The Boston Celtics are for sale, and CNBC senior sports reporter Michael Ozanian expects the defending NBA champions to go for a record price.
Boston Basketball Partners LLC, led by Wyc Grousbeck, announced the intent to sell a majority stake of the Celtics soon after the championship parade this summer. Their press release suggested a sale by the end of 2024 or early 2025, but no real progress has been reported on the price of the franchise.
Ozanian, in an exclusive interview with NBCU Local, shared his thoughts on how the situation could play out.
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"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."
Grousbeck will remain as Governor of the Celtics until 2028, when the sale closes. Ozanian sees that as the most significant advantage for getting the highest price for the team.
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Another factor is the NBA's new media rights deal, which was finalized this summer for 2025 through 2036.
"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.
The current NBA record sale price is $4 billion in 2022, when Mat Ishbia bought the Phoenix Suns from Robert Sarver. With the sale being years later and for a more marquee franchise, the Celtics should have no trouble clearing that figure.
"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 have surfaced about several potential suitors who are not interested in the team, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Fenway Sports Group's John Henry. But at this point, no one is sure exactly who the frontrunners are to purchase the franchise.