Former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capitalist Josh Kushner agreed to buy the Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5 billion, a record for any U.S. professional sports franchise. Guggenheim Partners co-founder Mark Walter closed on the $10 billion deal from the Buss family in October 2025 — and is now under federal investigation. Prosecutors allege he failed to disclose approximately $21 billion in private credit loans that moved between his business entities and onto the books of his insurance companies. The deal came together in three days and still needs NBA Board of Governors approval, expected at a September board meeting.

1. Dream Owners (Magic Johnson, Luka Dončić)

Iger knows the game, Kushner knows how to invest, and they're both in it to win.

This is who Laker fans have been waiting for. Lakers legend Magic Johnson said Iger has loved the Lakers for 40 years and promised fans he "will bring championships back to LA." Star player Luka Dončić said he wants to build "something special" with the new owners.

Neither buyer is new to the NBA. Kushner, 41, has already been a minority owner — he held stakes in the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat — and his venture firm Thrive Capital has backed OpenAI, SpaceX, and Spotify. Iger spent decades running the world's biggest entertainment company and knows Los Angeles better than almost anyone in American business.

2. But the Governance Skeptics See a Problem (Forbes' Mark Medina, Defector)

Walter closed on the franchise in October 2025 and is selling it for $2.5 billion more — while under federal investigation.

The NBA should have caught this. Federal agents seized Walter's laptops and phones by September 2025 — roughly three months after he agreed to buy the team. Forbes analyst Mark Medina wrote that this kind of rapid ownership flip "enables potential owners to become house flippers" and "can also lead to organizational instability."

The three-day deal timeline is suspicious. Defector called the pace suspicious for a transaction this size and connected it to Walter's need to exit as his legal situation deteriorated. The NBA has pushed spending restrictions on teams while letting franchise valuations jump $2.5 billion in under a year. Someone pays for that gap, and the league hasn't said who.

3. And the New Owners Bring Their Own Baggage (SAG-AFTRA's Fran Drescher, political critics)

Iger publicly fought Hollywood unions in 2023. His critics in LA haven't moved on.

The 2023 strikes are why Hollywood doesn't fully trust him. During the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, Iger publicly called union demands "not realistic" and described the work stoppage as "very, very damaging" and "very disturbing." SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said she found his comments "terribly repugnant and out of touch." The entertainment workers who fought him now share their city with him as a prominent civic figure.

The Kushner name pulled the White House in on day one. Kushner is a self-described lifelong Democrat who attended the 2017 Women's March and donated $250,000 to a Democratic PAC in the 2024 election cycle. But his brother Jared married Ivanka Trump and served as a senior White House adviser — and when Iger and Kushner announced the deal, the White House felt the need to issue a statement saying it "has nothing to do with President Trump or his administration." The denial itself shows how much political baggage the name carries.

Where This Lands

Magic Johnson and Luka Dončić see two committed, capable owners ready to return the Lakers to championship level. Governance critics say the bigger issue is the process: a team changed hands in three days, while its owner faced a federal investigation, and the NBA's vetting system didn't catch it. A segment of Hollywood's entertainment community is still wary of Iger after the 2023 strikes — they now watch him take a position of cultural power in Los Angeles with no accountability to the workers who fought him. The NBA's Board of Governors votes in September. The league's answers to all three concerns start there.

Sources