According to NBA insider Shams Charania of ESPN, the Boston Celtics have been sold for $6.1 billion.
A group led by Bill Chisholm, managing partner at Symphony Technology Group, has agreed to purchase the Celtics.
The group led by Chisholm, a lifelong Celtics fan born and raised in the Boston area, includes Boston business executives and philanthropists Rob Hale — a current Celtics owner — and Bruce A. Beal Jr.
$6.1 billion is the highest number paid for a franchise in North American sports history.
Current owner Wyc Grousbeck will continue as the franchise’s CEO and governor through the 2027-28 season.
The Celtics won the 2024 NBA title against the Dallas Mavericks. They have the most championships in NBA history.
“The Celtics’ sale also could have an impact on the potential timeline for NBA expansion,” per ESPN. “For months, sources have said that process wouldn’t move forward until there was clarity on Boston’s situation, and where this sale price wound up. Now that there is clarity — and at this kind of number — the league could revisit that timeline, sources said.”
Boston is in second place in the Eastern Conference this season. The group, led by Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, is looking to become the first team since the Golden State Warriors to win back-to-back championships.
The Warriors won the 2017 and 2018 titles against the Cleveland Cavaliers. They had a chance to win three in a row but lost to the Toronto Raptors in the 2019 NBA Finals.
“Boston is on pace to become the first team in NBA history to surpass $500 million in combined payroll and luxury tax payments next season, as Tatum’s supermax extension officially comes online at the same time as the final steps of the current collective bargaining agreement come online, making it prohibitively expensive to keep a team like this together for the long-term,” per ESPN.
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