Celtics Owners to Sell Storied NBA Franchise Due to Estate Planning

The Boston Celtics are for sale, a transaction that will likely fetch the highest price ever paid for control of an NBA team.

The Celtics ownership group, led by Wyc Grousbeck, plans to sell 100% of the franchise for “estate and family planning purposes,” according to statement released on Monday. The news comes less than two weeks after the Celtics won their NBA-record 18^th title, and with the team facing hard financial decisions about how to keep together a roster than won the most games in the NBA last season.

Sportico values the Celtics at $5.12 billion, fourth most in the NBA and 21st among all U.S. franchises. The most ever paid for control of an NBA team was $4 billion, which Mat Ishbia agreed to pay for the Phoenix Suns in late 2022.

Grousbeck’s group bought the Celtics in 2002 for $360 million. The consortium, which includes Bain Capital senior advisor Steve Pagliuca and Abbey Group founding partner Bob Epstein, is named Banner 17 for their desire to win the Celtics’ 17^th title. That was accomplished in 2008. 

As NBA teams appreciate in value, they also become harder to hand down to future generations due to tax purposes and league-level ownership rules. Sportico wrote about this topic in depth two years ago in a series about NFL owners and their estate planning.

The Celtics won 64 games this year, the most in the NBA, and won their 18^th title, losing just three games in four playoff series. Keeping that dominant team intact, however, will be expensive.

In the 2023 offseason, the Celtics signed Jaylen Brown to a five-year, $285 million extension that was the richest in NBA history at the time. On Monday, the team gave Derrick White a contract worth $125.9 million over four years. Boston also likely intends to offer Jayson Tatum a supermax extension this summer, which would be for slightly more money than Brown’s and kick in at the start of the 2025-26 season. With Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis earning $30 million per year as well, the team would be due for a 2026 luxury tax bill of at least $180 million (even if the Celtics fill out the rest of their roster with minimum salaries) on top of a payroll exceeding $220 million.

If the Celtics sell, it would be the fourth NBA team to trade in the last two years, joining the Suns, Dallas Mavericks and Charlotte Hornets. A fifth, the Minnesota Timberwolves, is currently entering arbitration to settle future ownership.

While the team will likely have multiple interested parties, there are a few local groups that immediately jump to mind. An existing LP could make a push to takeover full control,; and the Jacobs family, which owns the Boston Bruins and TD Garden (where the Celtics play), has said it is interested in growing it sports portfolio. There’s also Fenway Sports Group, parent of the Boston Red Sox, Fenway Park, Liverpool and the Pittsburgh Penguins, which is looking to buy into the NBA. Fenway is also targeting a possible expansion team in Las Vegas.

(This article has been updated to reflect the potential interested parties in the ninth paragraph.)