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The NBA champions are officially for sale.
The Celtics majority ownership group, led by Wyc Grousbeck, is planning to put the team on the market. The news was first reported by ESPN and made official by the team shortly after. In a statement, the Celtics said the decision to sell was made “for estate and family planning considerations.” Grousbeck and his investment group bought the team from the Gaston family in 2002 for $360 million. Gatson had previously owned the team since 1983.
Now, Grousbeck should be able to get quite the return on investment. The Celtics are one of the most storied franchises in all of sports and will go to market at a time when team values are skyrocketing.
According to Forbes, the Celtics are valued at roughly $4.7 billion, the fourth-highest among NBA teams. But that valuation is from October 2023 and has likely gone up since the team won its 18th championship in June over the Dallas Mavericks. The title put the Celtics over the Lakers for most NBA titles, and the team’s championship window is still open as Jayson Tatum (26) and Jaylen Brown (27) are each in their prime. Could they become the NBA’s first $5 billion team?
The Celtics said they expect to sell a majority stake in 2024 or early 2025 with the remaining balance closing in 2028. Grousbeck will stay on as team governor until 2028, when the second part of a deal is expected to close. The setup sounds similar to the tiered structure for Glen Taylor’s Timberwolves sale to former baseball player Alex Rodriguez and his business partner, Marc Lore. Those groups are now in arbitration after Taylor pulled the team off the market in March over Rodriguez and Lore allegedly missing payments, which they dispute. Rodriguez and Lore recently added former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg to their ownership group.
While the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement is designed to break up teams that eventually become too expensive, the Celtics are expected to hand out the richest contract in league history for the second straight summer. After agreeing to a record deal with Brown a year ago, Tatum is eligible for a five-year, $315 million contract extension.
Coincidentally, the Mavericks were the last NBA team to be sold, which came in November 2023 when longtime owner Mark Cuban sold his majority stake for $3.5 billion to the Adelstein and Dumoht families, whose fortune stems from Las Vegas Sands casino.
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