9:37am: The new ownership group also includes minority owner Robert Hale, Himmelsbach tweets.
9:20am: The Celtics are being sold to William Chisholm for a valuation of $6.1 billion, a new record for a controlling stake in a North American sports franchise, Scott Soshnick of Sportico reports (via Twitter).
Chisholm is the managing director and co-founder of Symphony Technology Group, a California-based private equity firm, Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe reports. Chisholm is a Massachusetts native and lifelong Celtics fan. His involvement in the bidding was first reported last week.
The Celtics’ sale of $6.1 billion surpasses the NFL’s Washington Commanders ($6.05 billion) for the highest sum ever for a North America sports team, ESPN’s Shams Charania tweets.
Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck is expected to remain governor through the ownership transition. He’ll remain in that role, continuing to oversee the team’s operations, through the 2027/28 season, Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic tweets.
The Grousbeck family expected a handful of bids for the franchise during the sales process. The Grousbeck family announced last July 1 that it was putting the team up for sale, just a few weeks after the Celtics won their 18th championship.
The Grousbeck family said then that it intended to sell 51 percent of the team in late 2024 or early 2025. The Grousbeck family is selling the team for estate and family planning considerations.
The sales price is a huge jump from the amount paid by Grousbeck 20-plus years ago. Grousbeck founded and led the group, Boston Basketball Partners L.L.C., which bought the Celtics for $360MM in 2002.
How much are the Knicks, Lakers and Warriors worth if the Celtics are worth 6.1?????
I would guess about 10 billion after this news. It should be less since you have to deal with their obnoxious fanbase.
^^^Knicks specifically
Depends on demand and what the buyer might value the franchise at. Sort of like stock valuations.
GSW/NYK both own their arenas in super high value per sq foot cities so they are worth way way more than the Celtics that dont own the arena they play in.
This sale will bring all their value up. NBA is smiling
> How much are the Knicks, Lakers and Warriors worth if the Celtics are worth
> 6.1?????
link to nbcnews.com
The league gets what it wants with team ownership: professional investors with the resources and expertise to grow the revenues of the franchise and be profitable.
Celtics fans get stable ownership for the long-term. I expect the new ownership group will drive the creation of a modern arena, the biggest opportunity for increasing revenues for this team.
Private equity firms run businesses to be profitable. It’ll be interesting to see how this ownership addresses the enormous luxury tax penalties the Celtics face this summer.
I would think after next season we will see parts of the team broken up. Zingy will be a free agent, Al will likely be retired. They will have to be replaced through the draft or vet min deals. Maybe have to trade D White or Jrue
Are they what the league wants? Private Equity is concerned with established companies. Teams FO’s are primarily concerned with finding raw talent, projecting it, and developing it. With the Celtics inevitable aging out of talent and cap concerns, can they handle tolerate the vagaries of a rebuild? The Warriors have the ideal ownership group for that.
Giants74, they are *absolutely* what both the fans and the league both want, given the limitations of the last ownership group. An ownership group is typically not involved with day-to-day operations; its concern is to make sure that the business has the most capable people and the resources to grow. For Celtics fans, this ownership is good news because a stronger business ultimately increases the team’s payroll and talent.
Pro sports teams operate on another scale than 20 years ago, when the Grousbeck family bought the Celtics. Teams are now, as you put it, “established companies”. You mention the Warriors. That organization has ~1,500 employees on 6 continents, with less than 100 involved in the “front office” basketball “talent” activities you describe. The majority work at generating revenues. The “front office” works strictly on creating a winning product. (The Warriors’ ownership (i.e., Lacob) is close to the day-to-day operations of the front office, but most pro sports ownership groups stay at an arm’s length.)
I assume that new ownership will continue to let basketball operations continue to run independently under Brad Stevens, as the Grousbeck family has in the past. But this ownership has the resources and experience to do help the team in ways that the Grousbeck family could not. For fans, that’s good news because the Celtics will be able to pay their players more.
You missed my point. Established companies have relatively Established products. The players change from year to year. The players are the product. The best way to build a team is through the draft. And that means player development. The Warriors owners understand taking something raw and developing it.
I bet Grousbecks are selling so their great great grandchildren don’t get bullied on social media in their flying cars…whatever that looks like in the year 3000…
And good wishes to Bernie, Patrick, and Fred Jr.
Please someone buy the Bulls and put Jerry out to pasture. If the C’s are worth 6.1B then Jerry needs to be open minded.
Put him out to pasture? Yikes…
raz , the Bulls really do look like a great investment opportunity from the outside.
When you consider what the fans are paying for a trash product, you’d have to think a competent ownership group could raise profitability by 25% in 3-5 years.
Private equity ownership is scary and opaque. They buy companies, take them private, go to banks and borrow on the existing businesses and load the businesses up with debt. Then if something goes wrong, bankruptcy. I think that happened to Hooters. Just saying.
Well it’s being sold to the individual so that’s good (since he’s supposedly a super fan).
Secondly, the NBA limits the ownership stake of private equity groups to a certain percentage (never a controlling majority) in the NBA. They are pretty cognizant that most PE groups will concentrate on ROI and profitability than anything else.
The good news is that the NBA as a whole, including other owners, makes sure that new ownership groups are qualified.
Keep in mind that the Celtics are not a public company being taken private (it’s always been “opaque” in that sense), nor is it a distressed company in need of restructuing like the example you mention. This ownership group’s goal is to increase the value of an already successful business, so that it can sell part or all of it at an increased value in the future.
dezpoo , you’re right to point out that private equity groups, strictly defined, can’t hold a majority interest. However, you can be sure that as an “ownership group”, the $6 Billion comes from multiple financial entities, and that those entities are ultimately concerned with return on their investment over time.
The fact is that NBA absolutely wants its franchises to be owned and operated as profitable, growing businesses. That’s the most important responsibility that Adam Silver has. Over the past 10 years, we’ve seen team valuations go from $400M to $10B, and employee counts from 100 to 1,500.
So what are you saying lol ????
Players could be forced to go to onlyfans. One day
I think this number may lead to a number of new franchise sales.
What’s amazing is celtics don’t own there arena don’t own there tv or radio network if the new owners come in and build and develop there own arena and tv and radio network the value of this team could conceivably double
kpr – The anticipated costs and increased revenues associated with an improved venue are already factored into the the selling price.
Interestingly, in the Celtics case, there isn’t that much extra value to be gained by a new arena, because they’re already getting very good value for their tickets and the Gardens is in a great location.
Ultimately, the size of the market and the affluence of the customer base (which determines how high tickets and high-end services can be priced) constrains team valuation. Boston is considerably smaller than NY, LA, and the Bay Area. Boston has a relatively affluent demographic, but, again, not so much as those 3 others. So, it would be a suprise to see Boston have a higher team valuation than those.
I told them I was interested but I had to draw the line somewhere. Not a penny over $5.7 billion.
The latest ranking reported that the Golden State Warriors are the most valuable NBA franchise during the 2024-25 NBA Season, with a valuation of $8.8 billion.[1] The Warriors are the third NBA team to hold the title of most valuable franchise since the inception of Forbes’ ranking during the 1991–92 NBA season, with the other two being the Los Angeles Lakers and the New York Knicks.[2][3][4]
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Thru the 2000s Knicks have not been a good team. Yet maintained their value. Rose and Thibs are changing all this now (5th yr).
Forbes list had Celtics as 4th highest valued team. I guess winning a chip. And competition to buy. Brought the price up ……..
Controlling interest means they own most of team ???? Funny this is a California based company. And no one in Boston has issues with that.
Lacob had a stake in the Celtics. Owners come from all over the place.
Current Celtics owner sold the franchise because they just got tired of running the organization? Or they felt this was the highest price they could get coming off a championship?
The sold for estate purposes.
“Family planning”
You need 6 billion $ to start a family?
But also, just the 51% is for 6 billion?
I’ll buy that for a buck