BOSTON — Bill Chisholm has been in charge of the Celtics for roughly one month, but he already has his eye on another franchise.
On Thursday at the Celtics practice facility the Auerbach Center, Chisholm held his first press conference since becoming the team’s governor in August. Chisholm agreed to buy the team for $6.1 billion in March from the Grousbeck family, who purchased the team in 2002 for $360 million.
A week before he was approved by the NBA’s Board of Governors, Chisholm’s name appeared in a statement made by the WNBA to the Boston Globe about Celtics minority owner Steve Pagliuca’s attempt to buy the Connecticut Sun and move the team to Boston. The WNBA never presented Pagliuca’s offer to its board of governors and is reportedly trying to steer the franchise to Houston.
The WNBA told the Globe on Aug. 2 that Chisholm reached out to the league office and asked for Boston to receive consideration to get an expansion team, which the Globe later reported may not happen until 2033. Chisholm’s name was later removed from the statement.
At his press conference, Front Office Sports asked Chisholm to clarify his interest in a WNBA team.
“First of all, I think Boston should have a team,” Chisholm said. “This is the best sports city in the country and this is the birthplace of basketball, so we should have a team. Getting this done, and we’ve been at it now in the seat for a month or so, it’s definitely something we’re going to look at. And I know the NBA has a process, we’ll do what we can to expedite things, but there is a process there. But philosophically it makes so much sense.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver weighed in on the Sun sale process at the FOS Tuned In summit last week in New York: “They have every right to sell the team in their market,” he said. “But then we started to be contacted by people in Boston and elsewhere saying that there was a suggestion that they could buy a team in one market and take it to another. That’s sort of black-letter law in sports leagues: You can’t do that. You’re buying that market. Teams have different values in different markets, and we view those other markets as expansion markets.”
New Owner Syndrome
Chisholm painted himself as a diehard Celtics fan during his 40-minute media session and as an owner who wants to win championships, but not micromanage or operate rationally.
He inherited a franchise that won the 2024 NBA title and was the No. 2 seed entering the 2025 playoffs.
“There is such a thing as a new owner curse and I’m well aware of that,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm takes over the Celtics before a season that is expected to be a gap year after star player Jayson Tatum tore his Achilles in May in a playoff series against the Knicks. The Celtics spent the summer shedding payroll by trading away Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis to get under the second apron.
Celtics general manager Brad Stevens said Chisholm has yet to give him a mandate to further reduce the team salary and is going into the season with an open-mind.
“The summer demanded a reset under the second apron,” Stevens said. “So the second apron was the key. After that, we’re looking at it from the standpoint of ‘let’s see what this team looks like’…but there’s no tax goal.”
Outgoing majority owner Wyc Grousbeck chimed in on the trades and savings.
“This type of move would have happened whether or not the team was sold,” he said. “I foreshadowed this before the sale, that you go up two years [in payroll], maybe at most three, and then you got to come back down.”
Chisholm’s purchase of the Celtics is happening in two tranches; Chisholm assumed majority control in August, but a second transaction will complete the sale in 2028. Chisholm had to raise additional capital to close the deal, including from minority owner Aditya Mittal of steel giant ArcelorMittal, who was seated next to him Thursday.
“The way we approached this was we wanted it done day one, and it is done,” Chisholm said of the deal. “It’s just a matter of how it actually gets funded. So it’s done, and in terms of ownership, my stake doesn’t change materially at all, because it’s already locked in.”
