When the Grousbeck family agreed to sell the Celtics to William Chisholm, the stated plan was for Wyc Grousbeck to remain in his role as the team’s governor through the 2027/28 season. The expectation was that Grousbeck would give up his position when Chisholm’s group – which is initially buying a 51% stake – purchased the rest of the shares in the franchise in 2028.
However, Grousbeck will no longer retain the governor title following the first stage of the ownership transfer, sources tell ESPN’s Shams Charania and Ramona Shelburne. According to Charania and Shelburne, Chisholm will immediately become the Celtics’ new governor once his purchase of the team is approved, which is expected to happen very soon.
ESPN’s report doesn’t specify the reason for the change of plans, but it was an unorthodox approach to have Chisholm acquiring majority control of the team while keeping the team’s former majority owner in the top organizational role.
Grousbeck will continue to operate as the Celtics’ CEO and will also serve as an alternate governor once the sale is complete, per Charania and Shelburne.
This isn’t the first time in recent years that a plan to have an NBA owner remain in a prominent position in the organization after he sells the team has fallen through — Mark Cuban was reportedly expected to remain the Mavericks’ top basketball decision-maker after he sold controlling interest in his franchise to the Aldersons and Patrick Dumont, but that didn’t end up happening.
The Lakers announced a similar arrangement when Mark Walter reached an agreement to buy control of the team from the Buss family. The expectation is that Jeanie Buss will stay in her role as governor in Los Angeles for several seasons after Walter assumes control of the franchise.
Given what happened with Cuban and now Grousbeck, we’ll see if that comes to fruition, but it’s worth noting that Walter has been a minority owner in the Lakers for several years and had a preexisting relationship with the Buss family when he agreed to purchase the club, whereas the buyers and sellers in Dallas and Boston hadn’t previously worked together.
Grousbeck will step down as Boston’s governor after holding the position for over two decades. The Grousbeck family bought the Celtics in 2002 and has since helped guide the organization to a pair of championships (in 2008 and 2024). They bought the team for $360MM and sold it at a valuation of $6.1 billion.
Surprise, surprise. Why does the media keep trying to insist people spending billions of dollars on buying teams would be ok with someone else having final say? It will be no different with Buss.
Nor should she
She has proven incompetent
The article explicitly gave a reason why they believe there’s a chance it will be different with Buss
Haha this is hilarious. He knows the future of the franchise is effed…the league is in full business mode and all the brainless pods can’t see it…winning teams lose money while trash teams rake in profits….he played the game and won a championship to get some sucker who thinks winning is profitable to buy…now the new owners are realizing winning creates debt and losses and need to jump through all the hoops to pinch all the pennies.
No one is losing money
Wrong again, Phoenix is having a cash flow problem and I know for a fact, the team in Florida took out a loan to survive the season. You know the season ticket renewals get earlier and earlier every year because they need money to keep flowing
Phoenix made 311M last year. There are two “teams in Florida” both made over 300M last year. link to cnbc.com.
Yeah, they only made 457M in 23-24 when they won the chip. link to statista.com
And they made 452M last year. link to cnbc.com.
You really know your stuff.
Revenue is not profit. Maybe get a little education.
Here are profits. link to thebiglead.com
Yeah, I was distracted because of numerous bad vibes on this day, and wasn’t thinking.
Maybe stop being such a dik
The celtics are going through a transitional time and likely for more than one season.
Whatever Grousbeck builds now – others have to Work with it. Would be dumb to do that.
Retooling with a healthy Tatum for a few more title contending seasons starting 25/26 would have been very different. The celtics Just changed Plans because the Situation changed
NBA and other sports teams don’t typically make money year over year. They usually operate at a loss. What they do is increase the value of the team. Owners eat the losses until they sell. The reason teams are selling after winning a chip is that is when the team is most valuable. A lot of sports teams owners bought the team for a few hundred million, or less, and have now seen that value grow to the billions. Look at the warriors. They won all those chips and have crazy high ticket prices, yet are in debt. The value won’t be realized until they sell, at which point the profit will be in the billions. There is a massive misconception that sports team owners are pocketing hundreds of millions a year.
Only two teams operated at a loss in 23-23. Most pocketed over 100 million a year. Including the Warriors link to conormclaughlin.net. Scroll down for the EBITDA data you enormous windbag.