L.A. ‘s Leading Man

The crowd inside the Staples Center suite has been handpicked by Jerry Buss, perhaps explaining why the guest list is mostly made up of stunning young women in tight pants and halter tops. Many look like centerfold models, and some actually are.

But this night, the ill-fated Finals Game 1 of the Lakers’ run at consecutive NBA titles, finds Buss ignoring those in attendance, including Hugh Hefner and his seven girlfriends--that’s right, seven--all Playboy Playmates. Instead, the team’s owner intently watches the game from a front-row seat, or paces by himself, his personal assistant making sure the boss is left alone when he wants to be.

Buss may be phasing in his four grown children to take control of the Lakers, and may joke about needing more time to squire around his young girlfriends, but at 68, he remains very much at the helm of the team whose success he considers priceless.

“What is really fun is to walk around town, see the guy sweeping the street or the guy shining shoes and to see the smile on their faces because of the Lakers,” Buss said later that night. “The pleasure I seem to have given this city through the Lakers is really heartwarming.”

Today, with one more victory needed to clinch the title against the Philadelphia 76ers, L.A.’s most successful sports owner is again standing at the top of the basketball world. Working on his second NBA dynasty, Buss is also reinforcing his reputation as a maestro of marketing, a pioneer who perfected the art of mixing sports and entertainment in a glitzy package that remains the envy of the sports world.

“He was at the epicenter of the revitalization of the NBA,” Commissioner David Stern said.

He arrived there from bleak beginnings in Wyoming where, at the age of 4, he would stand in food lines to collect canned goods for his family.

“I’ve worked hard and been lucky,” Buss says humbly. “With the combination of the two, I’ve accomplished everything I ever set out to do.”

That includes parlaying a $1,000-real estate deal in the 1970s into holdings that would top several hundred million, putting together one of the biggest and most complex real estate deals in Southern California history to buy the Lakers, the NHL’s Kings and the Forum, brazenly raising courtside seat prices one hundredfold, and signing Magic Johnson to a 25-year, $25-million contract when such a deal was unheard of.

A forerunner in the fields of naming rights and cable television ventures, Buss still enjoys a reputation as a savvy player in a league that has attracted such high-powered businessmen as Paul Allen (Microsoft, Portland Trail Blazers), Howard Schultz (Starbucks, Seattle SuperSonics) and Mark Cuban (Internet ventures, Dallas Mavericks).

“It’s not fair to put [Buss] into the category of old guard because he stays on the cutting edge,” said Denver sports-marketing consultant Dean Bonham. Said one agent: “Buss is the last of a dying breed--the entrepreneurial owner.”

It’s a role that Buss cherishes, along with the well-worn jeans and cowboy boots that he often sports.

“You’d be surprised at how influential he is within the NBA,” said Rick Welts, the league’s former top marketing executive. “He picks his spots carefully, and when he does pick up the phone, other owners are very responsive. People see him as very, very smart.”

Hole-in-the-Wall Gang

As a 13-year-old in Kemmerer, Wyo., Buss often dreamed about a life filled with riches. It helped take his mind off digging ditches in frozen fields with his stepfather. Buss would begin at 4:30 a.m., so he could get some work in before the school day.

Buss was 20 when he graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1953 and headed west with his new wife, Joanne Mueller. Buss enrolled at USC in pursuit of a PhD. in physical chemistry.

But poverty was tough to shake.

Buss still remembers finding $5 on the street.

“A dollar sixty-seven goes to you,” Buss told Joanne. “A dollar sixty-seven I get . . . and a dollar sixty-seven goes into the general kitty.”

By the late ‘50s, Buss was working as an aerospace engineer at Douglas Aircraft. With two kids and two more soon to follow, he needed a better financial game plan than looking for money on the street.

Buss and co-worker Frank Mariani pooled $1,000 each along with several colleagues, investing in the promising Southern California real estate market.

They bought a 14-unit apartment building in West Los Angeles for $105,000. To save money, Buss and Mariani did the maintenance work.

Late one night, while painting an apartment, they found a large hole in the wall. They had put in a full day at Douglas, they were tired and another day would soon beckon. So Buss improvised.

He took off his T-shirt, stuffed it in the hole and plastered over it.

A second building soon followed, as well as some luck. Needing a chunk of money for a down payment, Buss, Mariani and several relatives went to the track and won $12,000. After they’d bought another Los Angeles apartment building, oil was discovered on the property.

By the mid-70s, their real estate empire was a towering force. There were hotels stretching from Long Beach to Phoenix.

At its peak, the Buss-Mariani real estate empire was worth an estimated three-quarters of a billion dollars.

Pass Go, Collect the Forum

Buss, a longtime sports fanatic, became financially involved in 1972, when he paid $25,000 for 50% of the Los Angeles Strings, a franchise in a new concept called World Team Tennis.

Buss’ dream, however, was to own a big-time franchise. He got his chance one day when then-Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke called and asked, “Are you ready?”

Cooke had thrown the dice in a game of real-life Monopoly that wound up involving the Lakers and the Kings, nine properties in three states, among them the Forum here and the Chrysler Building in New York, 12 escrows and 50 lawyers and advisors.

The papers almost weren’t signed.

A deadline of 12:30 p.m. on May 18, 1979 had been set, along with a $67.5-million price tag.

But with 15 hours to go, the Buss forces realized they were $2.7 million short. Frantic calls were made to Donald Sterling, future owner of the Clippers, and Sam Nassi, future owner of the Indiana Pacers, who agreed to put up the difference.

A cashier’s check was delivered at 12:28 p.m. on deadline day.

On his first night as owner of the Forum, Buss took a chair to the darkened floor, sat down, lit a cigarette, looked around and murmured to himself, “You’ve come a long way, baby.”

Showtime, Winning Time

As the new owner, Buss took a cue from one of his old haunts, a Santa Monica club named The Horn. It was known for its opening act, which consisted of an entertainer singing “It’s Showtime” as the lights went down.

Buss was determined to apply his own brand of Showtime to NBA basketball, putting Laker girls on the floor, Hollywood stars in the seats and insisting on a fastbreak offense.

His innovative approach to the game as show business also breathed new life into a league that had sunk badly in popularity.

“Jerry Buss helped set the league on the course it is on today,” Stern said. “Remember, he showed us it was about Showtime, the notion that an arena can become the focal point for not just basketball, but entertainment. He made it the place to see and be seen.”

Courtside seats cost $15 when Buss bought the team. He bumped them to $45 the next season, then $60 and on up. Next season, they will go from $1,350 to $1,500.

Overpriced?

Hardly.

“I heard a rumor that someone paid $500,000 for the rights to a couple of courtside seats,” Buss said. “People get up to $10,000 a seat for the playoffs.”

They got their money’s worth. Having won only one NBA title in their first two decades in Los Angeles, the Lakers won five in the 1980s under Buss.

After his first Laker championship, Buss hugged the trophy tightly to his face and, champagne dripping from his eyebrows, looked into the camera and said with a sigh of appreciation, “You don’t know how long I have waited for this moment.”

He had owned the team for one year.

It was about this time that Mariani and Buss began phasing out their real estate business and streamlining their holdings. The Kings were sold to Bruce McNall.

Buss’ only non-sports business endeavor since the real estate days was the creation of a regional sports network, Prime Ticket, in 1985 with cable television entrepreneur Bill Daniels. It was the early incarnation of what is now Fox Sports Net Los Angeles.

While the Lakers were busy winning championships, Buss also broke ground by tapping new revenue sources that now are considered part of a franchise’s life blood.

He signed one of the industry’s first deals for corporate naming rights in 1988, for example, a $17.8-million agreement that turned the Forum into the Great Western Forum.

Then, the team took a downturn in the ‘90s.

With the retirement of Johnson and center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the two prime forces in the championship run, and the rise of Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Buss’ Lakers failed to win a title.

Determined to rebuild, Buss and General Manager Jerry West wheeled and dealed in 1996 to bring in two new forces--center Shaquille O’Neal via free agency and guard Kobe Bryant via a trade.

The $25 million he gave Johnson was dwarfed by the $120-million deal with Shaq.

“That tells you how much he wants to win,” said Bill Sharman, a former Laker coach, general manager and president.

There was another move in the mid-1990s that would further solidify Buss’ reputation as a shrewd businessman.

The Forum’s allure was fading. At 30 years old, it didn’t have the luxury suites to stay financially competitive with other venues. Buss could either continue as a landlord by building his own arena or become a tenant by moving into the proposed Staples Center.

Buss’ willingness to become a tenant was “extraordinary,” sports consultant Bonham said. “To be able to do that, you have to put your ego aside and look at the big picture.”

But the move to Staples probably pushed the value of the Laker franchise up by $100 million, and today the franchise is worth at least $400 million, according to industry sources. The increase was driven by a lease that gives Buss about 25% of revenue generated by Staples Center’s 160 luxury suites, which lease for as much as $300,000 a year.

It also drove Laker interest in other venues.

The franchise consistently ranks in the top 10 when it comes to licensed NBA merchandise, with Kobe and Shaq jerseys in the top five best-selling jerseys. (The value of NBA retail merchandise rose to $1.5 billion this past season, but the Lakers’ popularity doesn’t translate into a windfall because licensing fees are divided equally among NBA teams.)

“At heart, he’s a mathematician,” said Bob Steiner, Buss’ longtime public relations manager. “He always told me, ‘Work the numbers. No matter what common sense may tell you, work the numbers.’ ”

The Lifestyle

The players have changed, the coaches have changed, the address has changed, but one constant has remained for Buss over the years--the wide-eyed twenty-somethings on his arm. He makes a point of keeping their photos in a collection that spans more than eight albums.

Years ago, he was roasted at the Friars Club and one of the roasters pointed out that Buss had been running late that night because he had been at the hospital awaiting the birth of his next girlfriend.

Buss, who divorced Joanne in 1972, hosted legendary parties at Pickfair, the mansion he owned in the 1980s. At an age when most men are playing with their grandchildren, Buss continues to date women who could be his grandchildren.

“Just because I’m a public figure doesn’t mean I don’t get to live my life the way I want,” he said.

That includes carefully selecting the company he keeps. During the regular season, there are about 80-100 requests per game for spots in Buss’ mid-level, double-sized suite. About 40 make Buss’ cut.

Drinks flow freely from the full-service bar during games, which are usually followed by a visit to the Chairman’s Room, Buss’ private bar downstairs. Buss’ personal assistant, Flip Coca, distributes the passes for the Chairman’s Room, making him the second-most powerful man in the suite.

Later in the evening, Buss and a few of his guests either go to his home in Playa del Rey to party some more, or head off to a private club.

Suite regulars include actor Elliott Gould and West, the Hall of Fame Laker who put together the current team before stepping aside last year as general manager, and Pete Newell, the college coach who was once the Lakers’ general manager.

Guests for the Western Conference finals against San Antonio included Reggie Jackson, Mike Tyson and Michael Bolton. Celebrities such as Jack Nicholson and Dustin Hoffman sit courtside, or near courtside, courtesy of Buss.

Hefner is another guest-list regular, but he doesn’t usually attend. Not much of a basketball fan, he said the common bond that he and Buss share revolves around women, and parties.

“Most of my friends are creative people, and most of Jerry’s friends are business people,” he said. “Jerry comes to a lot of our parties at the mansion. He dates some of our Playmates.”

During a recent interview at Staples Center, Buss was making a point about how the women he dates must be sports fans:

“I took one woman to the last game of the 1980 Finals, one of the most exciting games ever played, and she is sitting there reading Cosmopolitan. I didn’t take her out again.”

Seated next to Buss as he spoke was his date for the evening, a UCLA student.

“I would never do that,” she said.

Responded Buss, “You weren’t even born in 1980.”

The Future

Early on in his ownership of the Lakers, Buss sought out media attention, seizing every opportunity to “sell” his team to the public. In recent years he has wearied of that limelight, intentionally carving out a lower profile for himself.

Daughter Jeanie has stepped into that more public family role, by posing nude for Playboy and, most recently, by dating Laker Coach Phil Jackson.

It is to Jeanie and his three other grown children that Buss has increasingly turned over the workings of his sports empire. As a team vice president, she spends most of her time dealing with the business side, including broadcast rights, marketing and sponsorships. Jim is assistant general manager under Mitch Kupchak. Janie handles the team’s charity work. John is president of the L.A. Sparks, Buss’ WNBA franchise.

Jerry Buss also has two younger children, Joey, 17, and Jessie, 13, by another woman.

“He’s never been a hands-on manager,” said his son, Jim. “He doesn’t deal with details. He delegates those. He never gets caught up in the minutiae.”

And don’t ask him to.

“You only ask him about things you’re absolutely unsure of, because when you do go to him with a question on how to do something, he often says, ‘This is why I hired you,’ ” said Steiner, his spokesman. “By the same token, he’s never critical if something isn’t done the way he would have done it or something turns out badly. He never criticizes you or second-guesses you.”

There is one major exception: Player decisions. Extremely well-informed, Buss is actively involved in all major signings and player movement.

The day will come when the next generation will take full control of the Lakers, but Jerry Buss said he is in no hurry to see that day come:

“I just can’t visualize no longer owning this team.”

Times staff writer Greg Johnson contributed to this story.