Jerry Buss kinda traded the Chrysler Building for the Los Angeles Lakers
Last week, the Los Angeles Lakers announced that Mark Walter would acquire a majority stake in the franchise at a $10 billion valuation, ending 46 years of stewardship by the Buss family. And while much of the coverage has focused on the future, and how Walter may transplant an ethos that revitalised the crosstown Dodgers, an equally fascinating tale looks backwards, to the crazy deal that saw the team change hands in the first place.
The story begins with Jerry Buss, the family patriarch, who made millions in real estate while dabbling in sports throughout the 1970s. Buss bought the LA Strings of World Team Tennis and brokered a deal for them to play in the Los Angeles Forum – owned by Jack Kent Cooke, who also possessed the NBA Lakers and NHL Kings. Buss and Cooke became friends, and when Jack’s marriage to Barbara Jean Carnegie hit the rocks in 1979, Jerry morphed into a trusted confidant. (1)
A monumental divorce settlement – the world’s largest to that point in history – granted Barbara Jean 28% of the Raljon Corporation, a shell that owned the Lakers, the Kings, The Forum and a 13,000-acre ranch in the Sierra Nevada mountains. (2) (3) When the dust settled, Cooke coveted a clean break from California, while NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle urged him to divest of the basketball and hockey teams to focus on the Washington Redskins, another staple of his portfolio. (4)
Duly pushed and pulled, Cooke worked back channels to gauge interest in his California assets. Buss was interested in The Forum, and flew regularly to Nevada – where Cooke lived for tax purposes – for casual talks. (1) (5) Crucially, however, Buss lacked the financial wherewithal to win the bidding outright. (6) Yes, he was very wealthy by conventional standards, but he bootstrapped his real estate empire from humble beginnings. And in 1979, Mariani-Buss Associates, the firm Jerry owned with Frank Mariani, was valued at $350 million. While substantial enough to provide a comfortable living, Forum-type money did not gush through the coffers. (7)
Fortunately, Cooke liked Buss, and Buss had a flair for entrepreneurial creativity. Besides, following his divorce, Cooke wanted to minimise the tax hit accompanying any sale of Raljon Corp. assets, with real estate swaps a prudent alternative. (8) Testing the waters, Buss offered to trade seven of his high-rise apartment blocks for The Forum, straight up. Intrigued, Cooke considered the proposal but soured on Buss’ properties because they were in Los Angeles and Cooke wanted to move east.
Nevertheless, reconvicted of his desire to exit California, Cooke threw Buss a bone by asking if Jerry would like to expand their negotiations to include the Lakers and Kings. (1) Jerry loved the idea, and returned to the drawing board, racking his brain and scouring his holdings to conjure a workable plan.
One idea involved Buss buying another sports team then trading it, along with additional real estate, for the Lakers, Kings and their vaunted home. The Baltimore Orioles were available for purchase at the time, and seemingly would have appealed to Cooke, who planned to settle in Washington, D.C. Alas, Buss could not pull the trigger on an Orioles deal, and the baseball team was subsequently bought by Edward Bennett, a Washington attorney. (5)
Eventually, Cooke took control. “Jerry, I’ll tell you what I want to complete this deal,” said Cooke. “Let’s make it a three-way trade. I’ve always liked the Chrysler Building in New York. Get it for me, and you can trade it for your apartments, and then I’ll trade you for The Forum.” (5)
An Art Deco masterpiece at 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, the Chrysler Building was a hidden gem in the iconic New York skyline. The world’s tallest building for 11 months after its 1930 completion, the 77-storey tower was designed by William Van Alen. The Empire State Building usurped it in size and acclaim, but the Chrysler Building resonated with architecture buffs, with whom Cooke sought to rub shoulders. (9)
Most mid-sized entrepreneurs would have walked away at that point, dismissing Cooke’s demands as fanciful. Not Jerry Buss, though. Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and raised poor in Kemmerer, Wyoming, Buss took Cooke’s harebrained fantasy at face value. More than that, he took it as a challenge, embracing a ‘Monopoly-like land swap’ that would have made many competitors wince. (6)
Ever the self-starter, Buss pursued the Chrysler Building, but found that Cooke had already greased the wheels, setting in motion talks with its powerbrokers. Cooke liked Buss, after all, and he wanted to make a deal work. Cooke leveraged his reputation and contacts to kickstart negotiations, but all the risk was assumed by Buss, who kept pushing the envelope with gutsy resolve. (5)
The land under the Chrysler Building was actually owned by the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, which brokered leasing rights to a string of ostensible Building ‘owners’ throughout its history. In 1978, for instance, the leasing rights were bought out of foreclosure by MassMutual Life Insurance, who spent another $58 million renovating it. When Cooke and Buss came calling, MassMutual was ready to get out – a factor that may have triggered Cooke’s initial interest in the building. (10)
There was just one catch as negotiations commenced: MassMutual had little interest in Buss’ apartment blocks. They wanted cash, not nondescript high-rise blocks, jeopardising the original three-way land swap proposed by Cooke. However, a compromise was agreed whereby Buss would tie committed buyers to his residential units, allowing the trade to commence. (6)
In theory, then, a deal was agreed. Buss would attach buyers to five of his LA high-rise apartment blocks, which would – ostensibly – be ‘swapped’ for the Chrysler Building. MassMutual would then complete the agreed high-rise sales, yielding cash, while transferring leasing rights on the Chrysler Building to Cooke. Buss would never strictly ‘own’ the Chrysler Building on paper, but it would be a vital prerequisite in a chain that would end with Cooke flipping the Lakers, the Kings, the ranch and The Forum to Buss.
Perhaps surprised by Buss’ intestinal fortitude, Cooke continued to move the goalposts, as if trying to see how far he could push the hardscrabble upstart. Buss would not be deterred, though, and even agreed to purchase a Vegas home for a Cooke mistress in another surreal sideline. (11) Jerry really wanted the deal to happen, and he practically willed it into existence.
Still, on 17 May 1979, less than 24 hours before the scheduled swap, the entire house of cards almost came tumbling down. When one of the proposed buyers of Buss’ apartment blocks pulled out, he had to scramble to fill a $2.7 million black hole in the convoluted chain. (12) In fact, only late loans from two unlikely sources – Indiana Pacers owner Sam Nassi, and future LA Clippers scion Donald Sterling – kept the deal alive. (8) (13)
“By 12.30 pm on May 18, the deal was complete,” wrote Scott Ostler. “It involved nine pieces of property, 12 separate escrows in three states, and the efforts of more than 50 lawyers and advisers. With the sweep of various pens in various cities, Jerry Buss had turned his real estate empire into a sports empire.” (5)
“It was an extremely complicated deal,” Buss told the Orange County Register. “I would have trouble explaining it all. It was unbelievable. We had attorneys in six cities signing escrow papers simultaneously. I had 11 attorneys on a conference call at one point explaining all the details to me.” (8)
“It was about a $70 million deal, and one of the most complicated financial transactions in US history,” concluded Steve Travers. “Reporters and accountants tried to track down the money but could not do it. It involved 15 or 20 limited partnerships, real estate transactions and sales, plenty of ‘other people’s money,’ and a lot of lawyers.” (12)
Sports Illustrated “turned loose one of its investigators trying to isolate all the elements of the deal,” per Roland Lazenby. “After a good effort, the investigator phoned his editors and said it would take six weeks or more just to track the deeds involved. So, SI hired an accounting firm to cut the time to a week. Three weeks later, the accountants were still trying to figure it all out. Apparently, Buss had sold 15 or 20 limited partnerships in the acreage on which The Forum sat, with plans to buy out those partnerships over the next 15 or 20 years. It was estimated that Buss actually had only $125,000 cash invested in the entire transaction, not including the costs of the deal itself.” (1)
Regardless of the byzantine paper trail, which took years to legally enact the myriad moving parts, Buss assumed day-to-day control of the Lakers in June 1979, following official ratification by his fellow NBA owners. Over the next 34 years, until his death in 2013, Buss oversaw 10 NBA titles, linking the Showtime Lakers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson to the three-peat dynasty of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant.
A further title followed in 2020, under the aegis of Jeanie Buss, Jerry’s daughter, who emerged victorious from an ugly succession battle. However, in recent years, the Lakers’ majestic brand has often masked difficulties competing with deep-pocketed teams backed by powerful consortia rather than a singular family windfall. Hence the decision to sell up after 46 years of Buss hegemony.
While Walter will only purchase a majority stake, falling short of the $10 billion overall evaluation, each of the Buss children will still receive an absurd return on the original investment. Interestingly, the Chrysler Building went up for sale just last month, and its previous valuation was ‘just’ $150 million. (14) Maybe Jeanie will buy it with her slice of the Laker billions, just for old times’ sake. It would certainly elicit a wry smile from her dad, and from Jack Kent Cooke, the last great magnates of sporting Monopoly.
Sources
1. Lazenby, Roland. The Lakers: A Basketball Journey. 1993.
2. Wikipedia. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kent_Cooke#:~:text=On%20October%2031%2C%201980%2C%20Cooke,million%20in%202024)%20divorce%20settlement..
3. Havill, Adrian. The Last Mogul. 1992.
4. The Associated Press. [Online] May 30, 1979. https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/125262902/.
5. Ostler, Scott. Winnin' Times: The Magical Journey of the Los Angeles Lakers. 1986.
6. Wharton, David. Los Angeles Times. [Online] March 2, 2013. https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-sp-buss-money-20130303-story.html#:~:text=Finally%2C%20in%20the%20spring%20of,that%20would%20save%20on%20taxes.
7. Iwashiro, Ippei. Lots 'n' Plots. [Online] February 23, 2013. https://lotsnplots.com/2013/02/23/jerry-buss-the-real-estate-investor/.
8. The Associated Press. [Online] June 17, 1982. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LyRLAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA10&dq=%22chrysler+building%22+%2B+%22jerry+buss%22+%2B+%22lakers%22&article_id=1736,4451586&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiy3KKI6P-NAxWQVPEDHVTuIFEQ6AF6BAgFEAM#v=onepage&q=%22chrysler%20building%22%20%2B%20%22.
9. Wikipedia. [Online] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Building.
10. Faraudo, Franco. Propmodo. [Online] June 8, 2022. https://propmodo.com/the-chrysler-buildings-role-in-building-the-nba-lakers-franchise/.
11. Pearlman, Jeff. Showtime: Magic, Kareem, Riley, and the Los Angeles Lakers' Dynasty of the 1980s. 2014.
12. Travers, Steve. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Los Angeles Lakers. 2007.
13. Wharton, David. Los Angeles Times. [Online] February 18, 2013. https://www.latimes.com/sports/lakers/la-me-jerry-buss-20130219-story.html#:~:text=The%20asking%20price%20was%20%2433,and%20traded%20it%20to%20Cooke.
14. King, Rachel. Town & Country. [Online] May 29, 2025. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a64918962/new-york-chrysler-building-for-sale-2025/.