdings.Federal agents seized his phone last fall, according to Bloomberg, and investigators are reportedly examining whether Mubadala Capital was misled about company valuations before the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund invested $10 billion into Walter’s firm, months before that firm bought the Lakers. There’s no confirmed link between the investigation and the sale, but the optics haven’t gone unnoticed.Kushner and Iger had reportedly explored bringing an NBA expansion franchise to Las Vegas before pivoting toward the Lakers. The sale does not include Walter’s ownership of the Dodgers or the Sparks, and it still requires approval from at least three-quarters of the NBA’s Board of Governors.
Did Bob Iger once refuse to root for the Lakers?
Here’s where the story gets a little awkward for the Lakers’ new co-owner. Iger has long been an outspoken Clippers fan, a fact that resurfaced almost immediately once news of the sale broke. Back in January 2021, during an appearance on the “The Old Man and the Three” podcast hosted by current Lakers head coach JJ Redick, Iger explained why he could never bring himself to support the Lakers after relocating to Los Angeles in 2000.“Having moved from New York to Los Angeles back in 2000 and being a big NBA fan, I needed a team to root for,” Iger told Redick. “Lakers were a big rival of the Knicks, the team I grew up rooting for, so I couldn’t root for the Lakers very easily; it just was not in my DNA.”He picked the Clippers instead, partly out of Knicks loyalty and partly for a far more practical reason. “Their seats were a lot cheaper than the Lakers,” he told Redick at the time.Now the man who once found the Lakers financially and emotionally out of reach owns a piece of the franchise outright. Magic Johnson, who has known Iger for decades, offered fans some reassurance on social media. “Laker fans, you couldn’t have two better owners,” Johnson wrote. “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.”
What does Bob Iger and Josh Kushner’s ownership mean for the Lakers?
The basketball operation itself remains largely intact for now. Rob Pelinka is entering his ninth season as president of basketball operations, and Redick is beginning his third year as head coach, working with a roster that no longer includes LeBron James after this summer’s moves, including the acquisition of Walker Kessler from Utah. Iger has said he intends to honor Buss’s five-year governance agreement with the prior ownership group, though he added a caveat during a conversation with The California Post: “If things change, they’ll change.”What remains unclear is how an Iger-Kushner front office will actually operate day to day, and whether the entertainment and venture capital instincts that built their fortunes translate to running a championship-caliber roster. That answer starts to take shape once the sale clears the league’s approval process.