The Buss Brothers Buy a Stake in the Padres

Joey and Jesse Buss bought in the neighborhood of 5 percent of the San Diego Padres on Aug. 26, the same day their sister took them to court over the Lakers. The check is the first major deal for Buss Sports Capital, the firm they started after the family sold its majority share of the Lakers to Mark Walter, who still owns the Dodgers.

They will sit on the new Padres advisory board and say they will bring payroll, roster, and player-development work from two decades in basketball. San Diego is chasing Los Angeles in the same division Walter’s other club leads by 11 games.

The Padres Stake Puts Them Across From Walter’s Dodgers

People briefed on the transaction put the Buss piece in the neighborhood of 5 percent of a club that closed at a $3.9 billion price, a record for a Major League Baseball team. At that price the slice is about $195 million. Neither the Padres nor the firm posted a dollar figure.

Walter bought control of the Lakers last year at $10 billion, then agreed this August to sell to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger at $12.5 billion. He never left baseball. He still owns the Dodgers, who sat first in the National League West at 89-57 through Sept. 9, with a seven-game winning streak. The Padres were 2nd in the NL West at 78-68, 11 games back, a half-game in front of Arizona.

NL WEST, THROUGH SEPT. 9

That table is the awkward part of the brothers’ first independent sports check. They grew up in San Diego and have said they loved the Padres as kids. Their money now moves, in a small way, against the owner who took the Lakers from their family and then cleared them out of the basketball office.

The loudest knock on the deal is not the math. It is that their Lakers run ended with a firing, so a baseball advisory seat is a second act, not a proven baseball record. In Los Angeles the Padres check also reads as picking the other side of the freeway, even at 5 percent.

Feliciano and Jones Closed Baseball’s Record Sale

José E. Feliciano, co-founder and managing partner of Clearlake Capital, and his wife, singer-songwriter Kwanza Jones, are the control owners. MLB owners unanimously approved the new ownership group on a conference call Aug. 17, with Feliciano named the club’s control person. Commissioner Rob Manfred thanked the Seidler family and noted the Padres reached the postseason four times in the last six years.

The couple’s personal stake is more than 40 percent of the franchise. Jones is the first Black majority owner of an MLB club. Longtime minority owner Alfredo Harp Helú is increasing his piece, and some Seidler family members are keeping a share. CEO Erik Greupner and president of baseball operations A.J. Preller stay in day-to-day charge.

WHO IS ON THE NEW PADRES SIDE

• Control owners: Feliciano and Jones hold more than 40 percent and say they will set direction and step into the big calls.
• Buss Sports Capital: Joey, 41, and Jesse, 38, take a neighborhood-of-5-percent stake and seats on the advisory board.
• Holdover money: Harp Helú is raising his investment, and parts of the Seidler group remain.
• The baseball office: Greupner and Preller keep running the club while the new owners learn the building.

The club said the transaction was completed on Friday before Jones and Feliciano took a Petco Park stage on Aug. 24. Jones told the room, “We are all in; it’s not lip service.” Feliciano put a No. 21 jersey on for Roberto Clemente and boiled the job down to one line: “We need to win the World Series. It’s that simple.”

Two Decades of Lakers Work, Then a Firing

Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979 for $67.5 million and treated the club as a family shop. Joey was alternate governor and vice president of research and development, and he ran the G League’s South Bay Lakers. Jesse was assistant general manager and director of scouting, the draft voice on a staff credited around the league with helping land Austin Reaves, Kyle Kuzma, Jordan Clarkson, Larry Nance Jr., Max Christie, and Rui Hachimura.

They launched Buss Sports Capital in September 2025, while the sale to Walter was still closing, and said the firm would hunt sports deals that did not fight their Lakers interest. NBA owners approved Walter’s $10 billion purchase that October. Jeanie Buss, their sister, stayed on as governor under a deal that was supposed to run at least five years.

On Nov. 20, 2025, the Lakers cut Joey and Jesse from the front office and overhauled the scouting staff around them. Janie Buss was let go from the charity side in the same wave. The brothers kept their inherited minority shares. Jesse later said he had felt the writing on the wall. Their joint line at the time was that they wished they could ask their father what he would think about how it ended.

Joey and I had the privilege of learning from our father and then spending nearly two decades building our own careers in professional basketball operations. We saw firsthand what it takes to build a championship organization, and throughout our careers have applied those lessons across talent evaluation, roster construction, player development and long-term organizational planning. While every sport is different, we believe the principles behind building sustained success are universal.

Jesse Buss, co-founder, Buss Sports Capital, in a statement

Joey, in his own statement, went back to childhood. “We are honored to join Kwanza and José and have the opportunity to contribute to the future of a team that Jesse and I have loved since we were kids growing up in San Diego,” he said. He called Padres fans one of the most loyal communities in sports and said the club was “on the cusp of something special.”

Jeanie Buss Filed on the Same Wednesday

Five of Jerry Buss’s six children voted this August to sell the family’s remaining 17.8 percent of the Lakers to Kushner and Iger at the same $12.5 billion price Walter took. They say a tag-along right from the June 2025 Walter sale lets them do it. A statement issued in the family’s name said it was time “to move on and exit gracefully while we still can.”

Jeanie Buss did not vote yes. NBA rules require a governor to own at least 15 percent, so a sale of the full 17.8 percent would end her seat. Her lawyer, Adam Streisand, told the other siblings that a 2017 court order binds the co-trustees, Jeanie, Janie, and Joey, to keep that floor in place so she remains controlling owner. Kushner and Iger are buying about 65 percent from Walter; adding the Buss remainder would take them to about 83 percent.

On Aug. 26, the same Wednesday the Padres stake became public, her lawyers filed a 97-page petition in Los Angeles Superior Court. The filing asks a judge to void the sale votes, remove Janie and Joey as co-trustees for breach of fiduciary duty, and hold Jim, Johnny, and Jesse in contempt for aiding them. It accuses the other five of “devious behavior” and says Jeanie “never agreed to any sale, was never consulted and was never even informed.”

FROM THE LAKERS SALE TO THE PADRES CHECK

1. June 2025: The family agrees to sell Lakers control to Walter at $10 billion, with Jeanie staying governor and a tag-along right on a later sale.
2. September 2025: Joey and Jesse launch Buss Sports Capital.
3. November 20, 2025: The Lakers fire both brothers from basketball operations.
4. May 2, 2026: The Seidler family agrees to transfer Padres control to Jones and Feliciano at $3.9 billion.
5. August 17, 2026: MLB owners approve the Padres group; five Buss siblings vote to sell the remaining 17.8 percent of the Lakers.
6. August 21, 2026: The Padres sale closes.
7. August 26, 2026: Buss Sports Capital joins the Padres group, and Jeanie files in Los Angeles Superior Court.
8. November 5, 2026: A hearing on her petition is set, two weeks into the Lakers’ season.

Joey now sits in two ugly chairs at once. He is a co-trustee Jeanie wants stripped, and he is a new Padres adviser whose first independent bet is a club built to beat Walter’s Dodgers. The five other siblings said after her letter that they remain “united” and will move “through the appropriate process.” Minority Lakers holders Patrick Soon-Shiong, at 4 percent, and Ed Roski Jr. are described in the petition as backing Jeanie to stay governor. The Walter-to-Iger sale is not expected to wait on that fight.

What a 5 Percent Stake Buys in San Diego

A neighborhood-of-5-percent seat does not run a baseball club. Feliciano has already described the owners’ job as setting a clear direction and stepping into the key decisions. Team officials have said he and Jones unofficially signed off on adding pitchers Robbie Ray and Casey Mize before they were even closed, a small tell that they will spend when Preller asks.

WHAT THE STAKE BUYS

• The check: About $195 million at the $3.9 billion price, if the 5 percent figure holds.
• The board: Advisory work on player development, payroll, and roster building, not the general manager’s chair.
• The payroll: San Diego has run a payroll over $200 million in each of the past two seasons.
• The mandate: Jones and Feliciano have already said the point is a World Series, a title the franchise still does not have.

Sixteen games remained after Sept. 9. A 78-68 club can still finish under.500 if the last two weeks collapse, and it can still grab a wild-card spot if they do not. The Dodgers’ 11-game lead is the division race in all but name. The live season, for San Diego, is October by the wild card, with Arizona a half-game behind in the same pile.

Basketball habits do not drop neatly onto a 26-man roster and a draft that runs on amateur scouting more than the NBA combine. The brothers are betting the other way, that talent evaluation and long-term planning travel. Preller still makes the trades. They get a voice, and a slice of whatever the next World Series bid costs.

London, Lyon and a League Still Unbuilt

The Padres piece is the first closed bet. It is not the only one they have chased. People briefed on Buss Sports Capital’s plans have said the firm put bids on NBA Europe clubs in London, Manchester, and Lyon, and that a path involving Luka Dončić and Donnie Nelson Jr. in Italy was also on the list. NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in July the league expected to sort bids in the following weeks, with play set to start in October 2027.

French club ASVEL, owned by Tony Parker, has also been in the conversation as a way into that league, with talks reported in a lower range than some of that club’s minority holders wanted. None of those basketball deals has been announced as done. The Padres stake is the one that cleared.

So the first independent Buss sports check is baseball, in the town they keep citing from childhood, on a board that reports to new control owners who have already said they are all in. The Dodgers, Walter’s club, still sit 11 games clear. Jeanie Buss’s petition is on the calendar for Nov. 5. Between those two facts sits a 5 percent slice of the Padres, and a family that is no longer in business together.