Inside the business of basketball with Los Angeles Lakers CEO Jeanie Buss
Corner Office from Marketplace
Marketplace
4.8 • 545 Ratings
🗓️ 2 January 2019
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Los Angeles Lakers are more than just a basketball team. They are also a global brand worth $3.3 billion, one of the most successful franchises in the NBA and fundamentally an entertainment company with outsized influence. Lately though, the team has struggled to deliver on the court, missing the playoffs five years in a row. Back in October, we drove across town to the Los Angeles Lakers’ new headquarters in El Segundo, California, to talk with CEO and co-owner Jeanie Buss. She showed Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal around her basketball empire and talked about some of the tough choices she’s had to make trying get the Lakers back on top.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, everybody, it's Kai Rizdahl. Thanks for downloading the corner office podcast. |
| 0:08.7 | On this episode, I'm talking to Jeannie Bus. She's the CEO and the co-owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. |
| 0:13.8 | And she takes us inside the Lakers training facility. Also, by the way, the headquarters of this |
| 0:18.4 | entertainment empire, entertainment being a key word there. |
| 0:22.0 | Because more than just a basketball team, the Lakers are a global brand worth more than $3 billion, |
| 0:27.0 | one of the great teams in NBA history, although not recently, but more on that in a minute. |
| 0:31.6 | And for nearly 40 years, the Lakers have been a bus family business. |
| 0:35.7 | A month or so ago, and the Lakers were down 0 in their first season with superstar LeBron James on the team. |
| 0:41.1 | We went across town to El Segundo, California, pulled up in front of a brand new building, warehouse he looking kind of, made our way inside and waited for Jeannie Bus to come show us around. |
| 0:51.1 | We're expecting you. |
| 0:52.5 | Don't you have a seat? |
| 0:53.7 | Ready to go to work. |
| 0:55.1 | Good morning. |
| 0:56.1 | It's nice to have you here. |
| 0:58.2 | It's cool to be here, honestly. |
| 0:59.9 | This is the UCLA Health Training Center, the Lakers Training Facility. |
| 1:06.2 | We moved here just over a year ago. |
| 1:09.8 | We had outgrown our other training facility, which is just a couple blocks away. |
| 1:14.2 | And our entire revenue generating arm was in a building across a parking lot. |
| 1:21.0 | So we were a very divided company. |
| 1:24.0 | So this was, as we seen her overlooking basketball courts, and I mean, there's like three basketball courts on that, whatever it is. Yes. This was a strategic investment for the company. So this was, as we seen her overlooking basketball courts, and I mean, there's like three basketball courts on the aisle, whatever it is. Yes. This was a strategic investment for the company. It was. Back in 2012, we had a player by the name of Dwight Howard that played on the Lakers. And we were at our old facility. He came up to my office and he said, can I ask you something? And I said, sure. |
| 1:46.7 | And he goes, where are all the people that work here? And it was then I realized how even if you're a |
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