Everyone is talking about the reported $6.1 billion price tag on the Boston Celtics sale, but it’s surprising that more people aren’t talking about the unanswered questions swirling around the buyer. Does Bill Chisholm have enough money to purchase the Celtics?
This story from our deals reporter Ben Horney lucidly lays out the strange situation: a record price tag, a majority owner insisting on sticking around for a few more years even after he sells the team, a previously unknown buyer, and a deal that is not yet compliant with NBA rules on private equity ownership.
As a refresher: NBA rules state a private equity firm cannot be the largest stakeholder in a team; the controlling owner must contribute 15% of the purchase price, and a PE firm can own only 20% or less than 15% if the controlling owner has only 15%. Chisholm has a PE firm, Symphony Technology Group, but a different PE firm, Sixth Street, has committed more money to the purchase so far than Chisholm himself, Axios reported last month. At that time, a source told Front Office Sports Chisholm is clear on NBA rules and “plans on becoming the single biggest owner of the team.”
I’ve had two very in-the-know sources tell me in just the past week that Chisholm has been actively calling other rich team owners—including a deep-pocketed NFL owner—to ask if they want to buy in. (Chisholm’s reps declined to comment.)
The phrasing of a public letter from Steve Pagliuca, who has been a minority owner since Grousbeck bought the team in 2002, is telling. After Chisholm was reported to have won the bidding process, Pagliuca wrote, “We made a fully guaranteed and financed offer at a record price… We had no debt or private equity money that would potentially hamstring our ability to compete in the future… if the announced transaction does not end up being finalized, my partners and I are ready to check back into the game and bring it home.” It sounds like there are people who believe Chisholm’s group may not prevail—including someone who currently owns 20% of the team.
The Celtics sale is also unusual because Grousbeck insists on sticking around to oversee team operations until 2028. The transaction as proposed will happen in two parts, with 51% of the Celtics sold first, and current minority owners keeping their stakes until 2028.
And the Celtics are just the latest in a string of weird NBA franchise sales.
The Timberwolves sale took four years to finally go through, after majority owner Glen Taylor initially agreed to a highly unusual multistage transition plan to sell the team to Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez for $1.5 billion, then yanked the agreement last year, claiming Lore and A-Rod missed a payment. Ultimately, it took an arbitration panel ruling in favor of Lore and A-Rod in February, and Taylor not fighting it further, for the sale to get finalized.
Then there was the Dallas Mavericks sale: Mark Cuban sold 72% of the team to Miriam Adelson for a $3.5 billion valuation in 2023 but said he’d retain decision-making power over the team; Cuban’s own reaction to the stunning Luka Dončić trade suggests otherwise.
Take those three deals together, and it’s clear that the old model of franchise ownership—where one family owns a pro team for decades, then sells to another family—is dying as the big leagues welcome new money from PE firms, athletes, and celebrities.
In our FOS interview series Portfolio Players, I’ve been asking my guests why everyone is rushing to buy a piece of a sports team right now. Rashaun Williams, an LP in the Atlanta Falcons and guest shark on Shark Tank, called becoming an NFL part owner “the coup de grace of what finance people call the hero’s journey.” Sam Porter, who owns the soccer teams Necaxa in Mexico and La Equidad in Colombia, said, “Sports teams are inherently a scarce asset class… You can think about sports franchises as a Picasso that has an active balance sheet and a group of employees and a lot going on.”
The traditional franchise sale process and ownership structures are rapidly changing because everyone wants in right now, and they’re banging down the doors. But soaring franchise valuations are making it near impossible for one rich person to afford a team. They need multiple rich PE firms to go in with them. Hence: they call up the barbarians.
