03/24/25
March 20, 2025
Celtics Sold For $6.1 Billion: The Celtics ownership group has agreed to sell the team to William Chisholm, managing director and co-founder of Symphony Technology Group, for a record $6.1 billion, a league source told the Globe on Thursday. The sale is pending approval by the NBA Board of Governors.
posted by NoMich to basketball at 10:34 AM - 7 comments
The Clippers' net earnings are firmly negative and by far the worst in the league, and the annual revenue is on par with small markets like OKC and Milwaukee despite the team being in the giant LA media market.
Time to move 'em to Seattle!
posted by NoMich at 12:15 PM on March 20, 2025
Amen brother.
The only question I have is: what kind of town would the NBA would be returning to?
posted by beaverboard at 05:07 PM on March 20, 2025
That's crazy!
posted by NoMich at 06:08 PM on March 20, 2025
Of course the news leaped off the screen this morning, and I had to start my research on William Chisholm and Symphony Technology Group (STG). The good news is that Mr. Chisholm is a native of Georgetown, Massachusetts, and he claims to be a lifelong Celtics fan. The other good news is that STG is noted for investing in or purchasing firms in order to build them rather than buying, looting, and dumping. The bad news is that Chisholm owns only 25% of STG, the other 75% being owned by Ramesh Wadhwani, a native of Karachi when it was still called British India. So unless Chisholm is using a serious chunk of his own wallet, there might be some problems here.
The NBA allows any team to be 30% owned by a private equity company, and no more than 20% may be held by a single private equity firm. Thus, it sounds like Mr. Chisholm and his partners are putting up most of the bucks. The other names in the Chisholm group are Rob Hale and Bruce Beal, Jr. Both have Boston connections; Hale is a native of Massachusetts and says he will purchase a house in or near Boston. He could get some help on this from Beal whose family has had a realty and development firm in Boston for 157 years. So it looks like there's enough local blood buying the Celtics to try to keep the team on course. When you are about to get hit with around $280 million in luxury tax, the Jaylon Brown and Jayson Tatum max contracts (Tatum's kicks in next season), and some healthy contracts among the rest of the regulars, some cost cutting and price increasing might be in order. Local reaction to the news is mostly favorable to neutral with the caveat that the new owners do nothing without the approval of Brad Stevens and the rest of the team operations staff.
One very unhappy fan is Steve Pagliuca, a minority owner in the Wyc Grousbeck group. He claims to have put together an offer that was competitive and free of debt. He also says that his group includes a number of people who were also in the Grousbeck group. He issued a statement that contains some sour grapes and a bit of a warning to the new owners. You can find it on masslive.com.
One other bit of speculation on my part is that now there is some serious real estate interest in Celtics ownership, would there be any interest in a new arena? In the past year, the Massachusetts State Legislature passed a bill that changed some zoning of land in Everett, MA, just a few stops on the MBTA Orange Line from TD Garden. The Boston Women's Profesional Soccer Team wants to build a stadium here, but Boston politics is in the way. Also in the way are the residents of Charlestown, in between Boston and Everett, who fear the effects of traffic. Lots of interesting things to contemplate about the sale,and I will try to keep you posted on the local angle.
posted by Howard_T at 06:15 PM on March 20, 2025
Thank you for this, Howard.
Love the detailed breakdown, from a deep Celtics fan.
There's an upcoming consolidation of MLSE in Toronto.
Rogers *not rcade*, is buying out Bell's stake.
Larry Tanenbaum is expected to divest his share in the company as well.
Toronto sports fans are ..... unsure about these developments.
posted by tommybiden at 09:57 AM on March 21, 2025
That's a ginormous amount of money. I wonder how many years it will take for that to seem like a great deal financially.
posted by rcade at 05:48 PM on March 22, 2025
Steve Ballmer is probably saying that his purchase of the Clippers from Donald Sterling now looks like a massive bargain, but I still don't like that Ballmer overpaid to a schmuck in what was basically a forced fire sale situation. And since the sale has not been able to make the Clippers top level competitive.
Chisholm overpaid for the Celtics as well given their current franchise valuation (which is almost exactly the same as the Clippers), but he's getting a lot of intangibles that other franchises don't have. Some of which are priceless.
The Clippers' net earnings are firmly negative and by far the worst in the league, and the annual revenue is on par with small markets like OKC and Milwaukee despite the team being in the giant LA media market.
The Mavericks are valued at just a shade less than the C's and Clips and Mark Cuban did well for himself, selling only his majority stake for more than Ballmer paid for an entire franchise, but Cuban probably didn't anticipate that the pudgy gap toothed dolt that now operates the franchise would run it into the ground in such a brisk and spectacular fashion.