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The NBA has slow-played expansion largely because it wants to see how the sale of the Boston Celtics goes, hoping it could set a record for a franchise price tag and, with that, raise the entry fee that will be asked of new owners looking to get into the league.
It looks like the league office will get its wish: At least four (and maybe five) bids from prospective new owners — with an ultimate sale price higher than $6 billion — are expected when the first round of the Boston Celtics sale process closes on Jan. 23, reports Michael Silverman of The Boston Globe. From that initial group of four or five, two bidders will be chosen in February to submit to a final round of bidding. However, if one of the bids in the first round “meets the [Grousbeck family] expectations” that could end the process. The Celtics are owned by the Grousbeck family, with Wyc Grousbeck serving as majority owner and governor for the franchise.
This sounds like something the Grousbecks would want to leak in the days before those first bids due to bump up the price. It all may well be true, but the timing of the news is, at the very least, interesting.
While the bidders are not public, we know that current minority team owner Steve Pagliuca is leading one consortium making a bid. The Fenway Sports Group — which owns the Boston Red Sox of the MLB, the Pittsburgh Penguins of the NHL, and the Liverpool Football Club of the English Premier League, among other sports ventures — is also expected to make a bid.
The Grousbeck family surprised a lot of people with their announcement they would sell the team just after the Celtics had captured the 2024 NBA title.
However, most of the Grousbeck family apparently saw this as a chance to sell high. Mark Cuban, in discussing his reasons for selling his majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks, has said that NBA ownership is shifting from a technology game to more of a real estate game, with the teams and new arenas serving as anchors for much larger development plans (Cuban said that was not his specialty).
The new owners, whoever they are, will take over a title-contending team, but one that faces some tough financial decisions in the future. The Celtics 2025-26 roster (as constructed) likely will cost more than $500 million in salaries and luxury tax penalties, a level that is not sustainable for just about any owner.
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