Bob Iger, one of the Los Angeles Lakers' new incoming majority owners, may have something of an advantage over Mark Walter, the man who is selling his majority stake to him and Josh Kushner. It isn't necessarily that Iger had been the CEO of the Walt Disney Company for many years, although that could turn out to be a plus for the franchise. Iger reportedly has a close relationship with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and it is a relationship that has been built and strengthened over many years. The league's media contract with ABC and ESPN, the two networks that have been televising games since 2002, and the resumption of the 2020 season inside the Walt Disney World Resort made that close relationship possible, as Dave McMenamin of ESPN pointed out.
"The two worked closely over the years in negotiating the league's television rights deals with ESPN (Disney is its majority owner) and were praised for their partnership in restarting the 2019-20 season with a 'bubble' hosted on Disney properties in Orlando, Florida, after a four-month hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic."
According to one source, the relationship between Iger and Silver extends well beyond the business realm.
"Bob and Adam are close," one league office source told ESPN. "They're not just business close. They're vacation-together close."
Iger first joined ABC in 1974, and 20 years later, he became the president and chief operating officer of Capital Cities/ABC, the network's parent company. After the Walt Disney Company purchased ABC the following year, Iger became the president of Disney in 2000 under then-CEO Michael Eisner. He became the company's CEO in 2005 after Eisner stepped down and held that role until 2020 before serving a separate stint as its CEO from 2022 until March of this year. Iger, 75, admitted back in 2021 to Lakers coach JJ Redick, who was then the co-host of "The Old Man and the Three" podcast, that he became a Los Angeles Clippers fan after he moved to the Southland in 2000. He said he had previously been a New York Knicks fan. This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Source: Bob Iger and NBA commissioner Adam Silver are very close