The owners of the Boston Celtics said on Monday that they are planning to sell the team, less than a month after the NBA franchise won their league-record 18th national basketball championship.
The Celtics are expected to set a record price for an NBA team, having been valued by Forbes at $4.7bn in October. The team was purchased for $360mn in 2002 by a group led by Wyc Grousbeck, a Massachusetts native and venture capitalist, Bain Capital’s Stephen Pagliuca, and real estate developer Robert Epstein. Pagliuca also owns Italian football team Atalanta, the 2024 Europa League champions.
In a statement, the team said that the board of the ownership group, Boston Basketball Partners LLC, “expects to sell a majority interest in 2024 or early 2025, with the balance closing in 2028” and that Grousbeck will remain as team governor until 2028. As the controlling family, the decision by the Grousbecks to sell the Celtics was made “for estate and family planning considerations”.