Jeanie Buss appears to be receiving some assurances from the Los Angeles Lakers’ impending new ownership.
Word broke on Wednesday that Lakers majority owner Mark Walter is selling the franchise at a record-setting $12.5 billion valuation to an ownership group led by ex-Disney CEO Bob Iger and businessman Joshua Kushner. This news comes just over a year after Walter purchased the Lakers from the Buss family for a sum of $10 billion.
Questions immediately then arose over the status of the current Lakers governor Buss. As part of the 2025 deal for Walter to buy the Lakers from the Buss family, Walter agreed that Buss would remain the governor of the franchise as part of a guaranteed contract stiuplation.
In an interview later in the day on Wednesday, Iger revealed that his ownership group intends to honor the previous agreement between Walter and the Buss family. As a result, it appears Buss will indeed remain as Lakers governor.
“We have enormous respect and appreciation for Jeanie, her father [the late Dr. Jerry Buss], and what they have contributed to this franchise,” Iger told Khobi Price of The California Post. “And we have every intention to honor the agreement that was made between Mark and Jeanie. If things change, they’ll change, but we’re going into this with enormous respect and appreciation for who she is and what she represents in the organization.”
Under the agreement between Walter and the Buss family, Buss was set to stay on as governor of the Lakers through at least the turn of the decade. For now, Iger sounds willing to honor that arrangement (though his “if things change, they’ll change” remark there did notably leave the door open for a potential change of heart down the road).
