👋 Welcome to Wednesday! Don’t forget to tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe!
In today’s edition: A new season of Succession just dropped, collectors covet expensive threads, LeBron tees off, the small world of sports ownership, Goodell goes global, NFL fans ranked, and more.
Time to show you the money...
🏀 FAMILY BUSINESS
SUCCESSION: THE BUSS FAMILY'S LAKER DYNASTY(Bruno Rouby/Yahoo Sports)
Kendall, Roman, and Shiv spent years captivating HBO viewers. But nobody does Hollywood quite like the Lakers, and the Buss family appears set to pen a new and potentially final season of the most gripping family succession drama in sports business.
The patriarch: In 1979, Dr. Buss acquired the Lakers, the Kings, the Forum, and a 13,000-acre ranch from Jack Kent Cooke for a combined $67.5 million, with the Lakers’ portion worth $16 million. As the valuation grew over decades, Buss declined to sell. What would he do with the money? He would want to buy the Lakers.
The next generation: Dr. Buss passed away in February 2013, leaving his 66% majority stake to his six children via trusts.* The siblings include Johnny (69), Jim (66), Jeannie (64), Janie (62), Joey (41), and Jesse (38). In the last decade, all of them have been fired or resigned from the Lakers, except Jeannie, who still retains the governor and president roles she assumed with her father’s passing.
The first power struggle: In February 2017, Jeanie fired her brother Jim as EVP of basketball operations. Days later, Johnny proposed four new members for the five-person Lakers board of directors, in theory displacing incumbents Jeanie and Joey and removing Jeanie as governor.
- Attorneys for Jeanie filed a temporary restraining order to enforce compliance with the family trust, which had installed her as controlling owner. A lawyer for Johnny and Jim denied that the brothers were trying to oust their sister from that position.
- The parties reached an agreement at the end of March, obligating the trustees to ensure she is elected controlling owner annually for the duration of her lifetime.
Under new ownership: Mark Walter reached an agreement to acquire a majority stake at a $10 billion valuation in June 2025, retaining Jeanie as governor through 2030. Walter was approved and closed the acquisition in October 2025. The next month, Joey and Jesse were fired from the Lakers, while Janie, Johnny, and Jim also had their positions eliminated.
(Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
Under new ownership (again): Last Wednesday’s news that Josh Kushner and Bob Iger would purchase Walter’s stake at a $12.5 billion valuation ignited a new round of family jockeying.
- Last Tuesday: One day before the news, the Buss siblings were reportedly called to an emergency meeting (where the impending sale was not mentioned) to discuss dissolving the family trust and locking down shares for four additional years in a new trust.
- Monday afternoon: The Buss family released a statement indicating their intention to sell their remaining 17.8% stake in the team, invoking a tag-along provision to sell alongside Walter. Five of the six siblings reportedly voted to sell.
- Monday evening: News broke that Jeanie was opposing the sale, with her attorney citing the prior court order that binds the trustees to ensure she remains the controlling owner. NBA rules require a minimum 15% stake for control.
- Tuesday: The other Buss siblings issued another statement, remaining steadfast and united in their intent to sell.
Next season on Winning Time: How the parties will resolve this matter is unclear, though Jeanie quickly triumphed in the 2017 episode. Time will tell if there are more seasons to come in the NBA’s succession drama. In conjunction with the proposed sale, the Buss family said in a statement that it wanted to “exit gracefully while we still can.” That seems unlikely.
*The trusts were structured with ownership that consolidated among surviving siblings as each one passes (a structure which perhaps unintentionally incentivizes a sale). They also bind the children’s ownership together, meaning they can’t sell their stakes individually.
💲 MEMORABILIA MARKETS
PRICE TAGS: COLLECTIBLES EDITION(Kenta Harada/Getty Images)
In just the last week, the memorabilia record books have been rewritten on several fronts, with a horde of items achieving massive prices through auction and private sale, impressing even against the backdrop of sky-high collectibles prices becoming commonplace.
$440,055
Shohei Ohtani’s cleats, worn in the 2025 MLB Tokyo Series, became the most expensive baseball cleats in history on Sunday, selling for $440,055 at The Realest. The cleats feature Ohtani’s kanji signature and portraits of his dog, Decoy. The significance of the Japanese icon’s first MLB game in Japan proved highly desirable to bidders, pushing the cleats to not just rarified but untouched air.
(AP Photo)
$1,254,919
Lew Alcindor was one of the very best — if not the best — college basketball players in history. So it’s not surprising that his jersey from UCLA's 1968 NCAA Championship victory sold for seven figures. The jersey’s consignor traded a transistor radio for it in the parking lot of the Great Western Forum in the late 1970s in a deal even more lopsided than the one that sent Kareem to the Lakers.
(Lennox McLennon/AP Photo)
$1,515,000
Joe Montana’s jersey from a dominant 49ers victory in Super Bowl XXIV sold for $1,515,000 in a private sale, making it the most expensive NFL jersey ever sold. The jersey was acquired by AJ Scaramucci’s Treasure Trove, which previously bought the record-breaking $16.5 million Pokémon Pikachu Illustrator card. Imagine what the jersey Montana wore in two Super Bowls, which sold for $1,212,000 in 2023, is worth now…
(Jeff Haynes/AFP via Getty Images)
$12,000,000?
Michael Jordan’s jersey from Game 3 of the 1998 NBA Finals will sell at JOOPITER in September, with an estimated sale price between $10,000,000 and $15,000,000. However, rumors in collecting circles suggest a $12 million bid has been placed before the auction begins, which would make it the most expensive NBA jersey ever sold, surpassing the $10.1 million paid for the Game 1 jersey from the same NBA Finals series in 2022.
⛳️ YOUTUBE GOLF
LEBRON TEES OFF ON NEW PURSUIT(LeBron James via YouTube)
One of the NBA’s best-ever players is imploring you to subscribe to his YouTube channel, which will chronicle his journey in a sport that has commanded so much of his time: golf.
Successful first tee shot: LeBron James published his first YouTube video on Saturday with a scramble featuring a collection of his 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers teammates. Just days later, his channel has 548k subscribers, and the inaugural video has 2.2 million views.
- James is a fan of the golf-creator universe, having quipped last season that he watches YouTube Golf when asked whether Jazz guard Keyonte George should be an All-Star.
- The YouTube channel is amplified by a reinvigorated “Team LeBron” social media presence. The X account posted this weekend for the first time since 2018, while an Instagram account was recently established, exclusively featuring golf content.
Competition for tee times: James joins a bustling economy of golf creators that features everyone from active golf stars to a growing stable of fan-favorite everyman golfers (with whom the basketball icon has already collaborated).
- YouTube Golf has matured into a big business. Popular channel Good Good Golf raised a $45 million investment round in March 2025. The company also secured a multi-year agreement to become the title sponsor for the PGA Tour’s Austin-based tournament.
- The inaugural Internet Invitational generated over 22 million YouTube views. James was ostensibly among the viewers. But might he be among the 2026 edition’s contestants chasing $4 million in prize money?
Doing business on the golf course: Speaking at CNBC and Boardroom’s Game Plan Summit, James acknowledged he wasn’t playing golf “just for fun.” The channel provides James with a platform that can draw eyeballs whether he’s still active on the hardwood or not.
- Using that platform, James can showcase sponsors, feature guests and business partners, and plug his growing portfolio of ventures.
- James’ latest commercial with Beats and Nike primed fans for this pivot. It was set on the golf course, where James — clad in Nike Golf apparel — used Beats headphones to tune out a barrage of feedback on his game.
- James’ golf bug also marries passion with purpose; he has emphasized the importance of helping inner-city kids feel welcomed in the golf environment.
Stephen Curry walks the course at the American Century Championship in his signature Li-Ning golf shoes. (Eakin Howard/Getty Images)
Retire to the links: James is not the only athlete attempting to carve a post-career business path on the golf course. Patrick Mahomes is set to become Adidas’ first non-golf athlete to launch his own golf line, and Stephen Curry is building the Curry Brand in golf as part of his endorsement deal with Chinese sportswear company Li-Ning.
⚡ ICYMI
LIGHTNING ROUND(Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
⚽️ Boehly, Walter in talks to sell Chelsea stakes: Todd Boehly and Mark Walter are reportedly in talks to sell their shares in Chelsea to majority owner Clearlake Capital. The club has been fraught with financial challenges since the 2022 takeover; Chelsea recorded the largest pre-tax loss in Premier League history in 2024-25 ($349 million).
⚾️ Padres new owners approved: Speaking of Clearlake, MLB owners unanimously approved its co-founder José E. Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones as the new owners of the Padres in a deal that values the team at $3.9 billion. That makes Feliciano an NL West rival to Boehly and Walter’s Dodgers, assuming the team is retained.
🏀 Dispute over Clippers investigation: ESPN reported Monday that the NBA had found no evidence that Steve Ballmer funneled money through Clippers sponsors to pay Kawhi Leonard, with the investigation focused on whether the team’s introduction of those sponsors to Leonard constituted a violation. An NBA spokesman said the report contained “numerous and significant” inaccuracies.
🏈 Goodell envisions international NFL team: Speaking in an interview with a German broadcaster, Roger Goodell said Tuesday that he has “no doubt” there will be NFL teams based outside the U.S. someday. Yahoo Sports’ Jay Busbee explains what it means for fans.
👋 FIFA COO departs: Kevin Lamour has left his position as Chief Operating Officer at FIFA. Lamour was critical of the FIFA Forward Enterprise plan, noting that staff were deceived and that it was “the project of one person.” About speaking out, Lamour added, “If that means I lose my job, then so be it.”
See what else is trending on the Yahoo Sports Business Hub.
📆 CANDLESTICK SWINDLE
THIS DAY IN HISTORY: THE GIANTS HEAD WEST(AP Photo)
The debate about using public money to fund stadiums for private sports teams rages on across the country, from Tampa Bay to Portland. A key battle in that decades-old war lured baseball out of New York and out west, onto the sport’s growing frontier.
On this day in 1957, the board of directors of the company that owned the New York Giants voted 8-1 to move the team to San Francisco in 1958.
Sweetheart deal? San Francisco offered the Giants a laundry list of accommodations to encourage the move.
- The city promised a new fully equipped stadium seating 40,000 to 45,000 people, with exclusive occupancy for six months of the year, exclusive advertising privileges on the stadium fences, and city maintenance of the property.
- The stadium would come with a 35-year lease, with rent amounting to 5% of gross receipts after deducting taxes and the visiting team’s and National League’s shares.
- The Giants would operate the concessions and receive all related revenue, while the city would operate and receive revenue from a 10,000- to 12,000-car parking lot.
A giant win: Attendance had dwindled to 684,000 in the Giants’ last season at the Polo Grounds. That figure tripled in the first season in San Francisco, contributing to a $3 million windfall in gate receipts.
A troubling loss: Candlestick Park, originally budgeted as a $5 million project, required $15 million in municipal bond issuance. The interest costs on the bonds far outstripped the city’s share of stadium revenue. Much of that incremental bond issuance bypassed voter approval, and the project later became known as the “Candlestick Swindle.”
Public precedent: The deal was considered quite generous for the Giants, but it’s fairly tame by today’s public-subsidy standards. Leveraging the threat of relocation and the promises of generous packages elsewhere to extract greater public funding has become an unfortunate American sports tradition.
🤝 29 DAYS OF FANTASY
YAHOO SPORTS & SIRIUSXM TEAM UP ON LIVE LISTENING(Yahoo Sports)
The 29 Days of Yahoo Fantasy are the gift that keeps on giving. Through the first nine days, we’ve unleashed a wealth of fun new features. But we’re just getting started…
What’s new today: Yahoo Sports and SiriusXM are teaming up to make it easy for fans to go from following a game in the Yahoo Sports app to listening to it live.
- Beginning this season, NFL and college football game pages in the app will feature a SiriusXM button to listen to live games.
- If you're already signed in to SiriusXM, playback starts for you right then and there. If you're not, you'll have the option to subscribe.
- Plus: Yahoo Fantasy Ultra subscribers get six months free on the SiriusXM app.
Check it out:Explore the partnership and all the other new features here!
📈 LET'S PLAY
HEAD TO HEAD: LAKERS VS. S&P 500(Nick Ut/AP Photo)
Question: Since Jerry Buss acquired the team in 1979 for $16 million, has the Lakers franchise outperformed or underperformed the S&P 500 in annual capital appreciation (price return only, excluding dividends)?
A) Underperformed the S&P by more than 2% per year
B) Was within 2% per year of the S&P in either direction
C) Outperformed the S&P by more than 2% per year
Answer at the bottom.
🏈 NFL SUPERFANS
SMALL MARKETS, BIG FANDOM(Nielsen)
Nielsen released its inaugural Nielsen Scarborough NFL Fandom Index on Monday, reflecting the NFL markets with the most avid fans. The index is based on eight metrics: apparel purchases, general interest levels, live event attendance, betting intent, social media engagement, radio listenership, streaming habits, and linear TV viewership.
Small markets reign: Buffalo, Kansas City, and Green Bay dominated in traditional football consumption (linear TV, radio, and event attendance), while the whole AFC North also performed well on those metrics. Markets with a wealth of options to choose from, particularly those with multiple NFL teams (Los Angeles, New York), saw fanhood diluted.
Performance matters: The index is based on data from last season, which alleviates questions about Boston (the Patriots went 4-13) and Chicago (the Bears went 5-12), where fan interest likely waned as the losses mounted. Similarly, it partially explains Philadelphia’s outperformance of other sports-heavy markets.
Trivia answer: C.
The Lakers’ annual price return since Jerry Buss bought the team is 15.2%, far outperforming the S&P 500’s 9.6% annual price returns. Those figures do not include any profits the team might have enjoyed, nor dividends earned by S&P 500 holders, though the Lakers’ capital appreciation also outperforms the S&P’s total return with dividends reinvested (12.4%).
Thanks for reading! Wanna talk shop? Follow me on X and Linkedin, or drop me a line: dylan.dittrich@yahooinc.com.
Leave a Comment