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Tim Bontemps
A bunch led by Invoice Chisholm, managing associate at Symphony Expertise Group, has agreed to buy the Boston Celtics for a valuation of $6.1 billion, sources advised ESPN’s Shams Charania.
That value would surpass the $6.05 billion value a bunch led by Josh Harris paid to purchase the NFL’s Washington Commanders in 2023 as probably the most paid for a franchise in North American sports activities historical past, and would simply surpass the report quantity for the management stake of an NBA group, which was set two years in the past when Mat Ishbia purchased the Phoenix Suns for $4 billion.
The Celtics — who surpassed their eternally rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, with their 18th NBA title final June after they beat the Dallas Mavericks in 5 video games within the NBA Finals — started the sale course of shortly thereafter, when the group’s controlling possession group — Boston Basketball Companions, LLC, a bunch led by co-owners Wyc Grousbeck and Steve Pagliuca since 2002 — surprised the basketball world by saying it could be promoting the controlling stake within the franchise after greater than twenty years of secure possession of probably the most iconic franchises in North American sports activities.
The Grousbeck-Pagliuca group bought the Celtics for $360 million in 2002. Pagliuca acknowledged the sale Thursday in a press release posted to social media, saying he made a robust push to buy the Celtics from the Grousbeck household and that he’s “saddened to seek out out that we’ve got not been chosen within the course of.”
This is my assertion on immediately’s information. pic.twitter.com/lhKCslEcgF
— Steve Pagliuca (@pagsceltics) March 20, 2025
Sources advised Charania that Grousbeck will proceed because the franchise’s CEO and governor by means of the 2027-28 season, which was a part of the household’s plan when it introduced its intention to promote the group.
The group led by Chisholm, a lifelong Celtics fan who was born and raised within the Boston space, consists of Boston enterprise executives and philanthropists Rob Hale — a present Celtics proprietor — and Bruce A. Beal Jr., sources advised Charania.
Throughout a convention name with reporters in November after Boston visited the White Home to rejoice its title, Grousbeck reiterated the plan for him to stay in cost after the sale, and thru 2028.
Timing apart, what is not in dispute is that for the primary time in a technology, the Celtics are altering arms, with Chisholm, who has made his fortune in non-public fairness, taking up a group that not solely is likely one of the favorites to repeat as champions, but in addition has large questions forward of it this summer time.
Boston is on tempo to change into the primary group in NBA historical past to surpass $500 million in mixed payroll and luxurious tax funds subsequent season, as Jayson Tatum‘s supermax extension formally comes on-line similtaneously the ultimate steps of the present collective bargaining settlement come on-line, making it prohibitively costly to maintain a group like this collectively for the long run.
Within the meantime, nonetheless, the Celtics are one of many favorites to win the title this season, as they hope to change into the primary group to repeat as champions because the 2017-18 Golden State Warriors.
The Celtics have received an NBA report 18 NBA titles — trailing solely the New York Yankees (27) and Montreal Canadiens (24) amongst all North American skilled sports activities leagues.
The Celtics’ sale additionally may have an effect on the potential timeline for NBA growth. For months, sources have stated that course of would not transfer ahead till there was readability on Boston’s state of affairs, and the place this sale value wound up. Now that there’s readability — and at this type of quantity — the league may revisit that timeline, sources stated.
