The public and legal rift within the Buss family has taken a dramatic turn into Major League Baseball. Jeanie Buss’ younger brothers, Joey and Jesse Buss, who were recently ousted from their front-office roles with the Los Angeles Lakers by their sister, have officially launched their post-Lakers sports portfolio that could turn the entire LA faithful against them. The pair announced they have acquired an approximately 5% minority stake in the San Diego Padres through their newly formed venture, Buss Sports Capital, and will serve on the team’s advisory board under the new controlling owners, Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones.
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The cross-state and sports cashing out comes amid an intense legal battle over the Lakers’ future. Joey and Jesse, aligning with the Los Angeles Dodgers’ fiercest regional rival, drew swift condemnation on the D-Fish & Decker show. Former MLB infielder Cody Decker, who played for the Padres but is a SoCal native and longtime Dodgers diehard, teamed up with co-host Ben Scott Stevens to dissect what they framed as an ultimate betrayal of both Jeanie and the city of Los Angeles:
“Those of you that are mad at the Buss family, or more should I say those of you that are not mad at the Buss family, change your minds, change your minds. I am now officially so Team Jeanie, I don’t know what to do with myself. This hostile takeover that’s been taking place around Jeanie Buss needs to come to an end, because not only has the Buss family boys decided to not only betray her, no, no, they went a step further and betrayed Los Angeles itself… Joey and Jesse Buss have just announced that they will serve on the Padres Advisory Board, led by new owners Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones. They are joining the San Diego Padres ownership.”
Decker very emphatically framed it as, “Not only did they cash out, screw over Jeanie on the way out, they went ahead and bought into the Dodgers’ biggest rival, and they’re after us. What the hell is this heel turn from the Buss family?”
Stevens noted that the timing appears carefully calculated, targeting the close business relationship between Jeanie and Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ majority owner, who acquired his initial controlling stake in the Lakers in 2025.
“It does feel like it is very pointed and it does feel as though it comes from a revenge standpoint, because who is the Dodgers’ owner? Mark Walter… And Mark Walter had a very friendly relationship with Jeanie Buss… It’s been well reported… that Joey and Jesse have been trying to cut out the legs of Jeanie for basically as long as they can.”
Despite his Padres affiliation, Decker made no secret of what this implies within the LA sports community.
“Dudes, it’s one thing for the Buss family to cash out and go do something. It’s another thing to cash out that money directly to San Diego. Oh man, the betrayal is palpable.“
Joey and Jesse launched Buss Sports Capital in September 2025, shortly after the family sold its majority stake to Mark Walter. Around the same time, Jeanie removed them from their front office roles with the Lakers.
Their investment in the Padres coincides with Jeanie filing a 97-page petition in Los Angeles Superior Court to prevent her five siblings from selling the family’s remaining 17.8% stake in the Lakers to incoming owners Joshua Kushner and Bob Iger.
While the brothers claimed in a statement to ESPN and The Athletic that their ties to San Diego stem from “growing up in San Diego” and loving the franchise since childhood, the optics remain fraught.
With Jeanie currently seeking a court order to strip Joey and Janie Buss of their co-trustee roles for breach of fiduciary duty ahead of a November 5 hearing, the family’s bitter legacy battle is only getting started.