Bob Iger and Josh Kushner buy the Lakers for a record $12.5 billion
The storied franchise changed hands - again - when the former Disney CEO and the Thrive Capital founder confirmed Wednesday they're taking over from Mark Walter, less than a year after he bought in. The deal sets the highest price ever paid for a U.S. sports franchise.
In brief
Bob Iger and Josh Kushner buy the Lakers for a record $12.5 billion
The Los Angeles Lakers have a new owner. Again. Less than a year after the NBA approved Mark Walter as the franchise's majority owner, Walter is out, and the team is headed to a partnership between former Disney CEO Bob Iger and venture capital founder Josh Kushner. The price: $12.5 billion. That is the most ever paid for any sports franchise in United States history.
Iger and Kushner reached an agreement to buy the Lakers at a $12.5 billion valuation, a record-setting price tag for a U.S. sports franchise, according to multiple reports. Iger and Kushner confirmed the deal - first reported by ESPN - in a statement on Wednesday.
Walter had purchased a controlling interest in the team just a year prior, but Kushner and Iger - who had reportedly been involved in an expansion process to get an NBA team in Las Vegas - pivoted and made a massive offer for the Lakers. The deal came together quickly. According to ESPN's Ramona Shelburne, Kushner and Iger approached Walter with the offer on Sunday.
So the NBA's most glamorous franchise changed hands in a matter of days.
What they said
"As lifelong NBA fans, we are deeply honored for the opportunity to become stewards of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the most iconic sports franchises in the world," the two said in a joint statement. "We have immense respect for the leadership and vision of Jerry and Jeanie Buss. Our long-term commitment is to build on that foundation, compete at the highest level, and serve this extraordinary team, its fans, and the city of Los Angeles."
Walter, for his part, called owning the Lakers "one of the great honors of my life" in a statement to ESPN. Despite selling the team, Walter will reportedly keep the Dodgers. With the move, he is set to make a $2.5 billion profit on the Lakers after a little over a year of ownership.
Numbers that put this in perspective
Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979 for $67.5 million. The Iger-Kushner deal at $12.5 billion sets the record for the largest-ever cost of a U.S. sports franchise, beating out Walter's purchase last year and the $9.6 billion deal to sell the Seattle Seahawks to billionaire Vinod Khosla earlier this year.
Forbes ranked the Lakers as the second-most-valuable NBA franchise last year at $10 billion, directly behind the Golden State Warriors at $11 billion and ahead of the New York Knicks at $9.75 billion and the Los Angeles Clippers at $7.5 billion. In one transaction, they blew past all of it.
The purchase comes just 14 months after the Buss family sold a controlling stake in the Lakers to Walter at a $10 billion valuation. The franchise went from family ownership, to Walter, to Iger and Kushner in the span of roughly a year. That kind of churn at the top of one of the world's most recognized sports properties is almost unprecedented.
Who are Iger and Kushner?
Iger is an American media executive who was CEO of the Walt Disney Co. from 2005 to 2020 and again from 2022 to 2026. He stepped down from the top post at Disney in March, then took on an advisory role at Thrive Capital.
Kushner is the founder of the venture firm Thrive Capital, a co-founder of Oscar Health, and a minority owner of the NBA's Miami Heat. He founded and runs Thrive Capital, which backed early startups like Instagram, Spotify, Stripe, and OpenAI. Thrive recently raised $10 billion for a new set of funds, with a portfolio that includes Instagram, Spotify, Patreon, Robinhood, OpenAI, and A24.
Kushner and Iger had previously expressed interest in buying an NBA expansion team in Las Vegas before shifting their focus to the Lakers. The franchise Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, and LeBron James built their legends on apparently became too attractive to pass up.
Walter's shadow - and the federal probe
The sale did not happen in a vacuum. Last month, Bloomberg reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. prosecutors were investigating potential financial improprieties at two of Walter's insurance companies and at Guggenheim Partners, the sprawling financial firm he co-founded and still leads. The sale comes with Walter the subject of a federal probe looking into whether he properly disclosed loans to his companies, though that probe has not been mentioned as a reason he decided to sell the Lakers. Walter's companies have denied all wrongdoing.
The Iger-Kushner deal will move forward pending Thrive's due diligence and the NBA's approval process. The deal still needs the approval of the NBA's Board of Governors to be completed. That vote is not a formality, but there is no reason to expect it to fail - Iger and Kushner are the kind of well-capitalized, media-connected buyers the league tends to welcome.
Where this leaves the team on the court
LeBron James, the all-time leading scorer in the NBA, played eight seasons for the Lakers. He announced in July that he was leaving to join the Philadelphia 76ers on a two-year, $8 million contract. So the Lakers arrive in a new ownership era without the player who defined the franchise for nearly a decade.
The team will now be led by six-time All-Star Luka Dončić, who was No. 1 in the league at 33.5 points per game last season. That is a franchise cornerstone most ownership groups would happily build around. Iger and Kushner are not walking into a rebuilding project.
When the Buss family originally worked out their agreement with Walter, part of the deal reportedly kept Jeanie Buss in her role for the next five years. Iger said Wednesday the new ownership group would honor that agreement.
Continuity in the front office, a superstar on the court, and $12.5 billion on the table. The Lakers' new owners hold every card going into the 2026-27 season.
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CAN I KICK IT? screens New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument, on Aug. 22. (Courtesy SHAOLIN JAZZ)
The live-cinema series CAN I KICK IT? returns to the National Mall this month with what its producers are calling the "Gangsters on the Mall" chapter of their free outdoor summer run. On Saturday, August 22, the SHAOLIN JAZZ production brings the 1991 crime classic New Jack City to the Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument for a night of film, music, and community under the DC summer sky.
What sets the event apart is the sound. As the film plays, DJ 2-Tone Jones builds an original score in real time, reimagining one of the most iconic crime movies of the ’90s through hip-hop, soul, funk, and more. It is less a movie screening than a live performance built around the film.
The details:
Film: New Jack City (1991), with a live soundtrack by DJ 2-Tone Jones
When: Saturday, August 22 — seating opens at 7:30 p.m. (bring lawn chairs and blankets); film begins at 8:30 p.m.
Where: Sylvan Theater at the Washington Monument, Independence Ave SW & 15th St NW
A parking note from the organizers: expect road closures and restricted parking east of 14th Street NW due to a separate race event in the District. Roads west of 14th Street NW will be accessible and available for parking.
New Jack City is the second of three screenings in this year’s free CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series, which opened with Black Panther at Skyland Town Center and concludes with Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial on September 5. Produced by the Washington, DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, the series has presented more than 150 live cinematic experiences at venues across the country, from Lincoln Center to SXSW.
"I wanted to be able to tell good stories with substance and remove the ‘ego’ out of the art," said Andrew Huang during a recent interview. Now, he’s building his career at the intersection of discipline, creativity and innovation.
Andrew Huang, founder of New Place Studios. (Courtesy photo)
As a Chinese American, Huang was reared with a deep respect for hard work, consistency and excellence. He describes his childhood as "not so affluent" and later attended college to hone his passion for videography. "In college I tried to do something I loved, which was video, but along the way I knew that I had to find a job. And so I thought, ‘what was the low hanging fruit to get to that stable 9 to 5 job?,’" he stated.
Later in life, Huang found himself working for corporations where his creativity was often limited, eventually leading to burnout. "I worked in a corporation for a long time and there were a lot of missing pieces. I wanted to fill in gaps missing in corporate video production," said Huang.
He later described how his upbringing and a mindset of "survival" led him toward a corporate career. However, his desire for balance and authentic storytelling ultimately pushed him to take the entrepreneurial leap.
"I founded a new place where you can create video and film with ‘substance and style,’" said Huang. His desire for work-life balance and passion for storytelling naturally evolved into a small business based in Virginia. With the launch of New Place Studios, the entrepreneur quickly found himself reconnecting with the values that would become the foundation of everything he creates behind the camera.
Huang said being a business owner has allowed him to first embrace himself. While others may see video as simply capturing moments, he sees it as a way to preserve stories that inspire, connect and leave a lasting imprint.
By combining cinematic visuals with cutting-edge production techniques and a keen understanding of branding, Huang helps organizations and individuals communicate their vision with purpose. He said understanding a client’s "why" serves as the compass for delivering the services they need.
One benefit of working with a small business, he said, is that clients get to see the production process unfold through a micro lens while working with the same faces throughout the entire project. "The work feels personal," said Huang.
Huang does not regret leaving behind the flash-over-substance mentality and corporate hustle culture. That does not mean the Asian American entrepreneur has been without challenges in the industry. "It’s relatively hard to find other Asian American creatives or people who would want to work with me in the DMV," said Huang.
He identifies the industry culture in which everyone is trying to blend in, creatives may fear displaying their Asian identity and some feel pressure to adopt an American corporate persona. He also points to what he describes as a level of gatekeeping within the industry. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration’s 2024 statistics, Asian American and Pacific Islander entrepreneurs own more than 3 million businesses and employ 5.2 million people in the United States.
After tapping into organizations such as SCORE, which offers free small business mentorship, New Place Studios has become a trusted creative partner throughout the DMV (Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia). The company produces a range of creative services, including commercials, corporate branding, documentaries, film, 2D animation, motion graphics and photography.
For Huang, entrepreneurship has become more than a departure from corporate life. It has given him the freedom to create with intention, build meaningful connections and tell stories that go beyond the surface.
The 2026 CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
For three Saturdays this summer, some of Washington’s most familiar public spaces will do something they rarely do after dark: fill up with blankets, lawn chairs, and the sound of a movie being scored live, in real time. CAN I KICK IT?, the traveling “live cinema” series produced by the DC-based multimedia arts company SHAOLIN JAZZ, is bringing a free outdoor run to the city — pairing three era-defining films with an original soundtrack performed on the spot by DJ 2-Tone Jones.
The premise is what sets it apart from a normal screening in the park. Rather than simply pressing play, 2-Tone Jones builds a score as the film unfolds, pulling from hip-hop, soul, funk, jazz, rock, electronic music, and sounds from around the world. The result, the organizers say, is less a movie night than a one-time performance — the same film you know, wired to a soundtrack you have never heard and will not hear again. Guest DJs warm up the crowd starting at 7:30 PM before each 8:30 PM screening.
The 2026 outdoor schedule
All three events are free and open to the public.
Saturday, August 8 — Black Panther at Skyland Town Center. A pop-up marketplace and community activities kick off the evening; guest DJs at 7:30 PM, film at 8:30 PM. Marvel’s superhero epic gets a one-night-only live score in Southeast DC.
Saturday, August 22 — New Jack City at the Sylvan Theater, Washington Monument. Seating begins at 7:30 PM; the film starts at 8:30 PM. The 1991 crime drama plays out at the foot of one of the country’s most recognizable landmarks.
Saturday, September 5 — Scarface at the Lincoln Memorial. Seating at 7:30 PM; film at 8:30 PM. The series closes with Brian De Palma’s crime saga against the backdrop of the Memorial, scored live from start to finish.
First up: Black Panther at Skyland Town Center on August 8. Poster courtesy of SHAOLIN JAZZ.
A DC company with a national footprint
SHAOLIN JAZZ describes itself as a Washington-based arts company working at the intersection of music, film, art, and culture, and CAN I KICK IT? is its signature production. According to the organizers, the series has staged more than 150 live cinematic experiences around the country — at performing arts centers, museums, festivals, and cultural institutions including Lincoln Center in New York, SXSW, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Republic Square in Austin, the Tacoma Armory, and The Cary Theater.
“CAN I KICK IT? has always been about creating a shared experience,” said Gerald Watson, co-founder of SHAOLIN JAZZ. “When you combine iconic films with live music in public spaces, something special happens. People aren’t just watching a movie — they’re experiencing it together. That’s what makes these nights so memorable.”
Cinema as a community event
The DC run lands as cities across the country look for new ways to activate public space through arts and culture — and this series is a straightforward pitch for how to do it: take a landmark everyone already knows, add a film everyone has an opinion about, and let a live soundtrack turn the evening into something neighbors experience shoulder to shoulder. Families, film buffs, and music fans are all invited, and admission won’t cost a thing.
The CAN I KICK IT? outdoor series runs August 8, August 22, and September 5. All events are free; check SHAOLIN JAZZ (shaolinjazz.com) for the latest details and any weather updates before heading out.
