Jeanie Buss is locked in a legal dispute with her siblings after they announced plans to sell the family's remaining stake in the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers to billionaires Bob Iger and Josh Kushner.
According to CNBC and ESPN, Jeanie's lawyers sent a letter demanding the deal be halted, arguing that the sale could violate NBA rules on minimum ownership stakes for team governors. Specifically, the NBA requires a governor or controlling owner to hold at least 15% of the team's shares.
The Buss family, which has owned the Lakers since 1979, issued a statement on Monday (local time) announcing the sale of the remaining 17.8% stake in the family trust to the Iger-Kushner group. The statement read: “We love the Lakers and the fans, but it is time to hand over the reins and step back gracefully while we can.”
However, Jeanie Buss, who has served as Lakers governor since 2013 following her father's death, disagrees with the decision. Her attorney Adam Streisand sent a letter to her siblings Jim, Johnny, Janie, Joey, and Jesse Buss, emphasizing that a 2017 court ruling requires all Lakers stake sales to be approved by co-trustees, including Jeanie.
The letter stated: “The co-trustees have a duty to vote to ensure the minimum 15% ownership requirement is maintained so that Jeanie Buss continues as the controlling owner. Any attempt to do otherwise would be a breach of trust, a violation of fiduciary duty, and contempt of court.”
The background to the current deal began 14 months ago, when Jeanie led the sale of the Lakers to billionaire Mark Walter for $10 billion—a record at the time in U.S. professional sports. That agreement allowed Jeanie to remain governor until 2030, but her siblings were excluded from management roles in the deal.
Last week, Walter sold the Lakers to Bob Iger and Josh Kushner for $12.5 billion, breaking the record for a U.S. sports team sale. The transaction is still awaiting NBA approval.
Walter, CEO of TWG Global, also owns the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team and the Los Angeles Sparks women's basketball team. He is under federal investigation over alleged tax fraud related to four other businesses.
If the deal goes through, Iger and Kushner would hold roughly 83% of the Lakers. The NBA Board of Governors, which approves such transactions, is scheduled to meet on September 15-16 in New York.
