The Los Angeles Lakers were sold for $12.5 billion to an ownership group with Bob Iger and Josh Kushner, with Iger's NBA involvement coming with their biggest rivals.
Iger has been a lifelong NBA fan and was the CEO of Disney when the NBA needed the Orlando Bubble to finish out the 2019-20 season.
The Lakers won in that postseason, and now Iger owns the franchise. However, he is on record explaining why he couldn't root for the Lakers as a fan and chose to be a Clippers superfan instead.
Iger appeared on current Lakers head coach JJ Redick's podcast in 2021, where the then-Disney CEO explained why he chose to be a Clippers fan after moving to LA and being a Knicks fan as a child.
"I am a Clippers fan, having moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2000. I am a big NBA fan and needed a team to root for. And in my youth, the Lakers were a big rival of the Knicks, the team I grew up rooting for. I couldn't root for the Lakers very easily; it just was not in my DNA, so I decided to adopt the Clippers, which is a good thing because their seats were a lot cheaper."
Iger and Redick built their relationship during Redick's four-year tenure with the Clippers and are now reunited with the Lakers.
Iger has been a presence at Clippers games for over 20 years and has several relationships with past Clippers stars like Chris Paul. Now, he's going to own the team he could never support: the Lakers.
Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney
The Lakers' roster for the 2026-27 season is basically set after a summer overhaul that saw LeBron James and several other core players leave while a new group of talent has replaced them.
Iger and Redick's pre-existing relationship might help Redick survive another regime change, but he'll be under pressure to deliver results in the short term.
Just like NBA players who grow up rooting for certain teams and then need to devote their life to whatever team drafted them, Iger will wholeheartedly root for the Lakers' success now that his personal fortune is tied to the franchise.
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