Josh Kushner and Bob Iger poised to buy Los Angeles Lakers for $12.5bn, pending NBA approval
On Wednesday, ESPN reported that the Los Angeles Lakers are set to be sold to venture capitalist Josh Kushner and former Disney chief Bob Iger for $12.5bn, a figure the report said would be a record for any North American sports team. The transaction must be approved by the NBA’s board of governors before it can go through.
Mark Walter acquired control of the Lakers from the Buss family last October at a valuation of roughly $10bn; the Guardian report says Walter stands to be about $2bn richer from the sale. The prospective buyers named in coverage are Kushner and Iger; Kushner built Thrive Capital beginning in 2009 and Iger is the former CEO of Disney. The report notes Kushner founded Thrive Eternal for long-term positions in sports, media and entertainment and that league conflict rules will force him to shed his Miami Heat stake before he could run the Lakers.
The Guardian account cites Bloomberg reporting that Manhattan prosecutors are examining whether two insurers controlled by Walter, Delaware Life Insurance Co and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co, concealed that their private-credit books were propping up his other businesses, and that the SEC has opened an inquiry; loans at issue were reported to run near $16bn. A TWG Global spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal: "Mark Walter and TWG have always acted in good faith, and those who have done business with Mark know him as honest and straightforward." The piece also lists TWG Global holdings in MLB’s Dodgers, the WNBA’s Sparks, Chelsea, the Professional Women’s Hockey League and Cadillac’s Formula 1 team.
The report chronicles Kushner’s investment track record, saying he began Thrive at age 24 and built it into a firm the article describes as worth more than $60bn, with early bets including Instagram—entered at a $500m valuation days before Facebook paid $1bn—and investments in OpenAI, Stripe, Spotify, GitHub and Skims. It adds that Thrive Eternal’s first major sports move was a stake in MLB’s San Francisco Giants and that Kushner already owns a piece of the Miami Heat.
The Guardian describes a recent episode in which Fifa proposed late in July to hive off its commercial arm into a new company, Fifa Forward Enterprises, and sell 20% to a Thrive Eternal-led group for $4.2bn, but says Europe rejected the plan and Uefa convened an emergency summit that prompted negotiations to end within a week. The article quotes Jamie Raskin: "Over the last few weeks, Fifa’s cozy relationship to Donald Trump has been floating to the top of the swamp of quid pro quo corruption in which the Trump Administration is swimming," Raskin said in a statement to the Guardian.
The piece outlines the Kushner family’s political connections, noting Josh Kushner is the younger brother of Jared Kushner, and stating Jared is "now a Special Envoy for Peace and helped negotiate the recent ceasefire with Iran." It records that their father, Charles Kushner, "pleaded guilty in 2005 to 18 counts – among them illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering – and was sentenced to two years in prison," and that "Trump pardoned him in 2020, and today he represents the United States as ambassador to France, a job he holds despite not speaking French." The report also notes that Josh Kushner is a registered Democrat who told Forbes in 2017 that "liberal values shaped him," that he did not vote for Trump, and that his wife Karlie Kloss "publicly split with her in-laws in 2021, writing that honoring a legitimate election is patriotic and inciting violence is not."
The article calls attention to the growing role of wealthy investors in sport and points to recent examples of collective action by players and fans, citing how NFL players in 2020 forced commissioner Roger Goodell into an apology over handling of athlete protests, how NBA players threatened to boycott the season that year over the police shooting of Jacob Blake, and how a proposed European Super League was abandoned in 2021 after fan backlash. It states that athletes and fans remain the last line of defense against owners.
The immediate next step reported is formal approval by the NBA’s board of governors before the sale can be completed, and the coverage reiterates that Kushner will be required by league conflict rules to divest his Miami Heat stake before assuming control of the Lakers.