The Lakers’ sale to Mark Walter required a majority vote from the Buss family, who were not unanimous in their desire to sell the franchise.
The Buss family has been synonymous with the Lakers for the better part of five decades, dating back to the 1970s. After long being owned by Dr. Jerry Buss, his ownership stake was transferred to his family, who owned a majority stake in the team, at least until Wednesday.
While the sale is far from official, it does signal the end of the Buss family being the primary owners of the team. To get to this point, though, required a likely fairly dramatic meeting.
Six Buss siblings owned equal parts of the team’s stake in the Lakers. To sell that stake, they needed the majority of those six to vote to sell the team.
Wednesday night, hours after the sale, reports began to surface that, while they obviously got that majority vote, it was not a unanimous decision among the six.
The Los Angeles Lakers intended $10 billion sale to Mark Walter was approved by the Buss siblings through a majority vote, a source familiar with the situation told ESPN
— Dave McMenamin (@mcten) June 19, 2025
Dr Jerry Buss structured the trust that owns the Lakers so that only his six children could decide on a sale. And it had to be a majority vote to sell. In 2017 the older brothers tried to force Jeanie Buss out as chairman of the board but lost that vote. Wednesday a majority of…
— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) June 19, 2025
Adding to the reports from Dave McMenamin and Ramona Shelburne, Brian Windhorst spoke in a bit more detail about the situation on his podcast, “Brian Windhorst & the Hoop Collective.”
“There are six Buss children: four children from Jerry Buss’ first marriage, two children from his second marriage. They each have equal share. For them to sell, they had to have a majority of them [vote yes]. There were some in that group who wanted to sell. There were some in that group who didn’t want to sell.”
Obviously, the messaging was all the same. At most, only two of the siblings who did not want to sell (I’m good at math).
The six siblings — Joey, Jesse, Jim, Jeanie, Johnny, Janie — have had a tumultuous history with the Lakers since their father’s passing. Jeanie was forced to remove Jim Buss as President of Basketball Operations in 2017, which eventually led to a long legal battle.
Jim and Johnny Buss attempted to remove Jeanie as the president and controlling owner of the team, but were unsuccessful. Eventually, Jeanie was named controlling owner for life and the drama faded into the background.
Jesse and Joey Buss, meanwhile, work in the Lakers front office and have become fairly influential figures. Johnny and Janie have not been involved with the team in any meaningful capacity.
Determining which one or two members voted no is simply a guessing game, but it is interesting that it wasn’t a unanimous decision to sell the team. Still, taking home a payday with hundreds of millions of dollars is a decent consolation prize.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.