Bill Chisholm purchased the Boston Celtics on Thursday, pending NBA approval. Team employees received an email from governor Wyc Grousbeck announcing the news, maintaining as he has throughout the process that he’ll remain in that role through the conclusion of the sale 2028. The first step in the process, the Celtics announced last year, would be transferring majority ownership of the franchise.
The Boston Globe first reported the sale this morning for a record $6.1 billion, just north of Josh Harris’ purchase of the NFL Washington Commanders in 2023. It ends more than 22 years of the Grousbeck family overseeing the Celtics, led by “Irv” Grousbeck, 90, whose son Wyc became the face of the Boston Basketball Partners LLC ownership group. That also included Steph Pagliuca, who emerged as the earliest suitor to purchase the team from the Grousbecks. Pagliuca, in a statement on Thursday morning, said he constructed a bid based around the majority of the team’s existing owners. He added that his group made a fully guaranteed offer at a record price.
Here's my statement on today's news. pic.twitter.com/lhKCslEcgF
— Steve Pagliuca (@pagsceltics) March 20, 2025
“I recruited new partners with deep resources,” Pagliuca said. “To ensure we can always compete for Championships, luxury taxes be damned.”
The Celtics announced in October that the Grousbecks decided to sell for estate and family planning considerations. The Globe later reported that Irv held the largest controlling share of the team, with Wyc maintaining relatively little. Wyc later said the family collectively shared that controlling interest.
Sportico reported earlier this month that Chisholm, the Friedkin Group and Phillies minority owner Stan Middleman emerged as finalists alongside Pagliuca, who would’ve provided the most coherency for the franchise. Now, questions immediately begin about Chisholm’s willingness to pay the projected $500-million in salary and luxury tax payments due to the Celtics’ roster next season. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown will make super max money into the future, Derrick White and Jrue Holiday recently began new contracts and Kristaps Porziņģis has one year left on his deal. Al Horford becomes a free agent in July.
President Brad Stevens said last month that his front office continued operating as usual without any prerogatives or insight on the sale process. He extended Holiday, White and Sam Hauser in 2024, moves that created an enormous payroll for the team and pushed them past the league’s new second apron, which penalizes its most expensive teams. The Celtics face trade, signing and draft restrictions into the future due to their second apron status, including the inability to trade their 2032 first-round pick. The plan, entering this season, was to take that payroll season-by-season, with the team winning championships increasing the odds that it can stay together.
Wyc Grousbeck told CLNS recently that the plan remained for him to stay as part of the Celtics’ ownership group through the transition, additional hope that this roster can stay together in the near term, but Mark Cuban’s Mavericks sale and similar involvement in the new ownership group serves as some example about the limitations of that role once control of the team changes hands. Cuban became more muted as the voice of the team, then became left in the dark as Patrick Dumont approved the most infamous trade in NBA history last month, sending Luka Dončić to the Lakers.
“Bill is a terrific person and a true Celtics fan, born and raised here in the Boston area,” Wyc Grousbeck said in a statement alongside Chisholm. “His love for the team and the city of Boston, along with his chemistry with the rest of the Celtics leadership, make him a natural choice to be the next Governor and controlling owner of the team. I know he appreciates the importance of the Celtics and burns with a passion to win on the court while being totally committed to the community. Quite simply, he wants to be a great owner. He has asked me to run the team as CEO and Governor for the first three years, and stay on as his partner, and I am glad to do so.”
Long-term considerations of new ownership also include the team’s lease and future playing in TD Garden, owned by the Bruins, which limits the Celtics’ revenue compared to other NBA teams that own their arena. The team extended its lease through 2036 earlier this decade.
Chisholm, the Globe reported, is joined by current Celtics owner Robert Hale, Related Companies president Bruce Beal Jr. and investment firm Sixth Street. Chisholm, the story noted, is a lifelong Celtics fan from Georgetown, Massachusetts. His company, Symphony Technology Group, is based in Menlo Park, California as a private equity firm.
“It’s all playing out now, so I can’t say much about it,” Grousbeck said last month. “But the general idea is we’re gonna have a good period of staying in and then transitioning and trying to do the best thing for the Celtics and we think that might be the right way to do it.”
