NBA Rewrites Private Equity Rules to Clear Path for $12.5B Lakers Sale

The NBA is amending its private equity policy to allow a firm and its executives to invest in a franchise at the same time, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg. The shift is designed to let Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger put their own money into the Los Angeles Lakers purchase alongside capital from Kushner's Thrive Eternal vehicle, clearing a structural obstacle that had complicated the record-setting deal since it was announced last month.

Kushner and Iger agreed in August to buy the storied franchise at a $12.5 billion valuation, a figure that instantly reset the ceiling for North American sports franchise values. But questions quickly surfaced over how Thrive Eternal, an investment vehicle run by Kushner himself, could legally support the transaction, since NBA rules previously prohibited a fund's principals from co-investing personally alongside that same fund in a team purchase.

The NBA declined to comment on the policy change and Thrive did not respond to requests for comment, according to Bloomberg's reporting. But the timing is unmistakable: the league's board of governors has been weighing the Lakers sale for weeks, and sources told Sports Business Journal ahead of this month's governors meetings that the transaction was not expected to reach a vote at that gathering, partly because of unresolved questions like this one.

The sale has also been complicated by a separate family dispute. Five of the late Jerry Buss's six children agreed to sell their remaining minority shares to Kushner and Iger, but Jeanie Buss, the team's longtime governor, has pushed back, and legal analysts have flagged trust-related complications stemming from the elder Buss's estate planning that make this transaction unusually fraught compared with a typical control sale.

Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the ownership saga directly at the September board of governors meetings, fielding pointed questions about the league's vetting process for new capital sources amid heightened scrutiny of how quickly the Walter-to-Kushner deal came together. Walter, who had only owned the Lakers for roughly 14 months after buying out the Buss family's controlling stake, is also reportedly facing a separate inquiry into potential financial improprieties, adding another layer of complexity to the board's review.

The private equity rule change matters well beyond this single transaction. The NBA, like other major US leagues, has spent the past several years cautiously opening the door to institutional capital, first allowing funds to take passive minority stakes, then setting caps on aggregate PE ownership per team. Letting a fund's own executives co-invest personally alongside their vehicle in a control-level purchase is a meaningfully bigger step, blurring the line between institutional and personal capital in ways league lawyers have historically resisted.

Other leagues are watching closely. The NFL has long banned private equity outright, though Front Office Sports reported this month that Apollo is taking a hard look at NFL investment opportunities as owners lobby to relax that prohibition. If the NBA's Lakers-driven carve-out becomes a template rather than a one-off exception, it could accelerate pressure on the NFL, NHL and MLB to write similarly flexible rules for fund principals rather than treating PE capital as a strictly passive, arm's-length instrument.

For now, the Lakers sale remains unapproved, and the combination of the Buss family dispute, the Walter investigation and the newly amended PE policy means governors could still take additional weeks to bring the transaction to a vote. But by rewriting its own rulebook specifically to accommodate Kushner and Iger's structure, the NBA has signaled it wants this record-breaking sale to close, even if it means rewriting decades of ownership orthodoxy to get there.