A majority stake in the Celtics is up for grabs and CNBC senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian expects it to sell for a record-breaking price.
The highest NBA sale price on a team is currently $4 billion from 2022, when Mat Ishbia bought the Suns from Robert Sarver.
The Celtics are a far more valuable team since winning the 2024 NBA Championship and their long history of success.
Boston Basketball Partners LLC, led by Wyc Grousbeck, wasted no time after winning the chip, by announcing the intent to sell a majority stake just weeks afterward.
Ozanian has given insight into how he thinks it will all go, per an exclusive interview with NBCU Local.
“Well, I think what’s interesting about this is that the current owner, Wyc Grousbeck, has said that the sale is going to happen over a few years,” Ozanian said. “So, I think if it were to happen over three-to-four years, that’s an advantage toward getting a higher price because the group buying the team is not going to have to put down all the money at once, they’re not going to have to finance it all at once.”
He also touched on the fact that the timing league’s new media rights deal, which was only recently finalized, is very fortunate.
“The other thing is, and the timing was very good, was that as we know, the NBA just got a new national media deal — which is I think about 2.7 times its previous media deal, even accounting for the fact that it’s going to share some with the WNBA,” Ozanian said.
He added, “You have to think that the Celtics are going to sell for at least $6 to $7 billion,” Ozanian said. “The Celtics do not operate their arena, the arena that they play in is operated by the Boston Bruins ownership group, but they do have some unique marketing and sponsorship activities in the arena, which helped them.”
Reports about people like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Fenway Sports Group’s John Henry have been about, though the Bezos rumors have been disputed by a source close to the matter.
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